PARIS: One day 370 million years ago, a tiny larva plunged into a shrimp-infested swamp and drowned. Unearthed in modern-day Belgium, the humble bug could plug a giant gap in the fossil record. Named Strudiella devonica, the eight-millimetre invertebrate – while in far from mint condition – is thought by researchers who published their findings […]
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High Tooth Replacement Rates in Largest Dinosaurs Contributed to Their Evolutionary Success
October 5th, 2013 
Riffin Rapid tooth replacement by sauropods, the largest dinosaurs in the fossil record, likely contributed to their evolutionary success, according to a research paper by Stony Brook University paleontologist Michael D’Emic, PhD, and colleagues. Published in PLOS ONE, the study also hypothesizes that differences in tooth replacement rates among the giant herbivores likely meant their diets […]
Massive dinosaur fossil unearthed by Alberta pipeline crew
October 4th, 2013 Riffin A team of oil pipeline workers digging at a site near Spirit River, Alberta have unearthed an incredible find — a roughly 10-metre-long fossilized dinosaur tail. “What we have is a totally composed tail,” Brian Brake, the executive director of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, told the Edmonton Journal on Wednesday. “It’s beautiful.” […]
New Fossils Push the Origin of Flowering Plants Back by 100 Million Years to the Early Triassic
October 3rd, 2013 Riffin Drilling cores from Switzerland have revealed the oldest known fossils of the direct ancestors of flowering plants. These beautifully preserved 240-million-year-old pollen grains are evidence that flowering plants evolved 100 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science. Flowering plants evolved from extinct plants […]
Dinosaur Wind Tunnel Test Provides New Insight Into the Evolution of Bird Flight
October 2nd, 2013 Riffin A study into the aerodynamic performance of feathered dinosaurs, by scientists from the University of Southampton, has provided new insight into the evolution of bird flight. In recent years, new fossil discoveries have changed our view of the early evolution of birds and, more critically, their powers of flight. We now know about a number […]
Pakistan’s new island, pushed up by earthquake
October 1st, 2013 Riffin (Associated Press) — Alongside the carnage of Pakistan’s massive earthquake came a new creation: a small island of mud, stone and bubbling gas pushed forth from the seabed. Experts say the island was formed by the massive movement of the earth during the 7.7-magnitude quake that hit Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. […]
“Entelognathus primordialis” New Fish Fossil From China
September 30th, 2013 Riffin A leading British scientist has said that the discovery of a 419-million-year-old fish fossil in China is a stunning and spectacular development. Palaeobiologist Matt Friedman told the BBC that the fish provided crucial evidence about the evolutionary development of jawed vertebrates. As a remote relative of humans, it provides important evolutionary clues. “It is the […]
Ancient Soils Reveal Clues to Early Life On Earth
September 29th, 2013 Riffin Oxygen appeared in the atmosphere up to 700 million years earlier than we previously thought, according to research published today in the journal Nature, raising new questions about the evolution of early life. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and University of British Columbia examined the chemical composition of three-billion-year-old soils from South Africa — […]
Oldest Lizard-Like Fossil Yet to Be Found Hints at Scaly Origins
September 28th, 2013 Riffin The fossilised remains of a reptile closely related to lizards are the oldest yet to be discovered. Two new fossil jaws discovered in Vellberg, Germany provide the first direct evidence that the ancestors of lizards, snakes and tuatara (known collectively as lepidosaurs) were alive during the Middle Triassic period — around 240 million years ago. […]
Seismologists Puzzle Over Largest Deep Earthquake Ever Recorded
September 22nd, 2013 Riffin A magnitude 8.3 earthquake that struck deep beneath the Sea of Okhotsk on May 24, 2013, has left seismologists struggling to explain how it happened. At a depth of about 609 kilometers (378 miles), the intense pressure on the fault should inhibit the kind of rupture that took place. “It’s a mystery how these earthquakes […]
