http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo's group at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and colleagues at North Carolina State University and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a new species of fossil turtle that lived 60 million years ago in what is now northwestern South America. The team's findings were published in the Journal of Paleontology. http://phys.org/news261244174.html Other Sciences Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:49:42 EST news261244174 A new study indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution, not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for millions of years to follow. The study's authors, University of Chicago's Andrew Z. Krug and David Jablonski, will publish their findings in the August issue of the journal Geology. http://phys.org/news260445239.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:57:14 EST news260445239 University of Alberta researchers have uncovered physical proof that animals existed 585 million years ago, 30 million years earlier than all previous established records show. http://phys.org/news260110026.html Other Sciences Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:00:01 EST news260110026 (AP) -- Experts are trying to figure out what a fossil dubbed "Godzillus" used to be. http://phys.org/news254571205.html Other Sciences Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:13:32 EST news254571205 (Phys.org) -- Around 450 million years ago, shallow seas covered the Cincinnati region and harbored one very large and now very mysterious organism. Despite its size, no one has ever found a fossil of this "monster" until its discovery by an amateur paleontologist last year. http://phys.org/news254481763.html Other Sciences Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:23:04 EST news254481763 A university in Russia's Chechnya claimed on Tuesday to have found an unprecedented stash of giant fossilised dinosaur eggs in a remote mountainous area of the North Caucasus region. http://phys.org/news253882946.html Other Sciences Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:02:37 EST news253882946 Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes approximately 70 million years ago likely endured long, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes, a recent study by researchers from the University of Cape Town, Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Temple University has found. http://phys.org/news253367551.html Other Sciences Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:52:41 EST news253367551 With his contract about to run out and no opportunities on the horizon in Spain, paleontologist Diego Garcia-Bellido Capdevila has started looking for work abroad. http://phys.org/news252214427.html Other Sciences Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:00:01 EST news252214427 Conventional wisdom holds that during the Mesozoic Era, mammals were small creatures that held on at life's edges. But at least one mammal group, rodent-like creatures called multituberculates, actually flourished during the last 20 million years of the dinosaurs' reign and survived their extinction 66 million years ago. http://phys.org/news250952035.html Other Sciences Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:00:06 EST news250952035 One of the most prominent features of life-size, museum models of Tyrannosaurus rex, is its fearsome array of flesh-ripping, bone-crushing teeth. http://phys.org/news249671101.html Other Sciences Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:05:11 EST news249671101 (AP) -- Restaurants around the world will soon use new DNA technology to assure patrons they are being served the genuine fish fillet or caviar they ordered, rather than inferior substitutes, an expert in genetic identification says. http://phys.org/news241619576.html Biology Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:33:34 EST news241619576 A nest containing the fossilized remains of 15 juvenile Protoceratops andrewsi dinosaurs from Mongolia has been described by a University of Rhode Island paleontologist, revealing new information about postnatal development and parental care. It is the first nest of this genus ever found and the first indication that Protoceratops juveniles remained in the nest for an extended period. http://phys.org/news241094000.html Other Sciences Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:33:34 EST news241094000 Paleontologist LI Chun, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his research team, reported a new genus and species of marine reptile, Sinosaurosphargis yunguiensis, from the Middle Triassic of Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces, southwestern China, according to a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31(2), 2011. http://phys.org/news241086121.html Other Sciences Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:22:22 EST news241086121 A fragment of whale rib found in a North Carolina strip mine is offering scientists a rare glimpse at the interactions between prehistoric sharks and whales some 3- to 4-million years ago during the Pliocene. http://phys.org/news240165686.html Other Sciences Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:41:40 EST news240165686 (PhysOrg.com) -- A scientist working in Canada studying a part of a head of a dinosaur found some ten years ago in Morocco, has uncovered what may be the great granddaddy of all modern crocs. The ancient beast, believed to have been wandering around during the Cretaceous period is estimated to have been nearly the length of a school bus and had a strange shield type crown covering the top of his head that researchers believe might have been more for showing off than fighting. http://phys.org/news240152370.html Other Sciences Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:59:50 EST news240152370 (PhysOrg.com) -- For hundreds, if not thousands of years, researchers of one kind or another have dug into the earth in search of clues to help explain our past. In so doing they have found evidence of ancient peoples that roamed around in an environment that we can only vaguely imagine. Such evidence is generally composed of remnants of dwellings, clothing, tools and most especially bones. Traditionally, such relics have been found either by accident or by serious-minded teams of professional scientists scanning likely terrain and having at it with small axes and shovels. http://phys.org/news240051518.html