Using AI to probe the dawn of animal life
Study of ancient Australian fossils receives funding from NASA.
A joint Australian-US team has a plan to use AI to understand the oldest complex fossils on Earth – and they’ve just ...
Evolution
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Snakes dined out after dinosaurs died out
The emergence of a diverse diet propelled snake evolution.
Around 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs died out. But it wasn’t a sad day for everyone, with mammal and bird evolu...
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Let there be photosynthesis: three billion years of fresh air
Cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis before the Great Oxygenation Event
Long ago, the Earth was filled with unbreathable gases that prohibited the existence of life as we know. But a moment...
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Video
Searching for the dawn of animal life
The new national park preserving Earth’s earliest life.
Drone footage courtesy of Associate Prof Diego C. García-Bellido (South Australian Museum/University of Adelaide). ...
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Huge new fossil species uncovered in Canada
Half-billion-year-old critter belonged to an extinct group of animals.
Palaeontologists have dug up a brand new animal species from the Cambrian era, more than 500 million years ago. Remar...
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The origins of snakes and lizards, speedy asteroids, tree-ring tsunamis and more – here’s what we...
Reptile fossil provides clues to origin of snakes and lizards While palaeontologists know quite a lot about the ea...
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Fossil found in Brazilian police raid is best preserved of its kind
Illegal trade bust reveals a remarkable specimen of a ground-dwelling pterosaur.
An extraordinarily well-preserved pterosaur fossil, fondly referred to as one of the “crown jewels of the Museum of G...
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'Never skip leg day' - Tetrapods evolved superfast
Sustained rapid rates of evolution explain how tetrapods evolved from fish.
When did tetrapods evolve from fish? Around 390 million years ago and it happened really, really quickly, according t...
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Early plants evolved from algae, fossils show
It may be time to reconsider the way plant life has evolved on land, say researchers.
A fresh look at spore-like microfossils has challenged conventional understanding of how plants evolved. In a stud...
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More to learn about evolution from Galápagos finches
An invasive parasite is demonstrating natural selection in action.
Finches on the Galápagos Islands have become famous because of the subtle variations in species between islands. Thes...
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How snakes got their fangs
Scientists crack the code of a toothy reptile mystery.
The mystery of the evolution of snake fangs may have been solved by scientists at Flinders University. Fangs have ...
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Dog days in prehistoric Europe
Remains suggest wild hunting dogs arrived in Europe more than 1.7 million years ago.
Scientists have unearthed the earliest evidence of wild hunting dogs in Europe, from more than 1.7 million years ago ...