Palaeontology
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You may have missed…
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...
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Lessons from the past
Could Indigenous wisdom help us create a “good Anthropocene”?
The Anthropocene marks relentless and increasingly grave environmental degradation as the Earth faces tipping points ...
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Profile
Odd jobs: paleodermatologist
Looking skin deep can provide new discoveries, at least in this vanguard field of research.
All manner of unusual jobs exist in science, but perhaps one of the most remarkable is the expertise of Phil Bell, of...
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Flamboyance in the age of dinosaurs
Dressed to impress, but also to intimidate.
Scientists suggest this is the most elaborately dressed-to-impress dinosaur ever described. Credit: © Bob Nicholls...
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There’s more than one way to grow a beak
Madagascar fossil adds new twist to bird evolution.
A new fossil discovered on the ever-surprising island of Madagascar suggests ancient Mesozoic bird beaks and faces we...