Salt: Mover and shaker in ancient Maya society

Salt is essential for life. As ancient civilizations evolved from hunters and gatherers to agrarian societies, it has not been clear how people acquired this mineral that is a biological necessity. However, an anthropologist ...

Fossils suggest earlier land-water transition of tetrapod

New evidence gleaned from CT scans of fossils locked inside rocks may flip the order in which two kinds of four-limbed animals with backbones were known to have moved from fish to landlubber.

Why certain fishes went extinct 65 million years ago

Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight into the evolution of bones

A joint team of paleontologists has now for the first time analyzed bone structures in 400 million-year-old fossils of marine life at unprecedentedly high resolution and in 3D. To be able to view these structures, tomography ...

Fossil poop shows fishy lunches from 200 million years ago

A new study of coprolites, fossil poop, shows the detail of food webs in the ancient shallow seas around Bristol in south-west England. One hungry fish ate part of the head of another fish before snipping off the tail of ...

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