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.
An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.7 million-year-old rhino tooth – the largest and oldest genetic data to ever be recorded. Researchers identified an almost complete set of proteins, a proteome, in the dental enamel of the rhino and the genetic information discovered is one million years older than … Read more
Despite having lived about 300,000 years ago, the oldest ancestor of all members of Homo sapiens had a surprisingly modern skull – as suggested by a model created by CNRS researcher Aurélien Mounier of the Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme Préhistorique laboratory (CNRS / Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle) and Cambridge University professor Marta Mirazón Lahr. After … Read more
Cryodrakon boreas, from the Azhdarchid group of pterosaurs (often incorrectly called ‘pterodactyls’), was a flying reptile with a wingspan of up to 10 metres which lived during the Cretaceous period around 77 million years ago. Its remains were discovered 30 years ago in Alberta, Canada, but palaeontologists had assumed they belonged to an already known … Read more
There are more different kinds of beetle than just about any other kind of animal – scientists have described about 5,800 different species of mammals, compared with nearly 400,000 species of beetles. Of those 400,000 kinds of beetles, more than 64,000 species are members of the rove beetle family, staphylinidae. These mostly small earwig-looking insects are … Read more
First discovered in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds looking for a lost sheep, the ancient Hebrew texts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the most well-preserved ancient written materials ever found. Now, a study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere elucidates a unique ancient technology of parchment making and provides potentially new insights … Read more
The discovery of a previously unknown species of hadrosaur dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The fossil, found in Japan, furthers our understanding of hadrosaur diversity in the Far East and hadrosaurid evolution during the Late Cretaceous Period (100.5-66 million years ago). Hadrosaurs are among the most successful group of … Read more
The death march of a segmented bilaterian animal unearthed from ~550-million-year-old rocks in China shows that the oldest mobile and segmented animals evolved by the Ediacaran Period (635-539 million years ago). The research was published in Natureon Sept. 4 by an international research team from China and the U.S. The origin of bilaterally symmetric animals (or … Read more
Stone tools and other artifacts unearthed from an archeological dig at the Cooper’s Ferry site in western Idaho suggest that people lived in the area 16,000 years ago, more than a thousand years earlier than scientists previously thought. The artifacts would be considered among the earliest evidence of people in North America. The findings, published … Read more
A new species of prehistoric murine – the group of mammals that includes mice, rats, and their relatives – has been identified from fossils discovered in Lebanon. The findings, presented in Scientific Reports, represent the first known physical evidence that the initial dispersal of mice from Asia to Africa took place through the Levant. Murinae, the … Read more
Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator and Case Western Reserve University Adjunct Professor Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie and his team of researchers have discovered a “remarkably complete” cranium of a 3.8-million-year-old early human ancestor from the Woranso-Mille paleontological site, located in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Working for the past 15 years at the site, the … Read more