The first fossil of an amphibious ichthyosaur has been discovered in China by a team led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The discovery is the first to link the dolphin-like ichthyosaur to its terrestrial ancestors, filling a gap in the fossil record. The fossil is described in a paper published in advance […]
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Ebola’s evolutionary roots more ancient than previously thought
November 1st, 2014 
Riffin A new study is helping to rewrite Ebola’s family history. The research shows that filoviruses — a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative, Marburg, belong — are at least 16-23 million years old. Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines leading to Ebola and Marburg […]
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Comments Off on Ebola’s evolutionary roots more ancient than previously thoughtKung fu stegosaur: Lethal fighters when necessary
October 30th, 2014 Riffin Stegosaurs might be portrayed as lumbering plant eaters, but they were lethal fighters when necessary, according to paleontologists who have uncovered new evidence of a casualty of stegosaurian combat. The evidence is a fatal stab wound in the pubis bone of a predatory allosaur. The wound — in the conical shape of a stegosaur tail […]
WFS Dino Diary: Riojasaurus (Rioja lizard)
October 29th, 2014 Riffin Name: Riojasaurus (Rioja lizard). Phonetic: Re-o-jah-sore-us. Named By: Jose Fernando Bonaparte - 1967. Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha, Prosauropoda, Riojasauridae. Species: R. incertus (type). Diet: Herbivore. Size: About 10 meters long. Known locations: Argentina, La Rioja Province - Los Colorados Formation. Time period: Norian of the Triassic. Fossil representation: Several individuals. Riojasaurus was and […]
Bardarbunga volcano sits on massive magma hot spot
October 26th, 2014 Riffin Spectacular eruptions at Bárðarbunga volcano in central Iceland have been spewing lava continuously since Aug. 31. Massive amounts of erupting lava are connected to the destruction of supercontinents and dramatic changes in climate and ecosystems. New research from UC Davis and Aarhus University in Denmark shows that high mantle temperatures miles beneath Earth’s surface are […]
Dinosaur ecology found in fragile amber
October 22nd, 2014 Riffin Ryan McKellar’s research sounds like it was plucked from Jurassic Park: he studies pieces of amber found buried with dinosaur skeletons. But rather than re-creating dinosaurs, McKellar uses the tiny pieces of fossilized tree resin to study the world in which the now-extinct behemoths lived. New techniques for investigating very tiny pieces of fragile amber […]
placoderms:Origins of sex discovered?
October 20th, 2014 Riffin A profound new discovery announced in Nature today by palaeontologist, Flinders University Professor John Long, reveals how the intimate act of sexual intercourse first evolved in our deep distant ancestors. In one of the biggest discoveries in the evolutionary history of sexual reproduction, Professor Long has found that internal fertilisation and copulation appeared in ancient […]
Journey to the center of the Earth:Isotope Study
October 19th, 2014 Riffin A UC Santa Barbara geochemist studying Samoan volcanoes has found evidence of the planet’s early formation still trapped inside the Earth. Known as hotspots, volcanic island chains such as Samoa can ancient primordial signatures from the early solar system that have somehow survived billions of years. Matthew Jackson, an associate professor in UCSB’s Department of […]
Mysterious Midcontinent Rift is a geological hybrid
October 17th, 2014 Riffin An international team of geologists has a new explanation for how the Midwest’s biggest geological feature — an ancient and giant 2,000-mile-long underground crack that starts in Lake Superior and runs south to Oklahoma and to Alabama — evolved. Scientists from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the University of Gottingen in […]
Microfossils reveal warm oceans had less oxygen
October 16th, 2014 Riffin Researchers in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences are pairing chemical analyses with micropaleontology — the study of tiny fossilized organisms — to better understand how global marine life was affected by a rapid warming event more than 55 million years ago. Their findings are the subject of an article in the journal Paleoceanography. […]
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Tags: Microfossils, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »
