fossils

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Humans May Have Lived in California 130K Years Ago
Mastodon Bones Spark
Major Claim—and Major Doubt
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Apr 30, 2017 2:00 PM CDT

Mastodon Bones Spark Major Claim—and Major Doubt

Did humans live in California 130K years ago?

(Newser) - Exactly how long have humans been in the Americas? A wealth of evidence suggests they arrived as early as 20,000 years ago, while the earliest record of modern humans in the world dates back 200,000 years to Africa (and they probably didn't leave until around 50,000...

Montana Fossil Reveals Ancient Sea Creature

A long-gone inland sea still has secrets to give up

(Newser) - A fossil found by a Montana elk hunter nearly seven years ago has led to the discovery of a new species of prehistoric sea creature that lived about 70 million years ago in an inland sea that flowed east of the Rockies, the AP reports. The new elasmosaur species is...

Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too
Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too
new study
Mar 9, 2017 10:57 AM CST

Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too

Plaque on their teeth reveals their dietary and medical ways

(Newser) - Scientists are thrilled to have discovered a gross buildup on a few fossilized teeth, and with reason. Not only were they able to discern the three Neanderthals' diets (two ate primarily meat, one primarily plants), they're also feasting their eyes on prehistoric microbiomes that are shedding more light on...

Scientists Claim Discovery of World's Oldest Life

But not everyone is convinced

(Newser) - Researchers say they've found fossilized bacteria that may date back to shortly after the formation of the Earth (geologically speaking, anyway), the New York Times reports. They published their findings Wednesday in Nature . The rocks were collected in 2008 from the Nuvvuagittuq geological formation in Canada. The rocks are...

Fossil Fills in Big Blank About the Mysterious 'Ghost Shark'

It belongs to an early chimaera, not a shark

(Newser) - The chimaera, or so-called "ghost shark," is an elusive deep-water fish that has fascinated biologists for more than a century. Like its relative the shark, however, it's made of cartilage and thus rarely fossilizes, so little is known about its evolutionary past, reports Live Science . Now the...

Meet the Guy With World's Largest Collection of Hard Poop

George Frandsen nabs Guinness World Record with fossilized feces

(Newser) - One of George Frandsen's prize possessions weighs over 4 pounds, hails from the Miocene Epoch, and is named "Precious." This paleontological treasure also happens to be a huge piece of fossilized coprolite—aka prehistoric poop—and nearly 1,300 similar samples like Precious have catapulted Frandsen to...

First Mass Extinction Likely Caused by 'Utterly Weird' Animals

Animals shaped like 'Frisbees and lumpy mattresses' may have killed early Ediacarans

(Newser) - New fossil evidence dug up in Namibia lends credence to the theory that we should blame "ecosystem engineers" for the world's first mass extinction, and that's not a euphemism for man, asteroids, or aliens. Instead, per a Vanderbilt University study published in the October issue of the...

Ancient Proof of Mother's Love Unearthed in Taiwan

4,800-year-old human fossil is of mother, baby

(Newser) - Archaeologists in Taiwan were "shocked" to unearth a 4,800-year-old human fossil of a mother cradling an infant in her arms. The discovery, among 48 sets of remains excavated from graves in the Taichung area, represents the earliest trace of human activity in central Taiwan, according to Reuters . "...

North America's 1st Monkey Crossed a Sea to Get There

And it arrived 18M years before scientists thought possible

(Newser) - Researchers have discovered evidence that monkeys arrived in North America 18 million years earlier than previously believed, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature . And they were truly impressive monkeys indeed. The newly discovered Panamacebus transitus had to somehow cross the 100 miles of water that separated South America...

Ancient Flower Species Found Trapped in Amber

Perfect specimen could be up to 45M years old

(Newser) - A beautiful and probably deadly plant preserved in amber for years has turned out to be a species completely new to science. The new species, which has been named Strychnos electri, was identified from two tiny flowers perfectly preserved in amber found in a mine in the Dominican Republic. It...

Dinosaurs' Last Moments Found—Behind a Lowe's?