Other Sciences Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:20:01 EST news240051518 Wang Li-Hua, a graduate student paleontologist from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, identified a new species of cervid, Euprox altus, from the Middle Miocene fossil locality of Damiao (N42°00’31.4’’, E111°34’50’’), Siziwangqi, Nei Mongol, as reported in the latest issue of Vertebrata PalAsiatic 2011 (4). Its tooth morphology and comparison with other species suggest that during the latest Middle Miocene the Damiao area was a warm and humid environment. http://phys.org/news239531148.html Other Sciences Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:25:56 EST news239531148 Paleontologist Guillermo Rougier, Ph.D., professor of anatomical sciences and neurobiology at the University of Louisville, and his team have reported their discovery of two skulls from the first known mammal of the early Late Cretaceous period of South America. The fossils break a roughly 60 million-year gap in the currently known mammalian record of the continent and provide new clues on the early evolution of mammals. http://phys.org/news239461414.html Other Sciences Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:03:50 EST news239461414 Long before whales, the oceans of Earth were roamed by a very different kind of air-breathing leviathan. Snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs larger than school buses swam at the top of the Triassic Period ocean food chain, or so it seemed before Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin took a look at some of their remains in Nevada. Now he thinks there was an even larger and more cunning sea monster that preyed on ichthyosaurs: a kraken of such mythological proportions it would have sent Captain Nemo running for dry land. McMenamin will be presenting the results of his work on Monday, 10 October at the Annual Meeting of The Geological Society of America in Minneapolis. http://phys.org/news237436311.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:32:09 EST news237436311 Metazoan-dominated reefs only took 1.5 million years to recover after the largest species extinction 252 million years ago, an international research team including paleontologists from the University of Zurich has established based on fossils from the Southwestern USA. http://phys.org/news236595774.html Space & Earth Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:03:02 EST news236595774 No, this isn't Jurassic Park. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with help from an amateur fossil hunter in College Park, Md., have described the fossil of an armored dinosaur hatchling. It is the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and a founder of a new genus and species that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. Nodosaurs have been found in diverse locations worldwide, but they've rarely been found in the United States. The findings are published in the September 9 issue of the Journal of Paleontology. http://phys.org/news235212225.html Other Sciences Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:43:57 EST news235212225 An analysis of a skull from the most complete early hominid fossils ever found suggests that the large and complex human brain may have evolved more rapidly than previously realized, and at a later time than some other human characteristics. http://phys.org/news234701627.html Other Sciences Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:54:06 EST news234701627 (PhysOrg.com) -- Erich Fitzgerald, an Australian paleontologist, believes he has found the missing link between ancient toothed whales that caught and ate fish and modern baleen whales that eat by sucking in huge volumes of water and then filter out the krill and shrimp in it. http://phys.org/news232876209.html Biology Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:50:33 EST news232876209 Researchers in Peru said Tuesday they have discovered the remains of ancient insects and sunflower seeds trapped inside amber dating from the Miocene epoch, some 23 million years ago. http://phys.org/news232168227.html Other Sciences Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:00:03 EST news232168227 Paleontologists have discovered a group of more than 20 polar dinosaur tracks on the coast of Victoria, Australia, offering a rare glimpse into animal behavior during the last period of pronounced global warming, about 105 million years ago. http://phys.org/news232105245.html Other Sciences Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:10:03 EST news232105245 Biologist E.O. Wilson once pondered whether many of our fellow living things were doomed once evolution gave rise to an intelligent, technological creature that also happened to be a rapacious carnivore, fiercely territorial and prone to short-term thinking. http://phys.org/news231310365.html Biology Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:53:05 EST news231310365 (PhysOrg.com) -- Making its first appearance in Texas, a prehistoric crocodile thought to have originated in Europe now appears to have been a native of the Lone Star State. http://phys.org/news229843535.html Other Sciences Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:27:17 EST news229843535 Pang Li-Bo, a graduate student paleontologist from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, identified two rare species of Hipparion- Hipparion (Baryhipparion) insperatum and Hipparion (Plesiohipparion) huangheense, from Pliocene sediments at the Gaotege locality, Inner Mongolia, as reported in the latest issue of Vertebrata PalAsiatic 2011, indicating they are much widely distributed than thought before and providing new materials for studies on paleobiogeography. http://phys.org/news227185951.html Other Sciences Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:14:33 EST news227185951 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny fossil teeth discovered in Inner Mongolia are a new species of birch mouse, indicating that ancestors of the small rodent are much older than previously reported, according to paleontologist Yuri Kimura, Southern Methodist University in Dallas. http://phys.org/news225442539.html Other Sciences Tue, 24 May 2011 07:56:34 EST news225442539 The May 2011 issue of Earth Magazine reports on the research of SMU paleontologists in the SMU Huffington Department of Earth Sciences. http://phys.org/news223626428.html Other Sciences Tue, 03 May 2011 07:27:24 EST news223626428