Science Daily - Fossils

A new method could soon unlock the vast repository of biological information held in the proteins of ancient soft tissues. The findings could open up a new era for palaeobiological discovery.

A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every mountain peak has an endemic species. This suggests that in unsampled areas there are likely to be additional novel diversity, waiting to be found.

Palaeontologists have analyzed the most complete stegosaurian skull ever found in Europe and rewritten the evolutionary history of this iconic group of dinosaurs.

Humans were making tools from whale bones as far back as 20,000 years ago, according to a new study. This discovery broadens our understanding of early human use of whale remains and offers valuable insight into the marine ecology of the time.

Contrary to widespread assumptions, the largest shark that ever lived -- Otodus megalodon -- fed on marine creatures at various levels of the food pyramid and not just the top. Scientists analyzed the zinc content of a large sample of fossilized megalodon teeth, which had been unearthed above all in Sigmaringen and Passau, and compared them with fossil teeth found elsewhere and the teeth of animals that inhabit our planet today.

A group of fossils of elasmosaurs -- some of the most famous in North America -- have just been formally identified as belonging to a 'very odd' new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously known. This primitive 85-million-year-old, 12 meter-long, fiercely predatory marine reptile is unlike any elasmosaur known to-date and hunted its prey from above.

Cold-adapted animals started to evolve 2.6 million years ago when the permanent ice at the poles became more prevalent. There followed a time when the continental ice sheets expanded and contracted and around 700,000 years ago the cold periods doubled in length. This is when many of the current cold-adapted species, as well as extinct ones like mammoths, evolved.

Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the process.

Scientists have analyzed ancient DNA and compared more than 400 fossils from 17 natural history museums to figure out how and why extinct sloths got so big.

A new study proves that a type of genetic element called 'introners' are the mechanism by which many introns spread within and between species, also providing evidence of eight instances in which introners have transferred between unrelated species in a process called 'horizontal gene transfer,' the first proven examples of this phenomenon.

New research shows that dentine, the inner layer of teeth that transmits sensory information to nerves inside the pulp, first evolved as sensory tissue in the armored exoskeletons of ancient fish.

To better understand the circadian clock in modern-day cyanobacteria, a research team has studied ancient timekeeping systems. They examined the oscillation of the clock proteins KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC (Kai-proteins) in modern cyanobacteria, comparing it to the function of ancestral Kai proteins.

Scientists have decoded the atomic structure of Photosystem I from a 3-billion-year-old cyanobacteria lineage, offering a unique look at early oxygen-producing photosynthesis. The ancient nanodevice, purified from Anthocerotibacter panamensis, shows a remarkably conserved three-leaf-clover architecture for light absorption despite billions of years of evolution. The findings suggest that the fundamental design for harnessing sunlight was established very early in the history of life on Earth, predating the evolution of more complex photosynthetic machinery.

A new study shows that seagrass ecosystems along the northern half of Florida's Gulf Coast have remained relatively healthy and undisturbed for the last several thousand years.

A dinosaur's 40-second journey more than 120 million years ago has been brought back to life by a research team using advanced digital modelling techniques.

Scientists have found new evidence for how our fossil human relatives in South Africa may have used their hands. Researchers investigated variation in finger bone morphology to determine that South African hominins not only may have had different levels of dexterity, but also different climbing abilities.

The origin of reptiles on Earth has been shown to be up to 40 million years earlier than previously thought -- thanks to evidence discovered at an Australian fossil site that represents a critical time period. Scientists have identified fossilized tracks of an amniote with clawed feet -- most probably a reptile -- from the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago.

Scientists have now discovered the oldest ancestor for all the Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South America.

Archaeopteryx is the fossil that clearly demonstrated Darwin's views. It's the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds -- including the ones alive today -- emerged from dinosaurs. And while the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found more than 160 years ago, scientists are continuing to learn new things about this ancient animal. A set of feathers never before seen in this species help explain why it could fly when many of its non-bird dinosaur cousins could not.

Scientists confirm CT scanning doesn't interfere with natural decomposition processes, opening new windows into understanding how fossils form.