Latest science news in Paleontology & Archaeology
Your bones do more than you give them credit for
Dem bones do plenty. (DepositPhoto/) For February, we’re focusing on the body parts that shape us, oxygenate us, and power us as we take long walks on the beach. Bony bonafide bones....
The strange, true story of how Mt. Disappointment got its name
Mt. Disappointment is a perfectly lovely peak in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles. So why did it get such a terrible name?
By gum! Scientists find new 110-million-year-old treasure
A remarkable new treasure has been found by scientists from the University of Portsmouth—the first fossil plant gum on record. The beautiful, amber-like material has been discovered in 110 million...
Billion-year-old Chinese seaweed is oldest green plant fossil
Scientists have spotted in rocks from northern China what may be the oldest fossils of a green plant ever found, tiny seaweed that carpeted areas of the seafloor roughly a...
Modern technology reveals old secrets about the great, white Maya road
The first lidar study of the 100-kilometer stone highway that connected the ancient cities of Cobá and Yaxuná on the Yucatan Peninsula 13 centuries ago may shed light on the...
Ancient DNA from Sardinia reveals 6,000 years of genetic history
A new study of the genetic history of Sardinia, a Mediterranean island off the western coast of Italy, analyzed genome-wide DNA data for 70 individuals from more than 20 Sardinian...
Lesotho PM Thomas Thabane seeks immunity in death of former wife
A magistrate ruled Monday that Lesotho's Prime Minister Thomas Thabane will not be charged with the 2017 murder of his former wife until a constitutional question is settled after his...
A distant cousin of jellyfish may survive without working mitochondria
In the pinkish muscle of some Pacific salmon lives a distant cousin of jellyfish that thrives without working mitochondria, the energy-producing part of cells thought to be a cornerstone of animal life, a...
One billion-year-old green seaweed fossils unearthed in China
Scientists have found evidence that green seaweeds were proliferating in Earth's oceans several hundred million years before modern plants began colonizing dry land.
Ancient DNA from Sardinia reveals 6,000 years of genetic history
A new study of the genetic history of Sardinia, a Mediterranean island off the western coast of Italy, tells how genetic ancestry on the island was relatively stable through the...
Modern technology reveals old secrets about the great, white Maya road
Did a powerful queen of Cobá, one of the greatest cities of the ancient Maya world, build the longest Maya road to invade a smaller, isolated neighbor and gain a...
Oldest reconstructed bacterial genomes link farming, herding with emergence of new disease
Using Salmonella enterica genomes recovered from human skeletons as old as 6,500 years, an international team of researchers illustrates the evolution of a human pathogen and provides the first ancient...
Katherine Johnson, pioneering NASA mathematician of 'Hidden Figures' fame, dies at 101
Katherine Johnson, whose career making vital calculations for NASA was immortalized in the 2016 book and movie "Hidden Figures," has died at 101.
One billion-year-old green seaweed fossils identified, relative of modern land plants
Paleontologists have made a remarkable discovery in China: 1 billion-year-old micro-fossils of green seaweeds that could be related to the ancestor of the earliest land plants and trees that first...
Israeli rockets kill 6 in Syria in clash with Islamic Jihad
Israel Defense Forces fired on targets in Syria and the Gaza Strip belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement, killing six as both groups exchanged missile attacks.
Nations seek biodiversity accord to stave off mass extinction
Nature experts and government delegates gather this week in Rome to thrash out an international deal for endangered species, trying to avoid a mass extinction event caused by human activity.
Oldest reconstructed bacterial genomes link farming, herding with emergence of new disease
The Neolithic revolution, and the corresponding transition to agricultural and pastoralist lifestyles, represents one of the greatest cultural shifts in human history, and it has long been hypothesized that this...
One billion-year-old green seaweed fossils identified, relative of modern land plants
Virginia Tech paleontologists have made a remarkable discovery in China: 1 billion-year-old micro-fossils of green seaweeds that could be related to the ancestor of the earliest land plants and trees...
Look: Horse stuck in fence hoisted back to its feet
Firefighters in Britain enlisted the help of a resident with a digger to hoist a horse stuck in a fence back to its feet.
Analyzing Edgar Allan Poe's writings to solve the mystery of his death
On October 3 1849, the famed American horror and mystery author Edgar Allan Poe was found in a complete state of delirium – incoherent, disheveled and wearing a stranger's clothes....
Extinction rate in bivalve mollusks is not entirely determined by growth rate
Six geology students alongside a research fellow at the University of Derby have published a new research paper into the growth rate, extinction and survival of seashells.
Researchers find new parasite species in northern wolverines
Rajnish Sharma, a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan, did what a lot of researchers dream of — he helped discover a new species. It's a parasite found in wolverines...
Anonymous no more: combining genetics with genealogy to identify the dead in unmarked graves
A method developed by a team of geneticists, archaeologists and demographers may make it possible to identify thousands of individuals whose remains lie in unmarked graves.
Anonymous no more: combining genetics with genealogy to identify the dead in unmarked graves
In Quebec, gravestones did not come into common use until the second half of the 19th century, so historical cemeteries contain many unmarked graves. Inspired by colleagues at Barcelona's Pompeu...
7 in 10 Canadians don't use condoms: McMaster University
Researchers surveyed roughly 2,3000 sexually active Canadians to peek under the covers and get some insight on intimacy.
Quentin Tarantino's wife Daniella Pick gives birth to son
Israeli singer and model Daniella Pick, the wife of writer-director Quentin Tarantino, has given birth to their first child.
'No Man's Sky' update adds freaky living spaceships you can hatch from eggs
Bizarre new points of interest have been added to solar systems in the Living Ships update as well.
Pope Francis clears two for sainthood
Pope Francis has cleared two people for sainthood including an Indian layman Roman Catholics consider to be a martyr and a religious founder in Italy.