Tightening the dragnet on Denisovans
AI tech tries to sniff out hidden signatures of ancient humans in modern DNA.
Researchers have identified some prime suspects in the biggest ‘who done it’ mystery in human evolution: who were the...
Palaeontology
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How to survive a mass extinction
New study reveals how life on earth recovered after the most devastating mass extinction in geolo...
Life on earth has been assaulted multiple times over its long history, by vicious mass extinctions and crashes in bio...
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How a baby T-Rex bites
Researchers use 3D modelling to examine the jaws of different-sized tyrannosaurs.
Finite element analysis results for an adult Tyrannosaurus rex (FMNH PR 2081) jaw demonstrating a range of biting str...
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Pompeii of prehistoric plants
Excavating the ancestors of seed-bearing plants.
Nearly 300 million years ago, a volcanic eruption in northern China smothered a nearby swamp under half a metre of as...
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Stray science stories from last week to cheer up your Monday.
Please wear a mask when taking selfies with gorillas Gorillas can catch SARS-CoV-2 from humans: in January, it spr...
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Ancient mammoth DNA
The oldest DNA found in the world has been sequenced from a mammoth specimen.
Ancient DNA is famously tough to extract and identify. Until today, the oldest sequenced DNA came from a horse that h...
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Dinosaurs take a hike
Drops in carbon dioxide levels may have allowed herbivorous dinosaurs to get to Greenland.
A new paper pinpoints the date that a large group of dinosaurs made it to Greenland, suggesting that climatic changes...
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Thumbs up (and over)
Manual dexterity emerged two million years ago, study suggests.
Dexterous thumbs – considered a hallmark of being human – were present two million years ago, according to a study pu...
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Rex relative, dog-sized
Cute discovery sheds light on life of baby tyrannosaurs.
A terrifying tyrannosaur – a cousin of T. rex – may have started its life about the size of a border collie. Artis...
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Conversation
Durophagy was in full swing half a billion years ago
The first shell-crushing predators ground up their prey between their legs.
By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, James D. Holmes and John Paterson from the University of New England Shell-c...
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Old dinosaur, new saxophone snout
Only second skull found adds new detail to duckbill dinosaur.
In the arid badlands of New Mexico, paleontologists have uncovered the first new skull of the rare dinosaur Parasauro...
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Past (more) perfect
New technique may sharpen accuracy for measuring past temperatures.
Gravitational waves, marine fossils and climate change don’t usually appear in the same sentence, but a unique intern...