Dinosaur study challenges Bergmann's rule
When you throw dinosaurs into the mix, sometimes you find that a rule simply isn't.
When you throw dinosaurs into the mix, sometimes you find that a rule simply isn't.
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 6, 2024
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A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday.
Plants & Animals
Apr 20, 2024
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While we go about our daily lives on Earth, a nuclear-powered robot the size of a small car is trundling around Mars looking for fossils. Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, NASA's Perseverance rover is explicitly intended ...
Astrobiology
Apr 24, 2024
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Researchers led by Satoshi Kamiguchi at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have discovered a greener way to produce ammonia, an essential compound used in fertilizers.
Analytical Chemistry
Apr 15, 2024
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An international team of archaeologists, paleontologists, evolutionists and geoscientists has analyzed ancient shark fossils from the time of the dinosaurs that were recently unearthed in Mexico. In their paper published ...
Californians have had weekend after weekend of cool, stormy weather and the Sierra Nevada has been blessed with a healthy snowpack. But the reality is that even the last few months have been more than 2 degrees hotter than ...
Environment
Apr 21, 2024
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Fuel cells are quickly becoming a viable, clean energy alternative to commonly used fossil fuels, such as gasoline, coal, and oil. Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy resources that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Analytical Chemistry
Apr 10, 2024
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For almost 15 years, scientists have debated whether the Anthropocene should be an official geological epoch marking the profound influence of humans on the planet. Then in March, an international panel of scientists formally ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 4, 2024
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Just 57 companies and nation states were responsible for generating 80% of the world's CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and cement over the last seven years, according to a new report released by the thinktank InfluenceMap. ...
Environment
Apr 4, 2024
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An international team of paleontologists has made a significant discovery in fossils that offer key information about the evolutionary shift from the jaw joint bones to those of the middle ear in early mammals.
Evolution
Apr 3, 2024
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Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, and the evolutionary relationships between taxa (phylogeny) are some of the most important functions of the science of paleontology. Such a preserved specimen is called a "fossil" if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years ago. Hence, fossils range in age from the youngest at the start of the Holocene Epoch to the oldest from the Archaean Eon several billion years old. The observations that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or "absolute" age of the various strata and thereby the included fossils.
Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, such as single bacterial cells only one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs and trees many meters long and weighing many tons. A fossil normally preserves only a portion of the deceased organism, usually that portion that was partially mineralized during life, such as the bones and teeth of vertebrates, or the chitinous exoskeletons of invertebrates. Preservation of soft tissues is rare in the fossil record. Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or feces (coprolites) of a reptile. These types of fossil are called trace fossils (or ichnofossils), as opposed to body fossils. Finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals; these are known as chemofossils or biomarkers.
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