Molecular clock dates for the first animals to walk the Earth don't match the fossil record. Comparing the disparate DNA of two different species and extrapolating how long it would take for them to mutate from a common ancestor ...
In a special issue of Science, an international team of scientists has for the first time thoroughly described Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. This research, ...
Archaeology
Oct 1, 2009
1
1
Humans and our closest relatives, living apes, display a remarkable diversity of types of locomotion—from walking upright on two legs to climbing in trees and walking using all four limbs.
Evolution
Jan 29, 2024
0
667
Giants once roamed the karst plains of southern China, three-meter tall apes weighing in at 250 kilograms. These very distant primate relatives—Gigantopithcus blacki—went extinct before humans arrived in the region, with ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 10, 2024
5
375
Fossils of a new group of animal predators have been located in the Early Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil locality in North Greenland. These large worms may be some of the earliest carnivorous animals to have colonized the ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 3, 2024
2
3604
Asian colobines, also known as leaf-eating monkeys, have been on the planet for about 10 million years. Their ancestors crossed land bridges, dispersed across continents, survived the expansion and contraction of ice sheets ...
Evolution
Jun 1, 2023
0
69
When the Kinks' Ray Davies penned the tune "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains," the vanishing locomotives stood as nostalgic symbols of a simpler English life. But for a paleontologist at the University of Kansas, the replacement ...
Evolution
Mar 28, 2023
2
511
Today Venus has a dry, oxygen-poor atmosphere. But recent studies have proposed that the early planet may have had liquid water and reflective clouds that could have sustained habitable conditions. Researchers at the University ...
Fossils of a tiny sea creature that died more than half a billion years ago may compel a science textbook rewrite of how brains evolved.
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 25, 2022
3
576
A groundbreaking new research project has analyzed the evolution of the placental mammal skull using 3D scans of 322 specimens housed in more than 20 international museum collections, and crafted a new model of how mammals ...
Evolution
Oct 28, 2022
0
380
