Popular Science articles about Paleontology & Archaeology
After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals — including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers — began their precipitous slide to...
Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctions
Arnie Miller, University of Cincinnati professor of paleontology in
the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Michael
Foote of the University of Chicago publish their research in the...
'Hobbits' are a new human species -- according to the statistical analysis of fossils
Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York have confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by...
Study pits man v. machine in piecing together 425-million-year-old jigsaw
A new study pitting academic expertise against a computer in recreating a 425 million-year old jigsaw puzzle has discovered that there is no substitute for wisdom born out of experience.
California's ancient kelp forest
The kelp forests off southern California are considered to be some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on the planet, yet a new study indicates that today's kelp beds...
Warm-blooded dinosaurs worked up a sweat
Were dinosaurs endothermic (warm-blooded) like present-day mammals and birds or ectothermic (cold-blooded) like present-day lizards? Reporting in PLoS ONE, Herman Pontzer at Washington University in St Louis and colleagues sought...
Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques
Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely...
Remains of Minoan-style painting discovered during excavations of Canaanite palace
The remains of a Minoan-style wall painting, recognizable by a blue background, the first of its kind to be found in Israel, was discovered in the course of the recent...
The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula
Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs,
the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for
the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind...
Atlanta's Fernbank Museum tracks infamous conquistador through southeast
Archaeologists at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have
discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto's
journey through the Southeast in 1540. No evidence of De Soto's path...
The humble beginnings of a king
Tyrannosaurus rex and related large carnivorous dinosaurs together form the family Tyrannosauridae. A long forgotten fossil skull in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London has now provided...
Heart disease found in Egyptian mummies
Hardening of the arteries has been detected in Egyptian mummies,
some as old as 3,500 years, suggesting that the factors causing
heart attack and stroke are not only modern ones;...
Extinct moa rewrites New Zealand's history
DNA recovered from fossilised bones of the moa, a giant extinct bird, has revealed a new geological history of New Zealand, reports a study published this week in the Proceedings...
Funny, you don't look related
When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands during the voyage of the Beagle in 1835, he saw a wolf-like species, wrote about it in his diaries and correctly commented that...
Telling an old book by its smell: Aroma hints at ways of preserving treasured documents
Scientists may not be able to tell a good book by its cover, but
they now can tell the condition of an old book by its odor. In a report...
New fossil plant discovery links Patagonia to New Guinea in a warmer past
Fossil plants are windows to the past, providing us with clues as
to what our planet looked like millions of years ago. Not only do
fossils tell us which...
The bizarre lives of bone-eating worms
The females of the recently discovered Osedax marine worms feast on submerged bones via a complex relationship with symbiotic bacteria, and they are turning out to be far more diverse...
AIBS publishes Darwin articles open access
To celebrate the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is publishing open access two peer-reviewed articles...
Male sabertoothed cats were pussycats compared to macho lions
Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats.
Portable 3-D laser technology preserves Texas dinosaur's rare footprint
Using portable 3D laser technology, scientists have electronically preserved a rare 110 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur footprint that was previously excavated and built into the wall of a bandstand at a...
New clues to the Falklands wolf mystery
Ever since the Falklands wolf was described by Darwin himself, the origin of this now-extinct canid found only on the Falkland Islands far off the east coast of Argentina has...
More news about Paleontology & Archaeology
Archaeology News in Images
Breaking science news from the newsfeed about Paleontology & Archaeology
- Astronaut Awaits Word of Baby's Delivery
- Does Text Prove Shroud of Turin is Real?
- Extinction of Giant Mammals Changed Landscape Dramatically
- 3 new ancient crocodile species fossils found
- Strange Ancient Crocodiles Swam the Sahara
- Darwin at the movies: A festival of apes, aliens and troglodytes
- Italy collector finds Galileo's lost tooth, fingers
- Mammoth dung clue to changing landscape
- FOR KIDS: The paleontologist and the three dinosaurs
- STRANGE CROC PICTURES: New Dino-Eater, Galloper, More
- New Data Shed Light on Large-Animal Extinction
- Extinction of giant mammals altered landscape
- Slideshow: Ancient Crocs With an Upright Walk
- Finding more in 'most': Scientific study of an everyday word
- Vatican's ‘most important’ cross gets new look
- The evolution of orchids
- A Genetics Company Fails, Its Research Too Complex
- Baby ibex's epic struggle to live
- Ironing graphene sheets flat
- Study Paints Sabertooths as Relative Pussycats
- Giant Lungless "Worm" Found Living on Land
- DNA clue to save rare Darwin bird
- Valley in Jordan inhabited and irrigated for 13,000 years
- Goat Lived Like a Reptile -- A First
- Tibetan Cave Treasures Found -- Link to Shangri-La?
- Young 'living fossil' fish filmed
- Starvation 'wiped out' giant deer
- Ex-Kiss drummer: Breast cancer not just for women
- Gene may explain why chimps can't speak
- Penguins evolving faster than thought
Popular Paleontology news
- Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques
- Ancient 'monster' insect offers Halloween inspiration
- New analyses of dinosaur growth may wipe out one-third of species
- Charles Darwin really did have advanced ideas about the origin of life
- New clues to the Falklands wolf mystery








