Northern night skies have recently been alive with light. Those shimmering curtains get their start about 93 million miles away, on the sun. An aurora borealis (aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere) is precipitated by explosions on the surface of the sun, sometimes starting as solar flares, said Robert Nemiroff, an astrophysicist at Michigan Technological […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
The Science Behind Those Eye-Popping Northern Lights
October 17th, 2012 
riffin 
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: Northern lights, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeevr, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Rare Evidence Of Dinosaur Cannibalism: Meat-Eater Tooth Found In Gorgosaurus Jawbone
October 16th, 2012 riffin University of Alberta researcher Phil Bell has found 70 million year old evidence of dinosaur cannibalism. The jawbone of what appears to be a Gorgosaurus was found in 1996 in southern Alberta. A technician at the Royal Tyrell Museum found something unusual embedded in the jaw. It was the tip of a tooth from another meat-eating dinosaur. […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Gorgosaurus, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Cambrian fossil pushes back evolution of complex brains
October 15th, 2012 Riffin The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution. According to University of Arizona neurobiologist Nicholas Strausfeld, who co-authored the study describing the specimen, the fossil is the earliest known to show a brain. The discovery will […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Fuxianhuia protensa, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Quantifying Rates of Evolutionary Adaptation in Response to Ocean Acidification
October 14th, 2012 riffin The global acidification of the earth’s oceans is predicted to impact biodiversity via physiological effects impacting growth, survival, reproduction, and immunology, leading to changes in species abundances and global distributions. However, the degree to which these changes will play out critically depends on the evolutionary rate at which populations will respond to natural selection imposed […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Evolutionary Adaptation, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »“Thunder Thighs” Dinosaur Thrashed Predators to Death?
October 13th, 2012 riffin A newfound dinosaur species that used its “exceptionally powerful” thighs to kick predators likely had a bad temper to boot, one expert says. The 46-foot-long (14-meter-long) Brontomerus mcintoshi had an immense blade on its hipbones where strong muscles would have attached, according to a new study. “These things don’t happen by accident—this is something that’s clearly functional,” […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Brontomerus, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Paleotemperature Proxies from Leaf Fossils Reinterpreted in Light of Evolutionary History
October 12th, 2012 riffin Present-day correlations between leaf physiognomic traits (shape and size) and climate are widely used to estimate paleoclimate using fossil floras. For example, leaf-margin analysis estimates paleotemperature using the modern relation of mean annual temperature (MAT) and the site-proportion of untoothed-leaf species (NT). This uniformitarian approach should provide accurate paleoclimate reconstructions under the core assumption that […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Paleotemperature, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »New Fossils Suggest Ancient Origins of Modern-Day Deep-Sea Animals
October 11th, 2012 riffin A collection of fossil animals discovered off the coast of Florida suggests that present day deep-sea fauna like sea urchins, starfish and sea cucumbers may have evolved earlier than previously believed and survived periods of mass extinctions similar to those that wiped out the dinosaurs. The full results are published Oct. 10 in the open […]
Marine Worms Reveal the Deepest Evolutionary Patterns
October 10th, 2012 Riffin Scientists from the universities of Bath and Lincoln have revealed new findings on the evolutionary relationships and structure of priapulids — a group of carnivorous mud-dwelling worms living in shallow marine waters. The research, carried out by evolutionary biologists Dr Matthew Wills, Dr Sylvain Gerber, Mr Martin Hughes (all University of Bath) and Dr Marcello […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Priapulids, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Unique Ancient Spider Attack Preserved in Amber
October 9th, 2012 riffin Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attack on prey caught in its web — a 100 million-year-old snapshot of an engagement frozen in time. The extraordinarily rare fossils are in a piece of amber that preserved this event in remarkable detail, an action that took place […]
Which Came First, Shells or No Shells? Contrary Story of Ancient Mollusk
October 8th, 2012 Riffin fossil unearthed in Great Britain may end a long-running debate about the mollusks, one of life’s most diverse invertebrate groups: Which evolved first, shelled forms like clams and snails, or their shell-less, worm-like relatives? The small new fossil, found in marine rocks along the English-Welsh border, provides the best fossil evidence yet that the simpler […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Shell Of Mollusk, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »
