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Categories: Engineering: Biometric, Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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An international team has reconstructed the genome organization of the earliest common ancestor of all mammals. The reconstructed ancestral genome could help in understanding the evolution of mammals and in conservation of modern animals. The earliest mammal ancestor likely looked like the fossil animal 'Morganucodon' which lived about 200 million years ago.

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A new report outlines a model law for facial recognition technology to protect against harmful use of this technology, but also foster innovation for public benefit.

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Forensic dramas on TV make it seem easy to determine when fingerprints were left at the scene of a crime. In reality, the oils in fingerprints degrade over time, and it's difficult to figure out their age. Now, researchers have discovered molecular markers for changes to these oils over a seven-day time period -- information that could be used to estimate fingerprints' ages more accurately.

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1 in 5 adult female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds look like males. New research shows that this is a rare case of 'deceptive mimicry' within a species: Females with male-like plumage are trying to pass themselves off as males, and as a result receive a benefit in the form of reduced aggression from males.

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Did the first ancestors of whales pick up where the mosasaurs left off 66 million years ago, after the extinction of all the large predatory marine reptiles? A study has looked into the possible convergences in morphology and behavior that may exist between these two groups of large marine predatory animals.

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Approximately 13.5 million years ago, north-west Queensland was home to an unusual and particularly tiny species of crocodile and now scientists are unlocking its secrets.

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To investigate whether paleoclimatic temperature shifts are correlated with body size changes, biologists decided to test this hypothesis using tetraodontiform fishes as a model group.

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A new study shows that 87 genes have been affected by deletions or short insertions during the course of the mammoth's evolution. The researchers note that their findings have implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including the woolly mammoth.

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Researchers successfully captured CT images of an entire woolly mammoth tusk. Researchers were able to do a full scan of the tusk in its entirety -- or in toto -- using a newer clinical CT scanner. The new technology allows for large-scale imaging without having to do multiple partial scans.

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Researchers develop the 'photoswitching fingerprint analysis'. A unique technology that for the first time allows the analysis of molecular processes and the regulation of individual proteins in living cells with sub-10 nm spatial resolution. The application ranges from biological to medical research.

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Whether by the spear or the plow, humans have been homogenizing the mammal communities of North America for 10,000-plus years, says a new analysis of 8,831 fossils representing 365 species.

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Which group of mammals has the more 'primitive' reproductive strategy -- marsupials, with their short gestation periods, or humans and other placental mammals, which have long gestation periods? For decades, biologists viewed marsupial reproduction as 'more primitive.' But scientists have discovered that a third group of mammals, the long-extinct multituberculates, had a long gestation period like placental mammals. Since multituberculates split off from the rest of the mammalian lineage before placentals and marsupials had even evolved, these findings question the view that marsupials were 'less advanced' than their placental cousins.

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Warm-bloodedness is a key mammal trait, but it's been a mystery when our ancestors evolved it. A new study points to an unlikely source for telling a fossil animal's body temperature: the size of tiny structures in their inner ears. The fluid in our ears becomes runnier at higher temperatures, so animals with warm bodies don't need as big of canals for it to flow through. Turns out, mammal ancestors became warm-blooded nearly 20 million years later than previously thought.

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Australia's first fossil vulture has been confirmed more than 100 years after it was first described as an eagle. The discovery highlights the diversity of Australian megafauna and other animals many thousands of years ago in the Pleistocene period.

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According to a new study, the first louse to take up residence on a mammalian host likely started out as a parasite of birds. That host-jumping event tens of millions of years ago began the long association between mammals and lice, setting the stage for their coevolution and offering more opportunities for the lice to spread to other mammals.

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The fossil record tells us about ancient life through the preserved remains of body parts like bones, teeth and turtle shells. But how to study the history of soft tissues and organs, which can decay quickly, leaving little evidence behind? In a new study, scientists use gene expression patterns, called transcriptomics, to investigate the ancient origins of one organ: the placenta, which is vital to pregnancy.

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Australian palaeontologists have described a new genus of giant fossil kangaroo from the mountains of central Papua New Guinea. The new description of the fossil kangaroo has found that, rather than being closely related to Australian kangaroos, it most likely belongs to a unique genus of more primitive kangaroo found only in PNG.

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Researchers have developed an artificial 'nose' that can identify individuals from their breath. Built with a 16-channel sensor array that can detect different compounds found in a person's breath, the olfactory sensor system has the potential to become another option in the biometric security toolkit. Combined with machine learning, the 'artificial nose' was able to authenticate up to 20 individuals with an average accuracy of more than 97%.

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In a project aimed at developing intelligent tools to fight child exploitation, computer scientists have developed a system to analyze the noise produced by individual cameras. This information can be used to link a video or an image to a particular camera.

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Up to now, protecting hardware against manipulation has been a laborious business: expensive, and only possible on a small scale. And yet, two simple antennas might do the trick.