Weirdly, this quarry is open to the public

(Newser) - Amateur enthusiasts and kids on field trips have been flocking to a New Jersey quarry pit for years to dig up some of its many prehistoric fossils. Incredibly, this pit may also be the only known dinosaur graveyard dating back to their destruction 66 million years ago, the New York ...

Workers on New Homes Make an Ancient Discovery

Lots of old animal fossils

(Newser) - Workers grading a Carlsbad, California, site in preparation for hundreds of new homes earlier this summer were shocked to find the neighborhood's previous residents still there. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports work was stopped as paleontologists removed fossils—some as old as 200,000 years—belonging to ancient mammoths...

World's '1st Flower' Dates Back 130M Years

The oldest known flowering plant, found in Spain, was aquatic

(Newser) - The world's oldest known flower dating back 130 million years is an aquatic species called Montsechia found fossilized in limestone deposits in Spain. But it wouldn't necessarily be recognized as a flower today, given it didn't boast petals or nectar-producing structures. "The fruit contains a single...

In 'Crap' Dinosaur Fossils, Scientists Strike Gold

If 75M-year-old soft tissue has survived, could DNA, too?

(Newser) - The fossils may be in such poor shape that scientists are calling them "crap," but the 75-million-year-old fragments are golden in another sense. A theropod claw, triceratops-like toe bone, and duck-billed dinosaur limb and ankle bones first unearthed in Canada 100 years ago appear to retain soft tissue,...

Hiker Stumbles Onto 90M-Year-Old Turtle

Experts then dig it up for museum display

(Newser) - What looked like a pile of weirdly gray rocks was actually something far more significant: a fossil dating back to the dinosaurs, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports. Jeff Dornbusch, a museum volunteer, noticed the gray mound while hiking in New Mexico's brown desert landscape more than ten years ago,...

'Rare' Mammoth Found in Idaho Now Underwater

Excavation team temporarily thwarted by rising water levels

(Newser) - A portion of a Columbian mammoth skull and tusks have been uncovered in southeastern Idaho, and experts say a rare entire skeleton might be buried there. Experts estimate the mammoth was about 16 years old and lived about 70,000 to 120,000 years ago in what was a savanna-like...

Study: Whales grew huge after super-sized shark went extinct
Whales Got So Big After Super-Sized Shark Died Out
new study
Oct 24, 2014 10:25 AM CDT

Whales Got So Big After Super-Sized Shark Died Out

Megalodon died out 2.6M years ago, scientists estimate

(Newser) - Great white sharks have nothing on the ancient megalodon, which grew up to 50 feet in length and sported teeth as long as 7 inches. And now scientists have their firmest timeframe yet for when the creature went extinct. Scientists at the University of Florida in Gainesville report this week...

Newly Found Dinosaur Survived 'Horrific' Extinction

Tachiraptor fossils discovered in Venezuela

(Newser) - A newly discovered dinosaur in Venezuela may help us understand how species survived a mass-extinction event about 200 million years ago, phys.org reports. Based on two leg-bone fossils, paleontologists say Tachiraptor admirabilis was fairly small (5 or 6 feet, tip to tail), ran on two feet, and ate meat....

Dinosaurs May Have Had Babysitters
 Dinosaurs 
 May Have Had 
 Babysitters 
study says
Sep 4, 2014 5:15 PM CDT

Dinosaurs May Have Had Babysitters

Researchers find fossils suggesting older sibling watched younger ones

(Newser) - Even dinosaurs need a babysitter—or would that be dino-sitter? Researchers say a group of hatchlings found in a layer of rock might have been under the care of "a big brother or sister," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The 120-million-year-old Psittacosaurus bones were found in northeast China, the...

10 Dinosaur Mysteries That Still Linger

Who was biggest and how they mated are still unknown

(Newser) - Dinosaur articles, movies, and museum displays are common enough that you might consider all dino-mysteries solved, but the Smithsonian reports that major ones still remain. Among them:
  • Who was first? Nobody knows which dinosaur species came first, partly because fossil records provide fragmentary insights rather than "the entire reel,
...

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