New Methods to Detect Pigment Preservation in Fossil Feathers
Thanks to preserved evidence of melanin in a fossil feather from Brazil, paleontologists at the Peabody Museum have come one step closer to reconstructing a visual representation of early birds and...
View ArticleFossil Feathers: the Research of a Genius
Professor Richard Prum, receipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, has combined fields as diverse as developmental biology and optical physics to study the evolution of feathers, providing a glimpse of...
View ArticleBig Picture, Small Details
Through one drawing at a time, Dolf Seilacher has altered the way paleontology research is conducted. While paleontologists have traditionally examined fossils directly to study life in different...
View ArticleA New Story for Early Animal Evolution
Around 490 million years ago, the oceans of the Earth were not diverse environments as they are today. Though the Cambrian Explosion some 40 million years earlier had led to
View ArticleNew Dinosaur Species Discovered
Nicolas Longrich has discovered a new dinosaur species that may shed light on how dinosaurs evolved their massive size.
View ArticleFate of Australian Megafauna Discovered through Prehistoric Dung
A new study of prehistoric environments has helped to clarify both the timeline and the consequences of an Australian extinction event.
View ArticleA Hard Case: Shucking the Mollusk Mystery
A new fossil find clarifies the evolution of a group of mollusks and provides insights into mollusk evolution overall.
View ArticleVolcanoes Implicated in Murder of Dinosaurs: New Evidence Points to Volcanism...
New analyses show that the Yucatan Peninsula meteor impact did not cause the demise of the dinosaurs. Rather, mega-volcanism occurring in India correlates with the decrease in species diversity and...
View ArticleDeep in the Lungs of the Earth: Exploring the Effect of Vegetation on...
Using advanced computer modeling and three million years worth of climate data, Dr. Nadine Unger has pioneered new research on the way vegetation affects climate change.
View ArticleMasters of Light: The Science Behind Nature’s Brightest Colors
Many of nature’s most brilliant colors arise not from pigments, but from curious tricks of light. From the brilliant blue of a morpho butterfly to a beetle’s iridescent emerald, structural colors...
View ArticleAncient Flowering Plants ‘Hibernated’ Through Trouble
New fossil evidence of ancient angiosperms explains how tiny embryos facilitated seed dormancy, allowing these plants to survive in harsh climates.
View ArticleTV Review: Raising the Dinosaur Giant
Just a few seconds into Raising the Dinosaur Giant, David Attenborough’s voice fills the room and begins to set the scene for a spellbinding documentary. Attenborough, known for narrating The
View ArticleA Real-life “Jurassic World”: Recreating Historic Evolutionary Transitions in...
Rather than speculate on how organisms evolved certain adaptations, scientists are attempting to recreate some of these historic transitions—such as the development of fins into feet—in the lab.
View ArticleLucy [Falling Through] the Sky with Diamonds: Compressive fractures suggest...
One of the oldest cold cases in history is the death of Lucy, the 3.2-million-year-old hominin. John Kappelman, who completed his undergraduate training at Yale, did some detective work on Lucy’s...
View ArticlePerplexing Fossils and Peculiar Forms: Mapping the Tully Monster onto the...
Researchers from Yale University and other institutions, headed by Dr. Victoria McCoy, have unearthed the origins of the Tully Monster, a Carboniferous creature with highly unusual morphology.
View ArticleSkeletons in the Ice Age Closet
How much did the Ice Age’s widespread mammal extinctions actually impact the ecosystem, and what can this tell us about our mass extinctions today? Dr. Matt Davis of the Department of Geology and...
View ArticleMicrobial Diversity: How environmental niches affect biological diversification
By studying rocks that are almost three million years old, a team of researchers led by Eva Stüeken found out that the diversification of environmental niches plays a role in the diversification of...
View ArticleTracking Transition: From dinosaurs to birds, brain-skull evolution
New discovery in skull and brain development has implications for greater understanding of evolution of reptiles and birds.
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