/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Near the Syrian city of Afrin, an international research team, including researchers from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, has discovered a previously unknown fossil sea turtle. /news/2025-08-fossil-syria-unknown-sea-turtle.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:56:04 EDT news674466961 In a first for Canadian paleontology, a Cretaceous fossilized dragonfly wing, uncovered in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park, has been identified as a new species. It's also the first known dragonfly fossil from Canada's dinosaur-aged rocks. The find, led by McGill University researchers, sheds light on a 30-million-year gap in the evolutionary history of dragonflies. /news/2025-08-canada-dinosaur-era-dragonfly-fossil.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:06:04 EDT news674391961 Arrow worms, or chaetognaths, are strange ocean predators that have puzzled scientists for more than a century. They have transparent, torpedo-shaped bodies, sharp grasping spines near their mouths, and sensory structures unlike those of any other animal group. Despite their distinctive look, their place on the evolutionary tree has long been a mystery. /news/2025-08-genetic-code-arrow-worms-chaetognaths.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 14 Aug 2025 09:15:04 EDT news674381702 Remarkable new fossil discoveries in New Zealand are driving a significant reassessment of our understanding of the early evolution of penguins. /news/2025-08-dagger-beaks-strong-wings-fossils.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:09:39 EDT news674302174 With large eyes, razor-sharp teeth and a compact body built for hunting, Janjucetus dullardi is nothing like the gentle giants known today, but this newly discovered ancient whale is one of their earliest cousins. /news/2025-08-shark-ancient-whale-slicing-teeth.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 13 Aug 2025 10:50:22 EDT news674301014 An international team of paleontologists has spent more than 15 years excavating and studying fossils from Africa to expand our understanding of the Permian, a period of Earth's history that began 299 million years ago and ended 252 million years ago with our planet's largest and most devastating mass extinction. /news/2025-08-fresh-fossil-africa-era-earth.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 11 Aug 2025 14:05:36 EDT news674139933 Millions of years before jazz filled New Orleans streets or fishing boats were harvesting shrimp in the Gulf, Louisiana was home to terrifying sea monsters, a tenacious mammal and a seismic cataclysm that reshaped life on Earth. /news/2025-08-louisiana-fossils-reveal-mosasaur-life.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 07 Aug 2025 13:10:01 EDT news673790419 The thyroid, a vital endocrine organ in vertebrates, plays a key role in regulating metabolism and supporting growth. The first gland of both the nervous system and endocrine system to mature during an embryo's development, it initially evolved more than 500 million years ago out of a "primitive" precursor organ in chordates known as the endostyle. /news/2025-08-jawless-parasite-uncovers-neural-crest.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:37:53 EDT news673789068 Most trees in the Amazon (90%), the Atlantic Forest (90%), or the Cerrado, the Brazilian savanna-like biome (60%), depend on animals to disperse their seeds, ensure their reproduction, and keep the forest standing. Birds, mammals, fish, and even a species of amphibian play a crucial role in forest diversity around the world. However, this process has been disintegrating as populations of seed-dispersing animals have declined dramatically. /news/2025-08-decline-seed-dispersing-animals-hinders.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Aug 2025 13:16:46 EDT news673704960 An international team led by scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature and the University of Chicago reconstructed the brain, heart, and fins of an extinct fish called Norselaspis glacialis from a tiny fossil the size of a fingernail and found evidence of change towards a fast-swimming, sensorily attuned lifestyle well before jaws and teeth were invented to better capture food. /news/2025-08-big-heart-acute-key-explosive.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:00:20 EDT news673596944 A previously unexploited source of information is now throwing new light on Earth's climate during the age of dinosaurs. Fossilized dinosaur teeth show that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the Mesozoic Era, i.e., 252 to 66 million years ago, were far higher than they are today. This has been determined by researchers at the universities in Göttingen, Mainz, and Bochum following the analysis of oxygen isotopes in the dental enamel of dinosaur teeth. /news/2025-08-dinosaur-teeth-climate-capsules-secrets.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:45:22 EDT news673616711 An international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain, has investigated how marine ecosystems responded to past episodes of ocean deoxygenation. To do so, researchers studied fossil remains of lanternfish—one of the most abundant and important fish families of the deep ocean—preserved in seabed sediments of the Eastern Mediterranean, dating back more than 10,000 years. Their findings have been published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. /news/2025-07-ocean-oxygen-decline-threatens-deep.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 31 Jul 2025 09:53:03 EDT news673174381 The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) participated in a study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, on human teeth unearthed at the Hualongdong site in Anhui Province, China. The findings offer fresh insights into hominin diversity in Asia during the late Middle Pleistocene. Analysis of these fossil teeth reveals an unusual combination of primitive and modern traits that challenges established classifications of Homo evolution on the Asian continent. /news/2025-07-unearthed-teeth-reveal-human-diversity.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:10:02 EDT news673099644 The coelacanth is known as a "living fossil" because its anatomy has changed little in the last 65 million years. Despite being one of the most studied fish in history, it continues to reveal new information that could transform our understanding of vertebrate evolution. This is revealed in a study published in the journal Science Advances by researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. /news/2025-07-fossil-fish-anatomy-reshaping-view.