Odd Creatures: Fossils & Ruins
April 30, 2025
Top Headlines
Apr. 28, 2025 — Even under today's climatic conditions, the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant could still live in Europe. This is the conclusion of a recent study. For this finding, the research group combined fossil finds with reconstructions of past ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have collaborated to analyze the inner workings of Bolivia's 'zombie' volcano, Uturuncu. By combining seismology, physics models and analysis of rock composition, researchers identify the ...
Apr. 24, 2025 — A 113-million-year-old hell ant that once lived in northeastern Brazil is now the oldest ant specimen known to science, finds a new report. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member of Haidomyrmecinae -- an extinct subfamily that ...
Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...
Latest Headlines
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Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate ...
Apr. 17, 2025 — Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. ...
Apr. 16, 2025 — A study suggests that Homo sapiens may have benefited from the use of ochre and tailored clothing during a period of increased UV light 41,000 years ...
Apr. 14, 2025 — Researchers may have answered one of space science's long-running questions -- and it could change our understanding of how life began. Carbon-rich asteroids are abundant in space yet make up less ...
Apr. 14, 2025 — Footprints of armored dinosaurs with tail clubs have been identified, following discoveries made in the Canadian Rockies. The 100-million-year-old fossilized footprints were found at sites at both ...
Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study reveals the modern arid desert between Africa and Saudi Arabia was once regularly lush and green with rivers and lakes over a period of 8 million years, allowing for the occupation and ...
Apr. 9, 2025 — New findings provide a greater understanding of plate subduction, or how tectonic plates slide beneath one another. This recycling of surface ...
Apr. 9, 2025 — Rhinos that flourished across much of North America 12 million years ago gathered in huge herds, according to a new ...
Apr. 9, 2025 — Evidence shows that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers (km) of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ...
Apr. 9, 2025 — A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these ...
Earlier Headlines
Apr. 8, 2025 — About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the planet, wiping out all non-avian dinosaurs and about 70% of all marine species. But the crater it left behind in the Gulf of Mexico was a ...
Apr. 8, 2025 — Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers has unearthed a buried altar that could unlock the secrets of a ...
Apr. 8, 2025 — The idea that dinosaurs were already in decline before an asteroid wiped most of them out 66 million years ago may be explained by a worsening fossil record from that time rather than a genuine ...
Apr. 2, 2025 — An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...
Mar. 26, 2025 — A new species of fossil is 444 million years-old with soft insides perfectly preserved. Research 'ultramarathon' saw palaeontologist puzzled by bizarre fossil for 25 ...
Mar. 26, 2025 — New research sheds light on the earliest days of the earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets. ...
Mar. 25, 2025 — Life needs sufficient phosphorus. However, the element is scarce, not only today but also at the time of the origin of life. So where was there sufficient phosphorus four billion years ago for life ...
Mar. 24, 2025 — The longest organic molecules identified to date on Mars have recently been detected. These long carbon chains, containing up to 12 consecutive carbon atoms, could exhibit features similar to the ...
Mar. 20, 2025 — Feathers, essential for thermoregulation, flight, and communication in birds, originate from simple appendages known as proto-feathers, which were present in certain dinosaurs.By studying embryonic ...
Mar. 18, 2025 — An analysis of a 30,000-year-old fossil vulture from Central Italy has revealed for the first time that volcanic rock can preserve microscopic details in feathers -- the first ever record of such a ...
Mar. 17, 2025 — The only iguanas outside the Americas, Fiji iguanas are an enigma. A new genetic analysis shows that they are most closely related to the North American desert iguana, having separated about 34 ...
Mar. 14, 2025 — A study shows that electrical charges in sprays of water can cause chemical reactions that form organic molecules from inorganic materials. The findings provide evidence that microlightning may have ...
Mar. 13, 2025 — A researcher has confirmed a boulder at a regional school contains one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints per square meter ever documented in ...
Mar. 11, 2025 — For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery. What little was known about them had been mostly ...
Mar. 9, 2025 — The megalodon has long been imagined as an enormous great white shark, but new research suggests that perception is all wrong. The study finds the prehistoric hunter had a much longer body -- closer ...
Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have discovered the world's oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped. The team ...
Mar. 5, 2025 — The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new ...
Feb. 27, 2025 — Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds ...
Feb. 26, 2025 — A research team has successfully developed a super-photostable organic dye after two years of dedicated research demonstrating perseverance akin to that of Marie Curie, who painstakingly extracted ...
Feb. 26, 2025 — It's not what you do, it's how readily you do it. Rapid evolutionary change might have more to do with how easily a key innovation can be gained or lost rather than with the innovation ...
