Geologists at the University of California, Riverside have discovered a new mineral, cubic boron nitride, which they have named “qingsongite.” The discovery, made in 2009, was officially approved this week by the International Mineralogical Association. The UC Riverside geologists, Larissa Dobrzhinetskaya and Harry Green in the Department of Earth Sciences, were joined by […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
Earthquake data Visualisation
August 9th, 2013 
Riffin ROLLA, Mo. – Making sense of the ever-increasing mounds of data is one of the great challenges facing researchers today. At Missouri University of Science and Technology, staff and students in the information technology department have come up with an approach to help researchers gain a new perspective on their data. The IT research support […]
New Proto-Mammal Fossil Sheds Light On Evolution of Earliest Mammals
August 8th, 2013 Riffin A newly discovered fossil reveals the evolutionary adaptations of a 165-million-year-old proto-mammal, providing evidence that traits such as hair and fur originated well before the rise of the first true mammals. The biological features of this ancient mammalian relative, named Megaconus mammaliaformis, are described by scientists from the University of Chicago in the Aug 8 […]
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Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »How Did Earth’s Primitive Chemistry Get Kick Started?
August 7th, 2013 Riffin How did life on Earth get started? Three new papers co-authored by Mike Russell, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., strengthen the case that Earth’s first life began at alkaline hydrothermal vents at the bottom of oceans. Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope […]
The First Occurrence in the Fossil Record of an Aquatic Avian Twig-Nest with Phoenicopteriformes Eggs: Evolutionary Implications
August 6th, 2013 Riffin We describe the first occurrence in the fossil record of an aquatic avian twig-nest with five eggs in situ (Early Miocene Tudela Formation, Ebro Basin, Spain). Extensive outcrops of this formation reveal autochthonous avian osteological and oological fossils that represent a single taxon identified as a basal phoenicopterid. Although the eggshell structure is definitively phoenicopterid, […]
Bird brains predate birds themselves
August 4th, 2013 Riffin New research provides evidence that dinosaurs evolved the brainpower necessary for flight well before they actually took to the air as birds. Based on high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (CT) scans, the study, published today in Nature, takes a comprehensive look at the so-called “bird brain.” Contrary to the cliché, the term describes a relatively enlarged […]
A Waterworld of Volcanoes
August 3rd, 2013 Riffin At Loki’s Castle in the Arctic Ocean, researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) have discovered a so far unknown world of volcanic activity underwater. They hope that this can become Norway’s new national park. In 2008, UiB researchers discovered Loki’s Castle, a field of five active hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Norway […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: A Waterworld of Volcanoes, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Ancient Jigsaw Puzzle of Past Supercontinent Revealed
July 30th, 2013 Riffin A new study published today in the journal Gondwana Research, has revealed the past position of the Australian, Antarctic and Indian tectonic plates, demonstrating how they formed the supercontinent Gondwana 165 million years ago. Researchers from Royal Holloway University, The Australian National University and Geoscience Australia, have helped clear up previous uncertainties on how the […]
New Evidence for Warm-Blooded Dinosaurs
July 29th, 2013 Riffin University of Adelaide research has shown new evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded like birds and mammals, not cold-blooded like reptiles as commonly believed. In a paper published in PLoS ONE, Professor Roger Seymour of the University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, argues that cold-blooded dinosaurs would not have had the required muscular power to […]
Fossil Shows Fish Had Sucker On Its Back
July 28th, 2013 Riffin A 30 million year-old fossil has revealed how remoras — also called sharksuckers — evolved the sucker that enables them to stick to other fishes and ‘hitch a ride’. Previous evidence, such as the segmented structure of the sucker and how it develops in a similar way to fins in normal fish, led scientists to […]
