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Categories: Mathematics: Puzzles, Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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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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Children's outbursts of rage while playing digital games are causing both concern and public debate around the topic. Taking a novel approach to gamer rage, a new study examines the topic from a child's perspective, finding complex reasons for gamer rage in children.

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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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A method known as quantum key distribution has long held the promise of communication security unattainable in conventional cryptography. An international team of scientists has now demonstrated experimentally, for the first time, an approach to quantum key distribution that is based on high-quality quantum entanglement -- offering much broader security guarantees than previous schemes.

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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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Many people and companies worry about sensitive data getting hacked, so encrypting files with digital keys has become more commonplace. Now, researchers have developed a durable molecular encryption key from sequence-defined polymers that are built and deconstructed in a sequential way. They hid their molecular key in the ink of a letter, which was mailed and then used to decrypt a file with text from a classic story.

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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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Using radio transmitters, scientists have gained new insights into the behavior of medium ground finches in the Galapagos Islands. A study reveals daily movement patterns covering an area equivalent to the size of 30 soccer fields.

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New research suggests that determining evolutionary trees of organisms by comparing anatomy rather than gene sequences is misleading. The study shows that we often need to overturn centuries of scholarly work that classified living things according to how they look.

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Paleontologists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded, like modern mammals and birds, or cold-blooded, like modern reptiles. In a new paper, scientists are unveiling a new method for studying dinosaurs' metabolic rates, using clues in their bones.

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Scientists settle debate surrounding species that laid eggs exploited by early Australian people around 50,000 years ago. Shell proteins point to Genyornis, which was among the 'mega-fauna' to go extinct a few thousand years after humans arrived on the continent.

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Researchers shed light on the way Quetzalcoatlus would have flown, finding that the dinosaur's flying dynamics were actually very different to how it has been depicted in popular culture.

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Australia has suffered a significant drop in teenage maths proficiency in the past 20 years -- sliding from 11th in the OECD rankings to 29th place out of 38 countries, prompting widespread debate over potential curriculum changes. One researcher says hand gestures could stop the slide.