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
- Life Recovered Rapidly at Site of Dino-Killing Asteroid: A Hydrothermal System May Have Helped
- In Guatemala, Painted Altar Found at Tikal Adds New Context to Mysterious Maya History
- Dinosaurs' Apparent Decline Prior to Asteroid May Be Due to Poor Fossil Record
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
- New Species Revealed After 25 Years of Study on 'inside Out' Fossil -- And Named After Discoverer's Mum
- Earliest Days of Earth's Formation
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Monday, March 24, 2025
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Monday, March 17, 2025
Friday, March 14, 2025
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
- 'Fluorescent Phoenix' Discovered With Persistence Rivaling Marie Curie's
- Fish Teeth Show How Ease of Innovation Enables Rapid Evolution
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
- Humans Inherited Their Flexible Joints from the Earliest Jawed Fish
- The Galactic Journey of Our Solar System
Friday, February 21, 2025
Monday, February 17, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
- Does Planetary Evolution Favor Human-Like Life? Study Ups Odds We're Not Alone
- Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies Smell 'woody,' 'spicy' And 'sweet'
Thursday, February 13, 2025
- Evolution, Evolution, Evolution: How Evolution Got So Good at Evolving
- Birds Have Developed Complex Brains Independently from Mammals
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Monday, February 10, 2025
Friday, February 7, 2025
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Monday, February 3, 2025
Friday, January 31, 2025
Thursday, January 30, 2025
- Ancient DNA Analyses Bring to Life the 11,000-Year Intertwined Genomic History of Sheep and Humans
- Sharks and Rays Benefit from Global Warming, but Not from CO2 in the Oceans
- Lead Contamination in Ancient Greece Points to Societal Change
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
- Oceanic Plate Between Arabian and Eurasian Continental Plates Is Breaking Away
- Exploring Mysteries of Asteroid Bennu
Monday, January 27, 2025
Friday, January 24, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
- New Tool Enables Phylogenomic Analyses of Entire Genomes
- New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin
- Rare Pterosaur Fossil Reveals Crocodilian Bite 76m Years Ago
- Solving the Evolutionary Puzzle of Polyploidy: How Genome Duplication Shapes Adaptation
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
- Volcanic Eruption Caused Neolithic People to Sacrifice Unique 'sun Stones'
- Asteroid Impact Sulfur Release Less Lethal in Dinosaur Extinction
- Pioneering Research Exposes Huge Loss of Glaciers in One of the Fastest-Warming Places on Earth
- Early Humans Adapted to Harsh Conditions More Than a Million Years Ago
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
- NASA Celebrates Edwin Hubble's Discovery of a New Universe
- Ancient Genomes Reveal an Iron Age Society Centred on Women
Monday, January 13, 2025
Friday, January 10, 2025
- New Fossil Discovery Sheds Light on the Early Evolution of Animal Nervous Systems
- Cleopatra's Sister Remains Missing
Thursday, January 9, 2025
- Did Prehistoric Kangaroos Run out of Food?
- An Earful of Gill: Evolutionary Origin of the Mammalian Outer Ear
- The Extreme Teeth of Sabre-Toothed Predators Were 'optimal' For Biting Into Prey
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
- When the Past Meets the Future: Innovative Drone Mapping Unlocks Secrets of Bronze Age 'mega Fortress' In the Caucasus
- Herbivore or Carnivore? A Toolbox for the Study of Extinct Reptiles
Friday, January 3, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Thursday, December 19, 2024
- A Festive Flying Reptile Family Reunion 150 Million Years in the Making
- Researchers Identify a Mysterious Fossil Seed to Reveal New Chapters in Climate History of Los Angeles
- Chart of Life Extended by Nearly 1.5 Billion Years
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
- Massive Volcanic Eruptions Did Not Cause the Extinction of Dinosaurs
- Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Monday, December 16, 2024
Thursday, December 12, 2024
- A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans
- Unique Motor Control System of Anglerfish's Specialized 'fishing Rod' Discovered
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
- Biological Diversity Is Not Just the Result of Genes
- New Research Unlocks Jaw-Dropping Evolution of Lizards and Snakes
Monday, December 9, 2024
Friday, December 6, 2024
Thursday, December 5, 2024
- Tyrannosaur Teeth Discovered in Bexhill-on-Sea, England
- Iberian Neolithic Societies Had a Deep Knowledge of Archery Techniques and Materials
- Chimpanzees Perform the Same Complex Behaviors That Have Brought Humans Success
Monday, December 2, 2024
Friday, November 29, 2024
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Monday, November 25, 2024
- Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers Heard the Elks Painted on Rocks 'talking'
- Focaccia: A Neolithic Culinary Tradition Dating Back 9,000 Years Ago
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
- Oldest Known Alphabet Unearthed in Ancient Syrian City
- Thanksgiving Special: Dinosaur Drumsticks and the Story of the Turkey Trot
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Monday, November 18, 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Friday, November 15, 2024
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
- 12,000-Year-Old Stones May Be Very Early Evidence of Wheel-Like Technology
- On the Origin of Life: How the First Cell Membranes Came to Exist
- Bird Brain from the Age of Dinosaurs Reveals Roots of Avian Intelligence