Mastodons took frequent trips north when climate changed

New research suggests that American mastodons were avid travelers, migrating vast distances across North America in response to dramatic climate change during the ice ages of the Pleistocene. The study, conducted by an international ...

Growing up trilobite

If you've ever held a trilobite fossil, seen one in a classroom, or walked by one in a store, chances are it was Elrathia kingii, one of the most common and well-recognized trilobites, and collected by the hundreds of thousands ...

A tiny ancient relative of dinosaurs and pterosaurs discovered

Dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs may be known for their remarkable size, but a newly described species from Madagascar that lived around 237 million years ago suggests that they originated from extremely small ancestors. The ...

Is Niagara Falls a barrier against fish movement?

New research shows that fishes on either side of Niagara Falls—one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world—are unlikely to breed with one another. Knowing how well the falls serves as a barrier to fish movement is ...

Mosaic evolution painted lorikeets a rainbow of color

A new study examines how color evolved in one of the flashiest groups of parrots—Australasian lorikeets—finding that different plumage patches on the birds evolved independently through time. The study, published this ...

DNA from ancient packrat nests helps unpack Earth's past

New work shows how using next-generation DNA sequencing on ancient packrat middens—nests made out of plant material, fragments of insects, bones, fecal matter, and urine—could provide ecological snapshots of Earth's past. ...

Citizen scientists discover rare cosmic pairing

Citizen scientists have uncovered a bizarre pairing of two brown dwarfs, objects much smaller than the Sun that lack enough mass for nuclear fusion. The discovery, reported in The Astrophysical Journal and confirmed by a ...

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