Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.
Evolution
Nov 30, 2022
1
567
Hundreds of animals eat fruit, from toucans to fruit bats to maned wolves to humans. But most fruit-bearing plants evolved relatively recently in Earth's history, showing up for the first time in the Cretaceous, the final ...
Ecology
Aug 16, 2022
0
263
If you had to describe a male peacock's tail feathers, you might pick words like "dazzling" or "beautiful." You probably wouldn't go with "stealthy," "aerodynamic," or "subtle." Peacock tails are just one example of how evolution ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2021
0
126
A Cretaceous-age, crow-sized bird from Madagascar would have sliced its way through the air wielding a large, blade-like beak and offers important new insights on the evolution of face and beak shape in the Mesozoic forerunners ...
Archaeology
Nov 25, 2020
3
1197
New research suggests that the first dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs—a finding that contradicts established thought. The study, led by the American Museum of Natural History and Yale University and published today in the ...
Archaeology
Jun 17, 2020
1
360
A Rutgers-led study sheds light on one of the most enduring mysteries of science: How did metabolism—the process by which life powers itself by converting energy from food into movement and growth—begin?
Biochemistry
Jul 1, 2019
3
3
To determine where a sound is coming from, animal brains analyze the minute difference in time it takes a sound to reach each ear—a cue known as interaural time difference. What happens to the cue once the signals get to ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 18, 2019
0
480
During the late Cretaceous period, more than 65 million years ago, birds belonging to hundreds of different species flitted around the dinosaurs and through the forests as abundantly as they flit about our woods and fields ...
Archaeology
Nov 13, 2018
4
218
Dinosaurs are often depicted as fierce creatures, baring their teeth, with tongues wildly stretching from their mouths like giant, deranged lizards. But new research reveals a major problem with this classic image: Dinosaurs ...
Archaeology
Jun 20, 2018
0
843
Were dinosaurs really fast, aggressive hunters like the ones depicted in the movie "Jurassic World"? Or did they have lower metabolic rates that made them move more like today's alligators and crocodiles? For 150 years, scientists ...
Archaeology
Oct 13, 2015
12
1304
