Evolution
The Evolution of Cumbia Music in Monterrey
The book on the evolution of birds and flight just got a couple new pages as fossilized footprints in Australia turn out to be the oldest known bird tracks on the continent down under.
It might 520 million years old, but a recent fossil discovery holds the key to a very important step in the evolutionary history of the modern day nervous system. The fossilized remains of a three-centimeter-long distant ancestor of chelicerates, a group that includes spiders and scorpions, marks the world's oldest complete nervous system ever found.
Life on Earth as we know it may have had an earlier start than previously thought. New research indicates that oxygen, a key component in the formation of complex organisms, was present in the Earth's atmosphere 700 million years before previous estimates.
The Maniraptorans were small, meat-eating dinosaurs, and lived approximately 150 million years ago. Theropods first appeared 230 million years ago and possessed many early vestiges of birds, including hollow, air-filled bones, wishbones, and feathers.
As a society where the institution of marriage underpins the general concept of monogamy, we may be surprised to find out that it's not love that drives us to choose to pair up, it's the threat of infanticide.
Humans and apes such as chimpanzees might share 99 percent of the same DNA, but one eccentric difference that might have aided in us becoming the more dominant species that we can throw faster.
If a certain duo is right, then humans of the future will look rather...bulbous. According to a pair of visionaries, mankind will gain mastery over our genetics and begin furthering some strange looking but vital characteristics over the next 100,000 years.
Communicative gestures used by human infants, baby chimpanzees, and baby bonobos are all incredibly similar, asserts a new study, which also claims humans inherited gestures from a 6-million-year-old shared ancestor.
Genitalia can be considered one of nature's most important treasures - so vital we've taken to calling some of ours 'jewels.' Birds, however, seemed to have gotten screwed out of their share. Sure, some species like ducks are equipped with body-length corkscrews, but many birds lack a penis. A new study, however, may have figured out the mystery behind the Case of the Missing Bird Penis.
When and how life began forming on Earth is still a mystery, but scientists have no uncovered another piece of the puzzle. According to a new study, reactive phosphorous, which is a key component to the formation of life, was carried to Earth by meteorites around 3.5 billion years ago.
A team of scientists led by Yale University Professor Tyler Lyson claim to have filled in a 55-million year hole in the fossil record with their recent examination of Eunotosaurus, the first species to form the protective shell of modern turtles.
Turtle shells are some of the most unique armor platings in the natural world, and after a careful combing of the turtle fossil record, researchers have unearthed more clues about the shell's origins through the study of the 260-million-year-old ancestor, Eunotosaurus.
Why and where humans first began walking upright on two feet has never been definitively answered, and a new study out of the University of York only looks to add more fuel to the debate. According to York archaeologists, the move to walk upright on two feet came about because of the rugged landscape of East and South Africa.
Scientists have unearthed two ancient fossils that could better help explain how the split between apes and monkeys occurred. The discoveries, dating back 25 million years ago, are the oldest of their kind.
