SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
People transported animals over huge distances for mass gatherings at one of Ireland’s most iconic archaeological sites, research concludes. Dr Richard Madgwick of Cardiff University led the study, which analysed the bones of 35 animals excavated from Navan Fort, the legendary capital of Ulster. Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast, Memorial University Newfoundland and the British … Read more
A team led by Carleton University’s Hillary Maddin has discovered the earliest fossil evidence of parental care. The fossil predates the previous oldest record of this behavior by 40 million years and is featured in an article in Nature Ecology & Evolution. “This is the earliest evidence of prolonged postnatal care in a vertebrate,” said … Read more
The Arlington Archosaur Site (AAS) of Texas preserves remnants of an ancient Late Cretaceous river delta that once existed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Known for discoveries of fossil crocodiles and dinosaurs, a multi-institution research team has described four extinct turtle species, including a new river turtle named after AAS paleontologist Dr. Derek Main and … Read more
Ancient Neolithic villagers on the Carmel Coast in Israel built a seawall to protect their settlement against rising sea levels in the Mediterranean, revealing humanity’s struggle against rising oceans and flooding stretches back thousands of years. An international team of researchers from the University of Haifa, Flinders University in Australia, the Israel Antiquities Authority and … Read more
A fresh, comprehensive look at archaeological data suggests that seafaring South Americans settled first on the large northernmost islands of the Greater Antilles rather than gradually moving northward from the much closer, smaller islands of the Lesser Antilles. That pattern of movement emerged as an eight-member University of Oregon team reevaluated 2,500 radiocarbon results from … Read more
The impact of an asteroid or comet is acknowledged as the principal cause of the mass extinction that killed off most dinosaurs and about three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species 66 million years ago. But massive volcanic eruptions in India may also have contributed to the extinctions. Scientists have long debated the significance … Read more
A newly discovered fossil whale represents a new species and an important step in the evolution of whale locomotion, according to a study published December 11, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan and colleagues. The fossil record of whale evolution tracks the transition from land-dwelling ancestors to ocean-dwelling … Read more
What waddled on land but swam supremely in subtropical seas more than 60 million years ago, after the dinosaurs were wiped out on sea and land? Fossil records show giant human-sized penguins flew through Southern Hemisphere waters – along side smaller forms, similar in size to some species that live in Antarctica today. Now the … Read more
Sea lilies, despite their name, aren’t plants. They’re animals related to starfish and sea urchins, with long feathery arms resting atop a stalk that keeps them anchored to the ocean floor. Sea lilies have been around for at least 480 million years – they first evolved hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs. For … Read more
Fossils of a previously unknown species of Early Cretaceous mammal have caught in the act the final steps by which mammals’ multi-boned middle ears evolved, according to a new study. The new species the study unearths – based on fossil specimens collected in China’s Yixian Formation – provides a reference in the evolutionary tree of … Read more