Swedish, Australian and French researchers present for the first time miraculously preserved musculature of 380 million year old armoured fish discovered in north-west Australia. This research will help scientists to better understand how neck and abdominal muscles evolved during the transition from jawless to jawed vertebrates. The scientific paper describing the discovery is published today […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
Putting Flesh On the Bones of Ancient Fish: Synchrotron X-Rays Reconstruct Soft Tissue On 380-Million-Year-Old Fish
June 14th, 2013 
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High Diversity of Flying Reptiles in England 110 Million Years Ago
June 13th, 2013 Riffin Brazilian paleontologists Taissa Rodrigues, of the Federal University of Espirito Santo, and Alexander W. A. Kellner, of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, have just presented the most extensive review yet available of toothed pterosaurs from the Cretaceous of England. The study features detailed taxonomic information, diagnoses and photographs of […]
The flying reptiles
June 12th, 2013 Riffin A fossil of Rhamphorhynchus, an early pterosaur. Ranging from the size of a sparrow to the size of an airplane, the pterosaurs (Greek for “wing lizards”) ruled the skies in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and included the largest vertebrate ever known to fly: the late Cretaceous Quetzalcoatlus. The appearance of flight in pterosaurs […]
WFS Profiles: Edward Drinker Cope
June 11th, 2013 Riffin Edward Drinker Cope was an American paleontologist and evolutionist. He was one of the founders of the Neo- Lamarckian school of evolutionary thought. This school believed that changes in developmental (embryonic) timing, not natural selection, was the driving force of evolution. In 1867, Cope suggested that most changes in species occured by coordinated […]
Earthquake Acoustics Can Indicate If a Massive Tsunami Is Imminent
June 10th, 2013 Riffin Stanford scientists have identified key acoustic characteristics of the 2011 Japan earthquake that indicated it would cause a large tsunami. The technique could be applied worldwide to create an early warning system for massive tsunamis. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake occurred 43 miles off the shore of Japan. The earthquake generated […]
Secondary Cartilage Revealed in a Non-Avian Dinosaur Embryo
June 9th, 2013 Riffin The skull and jaws of extant birds possess secondary cartilage, a tissue that arises after bone formation during embryonic development at articulations, ligamentous and muscular insertions. Using histological analysis, we discovered secondary cartilage in a non-avian dinosaur embryo, Hypacrosaurus stebingeri (Ornithischia, Lambeosaurinae). This finding extends our previous report of secondary cartilage in post-hatching specimens of […]
How the turtles got their shells: Clues from fossils !
June 8th, 2013 Riffin Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles’ most unusual shell came to be. The findings, reported on May 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of […]
Sturgeon Fish Are Evolutionary Speedsters
June 7th, 2013 Riffin Efforts to restore sturgeon in the Great Lakes region have received a lot of attention in recent years, and many of the news stories note that the prehistoric-looking fish are “living fossils” virtually unchanged for millions of years. But a new study by University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues reveals that in at least […]
Discovery of Oldest-Known Fossil Primate Skeleton announced
June 6th, 2013 Riffin A mouse-sized fossil from China has provided remarkable new insights into the origin of primates.Xijun Ni points out the key features in the fossil At 55 million years old, it represents the earliest known member of this broad group of animals that includes humans.scientists have called the diminutive creature Archicebus, which roughly translates as “ancient […]
Oldest Known Eucalyptus Macrofossils Are from South America
June 5th, 2013 Riffin The evolutionary history of Eucalyptus and the eucalypts, the larger clade of seven genera including Eucalyptus that today have a natural distribution almost exclusively in Australasia, is poorly documented from the fossil record. Little physical evidence exists bearing on the ancient geographical distributions or morphologies of plants within the clade. Herein, we introduce fossil material […]