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 28 Jul 2025 16:01:02 EDT news672937255 The La Venta fossil site in Colombia is home to a rich fossil record, yielding a particularly diverse set of vertebrate fossil assemblages. The giant terror bird (phorusrhacid) and caiman—a large crocodile-like reptile—were known to be two of the apex predators roaming this region during the middle Miocene epoch. Although the terror bird was a terrestrial predator and the caiman was an aquatic predator, new evidence shows that they occasionally crossed paths, and that these meetings did not go well for the terror bird. /news/2025-07-ancient-caiman-preyed-apex-predator.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:10:01 EDT news672487729 Like humans, octopuses can fall for the rubber hand illusion and believe that a fake arm is theirs. This suggests they have a sense of their own body, just as we do. /news/2025-07-rubber-illusion-octopuses.html Plants & Animals Tue, 22 Jul 2025 10:40:13 EDT news672399596 Beneath the scales of Australia's iconic monitor lizards (commonly known as goannas), scientists have discovered an unexpected secret: a hidden layer of bony skin structures known as osteoderms. These structures, which have been long overlooked, may hold the key to understanding how these ancient reptiles not only survived but thrived in one of the world's harshest environments. /news/2025-07-scientists-uncover-hidden-bone-skin.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Sun, 20 Jul 2025 20:00:01 EDT news672062493 Mammals have developed some unusual eating habits over the past 100 million years, but a new study has uncovered the surprising lengths to which some have gone to satisfy one of the more peculiar—a taste for ants and termites. /news/2025-07-mammals-evolved-ant-eaters-dinosaur.html Evolution Ecology Wed, 16 Jul 2025 15:27:09 EDT news671898422 A new study has uncovered evidence that a giant marine reptile from the Early Jurassic period used stealth to hunt its prey in deep or dark waters—much like owls on land today. /news/2025-07-fossil-discovery-reveals-ancient-giant.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 16 Jul 2025 13:01:41 EDT news671889691 An alga that threatens freshwater ecosystems and is toxic to vertebrates has a sneaky way of ensuring its success: It suppresses the growth of algal competitors by releasing chemicals that deprive them of a vital vitamin. /news/2025-07-algae-blooms-secret-success-algaes.html Ecology Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Jul 2025 12:00:08 EDT news671885496 Following a large-scale wildfire, more jaguars migrated to a study site in the Brazilian wetlands that already had the largest population density of jaguars in the world, a new study found. /news/2025-07-jaguar-population-wildfire-drought-indicating.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 15 Jul 2025 09:55:50 EDT news671792145 A team of researchers has identified and described Vulcanoscaptor ninoti ("the Camp dels Ninots volcano digger"), a previously unknown genus and species of Pliocene mole. The fossil was unearthed at the Camp dels Ninots paleontological site (Caldes de Malavella, Girona), one of the most important locations for studying the fauna that inhabited southern Europe more than 3.5 million years ago. /news/2025-07-genus-species-mole-fossil-dels.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 15 Jul 2025 07:30:07 EDT news671782378 The Mesozoic pterosaur is considered to be the first vertebrate to achieve powered flight and new evidence, also the first of its kind, helps to pin down what exactly this flying reptile ate. Previously, scientists had trouble establishing a consensus on the pterosaur's diet. Some suggested meat-based or fish-based diets, while others believe the pterosaur ate plants, bugs, or even that the pterosaur was a filter-feeder. /news/2025-07-evidence-pterosaur-fossilized-stomach-longstanding.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 15 Jul 2025 06:50:01 EDT news671726479 An analysis of two theropod dinosaur fossils has shown that they had a type of carpal bone (pisiform) in their wrists—a bone considered important to flight in birds. /news/2025-07-dinosaur-wrist-bone-discovery-reshapes.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:56:33 EDT news671295364 Research into the intestinal cells of Burmese pythons has revealed the existence of a previously unknown cell type, responsible for completely absorbing the skeletons of their prey. /news/2025-07-bone-digesting-cell-pythons.html Plants & Animals Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Jul 2025 03:00:03 EDT news671101298 University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers looked billions of years into the past to learn more about the potential future of precision medicine. /news/2025-07-evolutionary-essential-prps-enzyme-complex.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 08 Jul 2025 05:00:04 EDT news671122382 A Smithsonian-led team of researchers have discovered North America's oldest known pterosaur, the winged reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs and were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. /news/2025-07-north-america-oldest-pterosaur-unearthed.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 07 Jul 2025 15:00:01 EDT news671101022 Mitochondria are the body's "energy factories," and their proper function is essential for life. Inside mitochondria, a set of complexes called the oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) system acts like a biochemical assembly line, transforming oxygen and nutrients into usable energy. /news/2025-07-ancient-vertebrates-modern-medicine-cellular.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:00:02 EDT news670755902 During animal development, cells divide and arrange themselves in a coordinated way, eventually forming the embryo. The cells communicate with one another during this process through cell-surface receptors, which interact with proteins outside the cell to trigger processes within the developing embryo's cells at specific times and places. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms behind how cells communicate during early embryonic development are not yet fully understood. /news/2025-07-unique-cell-receptor-interactions-essential.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:51:04 EDT news670589461 Research led by the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing has discovered that switching on a single dormant gene enables mice to regenerate ear tissue. /news/2025-06-silent-gene-revives-tissue-regeneration.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:50:07 EDT news670502862