The study of the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, has opened up new research paths that can broaden our understanding of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens. A study led by the University of Barcelona has made an estimation of the time when some of the genetic variants that characterise our…
Read More “When did the genetic variations that make us human emerge?” »
Fossil tooth analysis by Southern Cross University geochemist Dr. Renaud Joannes-Boyau has played a central role in an international collaboration that has properly identified the earliest humans. Dr Renaud Joannes-Boyau with a Homo Naledi tooth [Credit: Southern Cross University] The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates that…
Read More “Analysis of fossil tooth brings to light earliest humans from southern Africa” »
Oregon State University fossil research has revealed an exquisite merger of art and science: a long-stemmed flower of a newly described plant species encased in a 30-million-year-old tomb together with a parasitic wasp. Oregon State University fossil research has revealed an exquisite merger of art and science: a long-stemmed flower of a newly described plant…
Read More “Entombed together: Rare fossil flower and parasitic wasp make for amber artwork” »
An international team of researchers led by LMU paleontologist Bettina Reichenbacher has managed to classify fossils of one of the most species-rich fish groups into a family tree for the first time. Rhyacichthys guilberti [Credit: © Philippe Keith] Gobies are one of the most species-rich groups of ocean and freshwater fish. Found throughout the world…
ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) revealed new research based on a cache of fossils that contains the brain and nervous system of a half-billion-year-old marine predator from the Burgess Shale called Stanleycaris. Stanleycaris belonged to an ancient, extinct offshoot of the arthropod evolutionary tree called Radiodonta, distantly related to modern insects and spiders. These findings shed…
An analysis of ancient DNA from a 100,000-year-old polar bear has revealed that extensive hybridization between polar bears and brown bears occurred during the last warm interglacial period in the Pleistocene, leaving a surprising amount of polar bear ancestry in the genomes of all living brown bears. The skull of an ancient polar bear, nicknamed…
Read More “100,000-year-old polar bear genome reveals ancient hybridization with brown bears” »
A fossilized lower jaw has led an international team of palaeontologists, headed by Bastien Mennecart from the Natural History Museum Basel, to discover a new species of predator that once lived in Europe. These large predators belong to a group of carnivores colloquially known as “bear dogs.” They could weigh around 320 kilograms, appeared 36…
In a new study, researchers led by the University of Iowa announced the discovery of two new species of crocodiles that roamed east Africa between 18 million and 15 million years ago before mysteriously disappearing. The species, called giant dwarf crocodiles, are related to dwarf crocodiles currently found in central and west Africa. Researchers led…
Read More “Researchers discover crocodile species that likely preyed on human ancestors” »
The human middle ear—which houses three tiny, vibrating bones—is key to transporting sound vibrations into the inner ear, where they become nerve impulses that allow us to hear. The 3D braincase of Shuyu [Credit: IVPP] Embryonic and fossil evidence proves that the human middle ear evolved from the spiracle of fishes. However, the origin of…
Read More “Chinese fossils show human middle ear evolved from fish gills” »
Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH) form part of a team of Chinese, Spanish, and French scientists that has just published a study of what may prove to be China’s most ancient human fossil, in the Remains of jawbone and teeth of Gongwangling skull [Credit: Xing Song] This site…
Read More “‘Homo erectus’ from Gongwangling could have been the earliest population in China” »
