Odd Creatures: Fossils & Ruins

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

Paleontologists Unearth What May Be the Largest Known Marine Reptile

Apr. 17, 2024 — The fossilized remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two meters long has been found on a beach in Somerset, ...

First Evidence of Human Occupation in Lava Tube Cave in Saudi Arabia

Apr. 17, 2024 — New research has highlighted an area in Arabia that once acted as a key point for cultural exchanges and trades amongst ancient people -- and it all took place in vast caves and lava tubes that have remained largely untapped reservoirs of ...

Evolution's Recipe Book: How 'Copy Paste' Errors Cooked Up the Animal Kingdom

Apr. 15, 2024 — A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The ...

Even the Simplest Marine Organisms Tend to Be Individualistic

Apr. 15, 2024 — Sport junkie or couch potato? Always on time or often late? The animal kingdom, too, is home to a range of personalities, each with its own lifestyle. Biologists report on a surprising discovery: even simple marine polychaete worms shape their ...

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The Hidden Role of the Milky Way in Ancient Egyptian Mythology

Apr. 10, 2024 — Astrophysicists shed light on the relationship between the Milky Way and the Egyptian sky-goddess Nut. The paper draws on ancient Egyptian texts and simulations to argue that the Milky Way might have ...

Do Some Mysterious Bones Belong to Gigantic Ichthyosaurs?

Apr. 9, 2024 — Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the ...

Toothed Whale Echolocation Organs Evolved from Jaw Muscles

Apr. 8, 2024 — Genetic analysis finds evidence suggesting that acoustic fat bodies in the heads of toothed whales were once the muscles and bone marrow of the ...

Finds at Schöningen Show Wood Was Crucial Raw Material 300,000 Years Ago

Apr. 4, 2024 — During archaeological excavations in the Schoningen open-cast coal mine in 1994, the discovery of the oldest, remarkably well-preserved hunting weapons known to humanity caused an international ...

We've Had Bird Evolution All Wrong

Apr. 1, 2024 — Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Appearance of a 6th Century Chinese Emperor

Mar. 28, 2024 — What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...

Milk on Ice: Antarctic Time Capsule of Whole Milk Powder Sheds Light on the Enduring Qualities--and Evolution--of Dairy Products Past and Present

Mar. 27, 2024 — In a remarkable discovery, whole milk powder manufactured in New Zealand in 1907 and transported to Antarctica with explorers seeking the South Pole ...

New Archive of Ancient Human Brains Challenges Misconceptions of Soft Tissue Preservation

Mar. 20, 2024 — A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new ...

Uncovering the Mystery of Dorset's Cerne Giant

Mar. 25, 2024 — For centuries, the Cerne Giant, a figure carved into a hillside in Dorset, has fascinated locals and visitors to the area. A new paper proposes that the Cerne Giant can in fact be dated to the early ...

Research Uncovers a Rare Resin Fossil Find: A Spider That Aspires to Be an Ant

Mar. 22, 2024 — Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the globe but until now most had been able to avoid detection from fossil ...

Last Chance to Record Archaic Greek Language 'Heading for Extinction'

Apr. 2, 2024 — A new data crowdsourcing platform aims to preserve the sound of Romeyka, an endangered millennia-old variety of Greek. Experts consider the language to be a linguistic goldmine and a living bridge to ...

Tudor Era Horse Cemetery in Westminster Revealed as Likely Resting Place for Elite Imported Animals

Mar. 22, 2024 — Archaeological analysis of a near unique animal cemetery discovered in London nearly 30 years ago has revealed there was an international horse trading network, orchestrated by the elites of late ...

Researchers Name Prehistoric Amphibian Ancestor Discovered in Smithsonian Collection After Kermit the Frog

Mar. 21, 2024 — Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The team of ...

Across Oceans and Millennia: Decoding the Origin and History of the Bottle Gourd

Mar. 20, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered intriguing details about the origins and spread of the bottle gourd, one of the oldest domesticated crops. Their work unveils the genetic diversification and population ...

Study Reveals 'Cozy Domesticity' of Prehistoric Stilt-House Dwellers in England's Ancient Marshland

Mar. 20, 2024 — Detailed reports on thousands of artifacts pulled from 'Britain's Pompeii' reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen folk some 3,000 years ago -- from ...

Tanks of the Triassic: New Crocodile Ancestor Identified

Mar. 18, 2024 — Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes ...

Earth's Earliest Forest Revealed in Somerset Fossils

Mar. 7, 2024 — The oldest fossilized forest known on Earth -- dating from 390 million years ago -- has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of South West ...

Fossils of Giant Sea Lizard With Dagger-Like Teeth Show How Our Oceans Have Fundamentally Changed Since the Dinosaur Era

Mar. 5, 2024 — Fossils of a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived 66 million years ago, show a dramatically more biodiverse ocean ecosystem to what we see ...

Fossil Named 'Attenborough's Strange Bird' Was the First in Its Kind Without Teeth

Mar. 5, 2024 — A new fossil, named 'Attenborough's strange bird' after naturalist and documentarian Sir David Attenborough, is the first of its kind to evolve a toothless beak. It's from a ...

Modeling the Origins of Life: New Evidence for an 'RNA World'

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

Slimming Down a Colossal Fossil Whale

Feb. 29, 2024 — A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same ...

Change in Gene Code May Explain How Human Ancestors Lost Tails

Feb. 28, 2024 — A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like ...

High Resolution Techniques Reveal Clues in 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Biomass

Feb. 21, 2024 — To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyze the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in ...

Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats Has Long Been in Flux

Feb. 21, 2024 — It has been long assumed that Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats was formed as its ancient namesake lake dried up 13,000 years ago. But new research has gutted that narrative, determining these crusts ...

Butterfly and Moth Genomes Mostly Unchanged Despite 250 Million Years of Evolution

Feb. 21, 2024 — Comparison of over 200 high-quality butterfly and moth genomes reveals key insights into their biology, evolution and diversification over the last 250 million years, as well as clues for ...

An Awkward Family Reunion: Sea Monsters Are Our Cousins

Feb. 21, 2024 — The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain -- the part of the brain controlling ...

Did Neanderthals Use Glue? Researchers Find Evidence That Sticks

Feb. 21, 2024 — Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, ...

Mystery Solved: The Oldest Fossil Reptile from the Alps Is an Historical Forgery

Feb. 16, 2024 — Palaeontological analysis shows that a renowned fossil thought to show soft tissue preservation is in fact just paint. The fossil discovered in 1931 was thought to be an important specimen for ...

Ancient Retroviruses Played a Key Role in the Evolution of Vertebrate Brains

Feb. 15, 2024 — Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or ...