The oldest big cat fossils ever found – from a previously unknown species “similar to a snow leopard” – have been unearthed in the Himalayas.The skull fragments of the newly-named Panthera blytheae have been dated between 4.1 and 5.95 million years old. Their discovery in Tibet supports the theory that big cats evolved in central […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
Posted in 
Tags: 
Mapping the Demise of the Dinosaurs
December 24th, 2013 
Riffin About 65 million years ago, an asteroid or comet crashed into a shallow sea near what is now the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. The resulting firestorm and global dust cloud caused the extinction of many land plants and large animals, including most of the dinosaurs. At this week’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) […]
Multivariate Analyses of Small Theropod Dinosaur Teeth and Implications for Paleoecological Turnover through Time
December 23rd, 2013 Riffin Isolated small theropod teeth are abundant in vertebrate microfossil assemblages, and are frequently used in studies of species diversity in ancient ecosystems. However, determining the taxonomic affinities of these teeth is problematic due to an absence of associated diagnostic skeletal material. Species such as Dromaeosaurus albertensis, Richardoestesia gilmorei, and Saurornitholestes langstoni are known from skeletal […]
Tyrant Dinosaur Evolution Tracks the Rise and Fall of Late Cretaceous Oceans
December 22nd, 2013 Riffin The Late Cretaceous (~95–66 million years ago) western North American landmass of Laramidia displayed heightened non-marine vertebrate diversity and intracontinental regionalism relative to other latest Cretaceous Laurasian ecosystems. Processes generating these patterns during this interval remain poorly understood despite their presumed role in the diversification of many clades. Tyrannosauridae, a clade of large-bodied theropod dinosaurs […]
Human Evolution Gap filled by 1.4 Million-Year-Old Fossil Human Hand Bone
December 21st, 2013 Riffin Humans have a distinctive hand anatomy that allows them to make and use tools. Apes and other nonhuman primates do not have these distinctive anatomical features in their hands, and the point in time at which these features first appeared in human evolution is unknown. Now, a University of Missouri researcher and her international team […]
The Mystery of Lizard Breath: One-Way Air Flow May Be 270 Million Years Old
December 17th, 2013 Riffin Air flows mostly in a one-way loop through the lungs of monitor lizards — a breathing method shared by birds, alligators and presumably dinosaurs, according to a new University of Utah study. The findings — published online Dec. 11 in the journal Nature — raise the possibility this breathing pattern originated 270 million years ago, […]
Edmontosaurus:Dinosaur Fossil With Fleshy Rooster’s Comb Is First of Its Kind
December 15th, 2013 Riffin The structure above the fossil’s head was so unexpected that Phil Bell put his chisel straight through the middle of it. “I was just expecting there to be rock, and all of a sudden there was skin underneath, and I thought to myself, ‘Whoops,’” he said. What Bell had found was the first dinosaur fossil […]
Runaway Process Drives Intermediate-Depth Earthquakes
December 14th, 2013 Riffin Stanford researchers have uncovered a vital clue about the mechanism behind a type of earthquake that originates deep within Earth and accounts for a quarter of all temblors worldwide, some of which are strong enough to pose a safety hazard. Stanford scientists may have solved the mystery of what drives a type of earthquake that […]
Tooth Structure and Wear Provide Clues to Ecology and Evolution of Ancient Marine Creatures
December 13th, 2013 Riffin A trio of published studies have highlighted the importance of examining dental structure and wear in ancient creatures to better understand their ecology and evolution. New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine Assistant Professor Brian Beatty, Ph.D., contributed to all three of the studies with his expertise in analyzing patterns of tooth wear […]
Lithosphere Deformed And Fractured Under Indian Ocean Much Earlier Than Previously Thought
December 12th, 2013 Riffin The discovery by Indian and British scientists that the Earth’s strong outer shell – the ‘lithosphere’ – within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 15.4–13.9 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, impacts our understanding of the birth of the Himalayas and the strengthening of the Indian-Asian monsoon. India and Asia […]
