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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Paleontology: Dinosaurs

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Fossils of small plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, have been found in a 100-million year old river system that is now Morocco's Sahara Desert. This discovery suggests some species of plesiosaur, traditionally thought to be sea creatures, may have lived in freshwater.

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A new study refutes a provocative claim made earlier this year that fossils classified as the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex represent three separate species. The rebuttal finds that the earlier proposal lacks sufficient evidence to split up the iconic species.

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For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data suggests that the mysterious hominin belonged to an extinct maternal branch of modern humans that might have contributed to the origin of Native Americans.

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An international team has discovered a new big, meat-eating dinosaur, dubbed Meraxes gigas, that provides clues about the evolution and anatomy of predatory dinosaurs such as the Carcharodontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. Meraxes measured around 36 feet from snout to tail tip and weighed approximately 9,000 pounds.

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There is new evidence that ancient high latitudes, to which early dinosaurs were largely relegated, regularly froze over, and that the creatures adapted -- an apparent key to their later dominance.

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New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world's earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and the ancestral populations of the people living there today.

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Scientists reveal an advanced, innovative method that they have developed and used to detect nonvisual traces of fire dating back at least 800,000 years -- one of the earliest known pieces of evidence for the use of fire. The newly developed technique may provide a push toward a more scientific, data-driven type of archaeology, but -- perhaps more importantly -- it could help us better understand the origins of the human story, our most basic traditions and our experimental and innovative nature.

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Researchers say people with developmental dyslexia have specific strengths relating to exploring the unknown that have contributed to the successful adaptation and survival of our species.

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Palaeontologists have identified the remains of one of Europe's largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and lived around 125 million years ago.

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The fossil of a still-unnamed species provides the first known record of the abelisaurid group of theropods from a middle Cretaceous-aged (approximately 98 million years old) rock unit known as the Bahariya Formation, which is exposed in the Bahariya Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt.

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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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New research moves back the moment of the radiation of squamates -- the group of reptiles that includes lizards, snakes and worm lizards -- to the Jurassic, a long time before current estimates.

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Precipitation more than temperature influenced the distribution of herbivorous dinosaurs in what is now Alaska, according to new research. The finding discusses the distribution of hadrosaurids and ceratopsids -- the megaherbivores of the Late Cretaceous Period, 100.5 million to 66 million years ago.

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A set of dinosaur footprints in Spain has unusual features because the dinosaur that made the tracks had an injured foot, according to a new study.

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Extinct for 66 million years, T. rex still inspires speculation about its anatomy, behavior and fierce physique. One conundrum: its peculiarly short forelimbs, which have relatively limited mobility. While scientists have suggested explanations, a paleontologist puts the proposals to the test and finds them wanting. He hypothesizes that the arms reduced in size to limit damage, possibly fatal, when a pack of T. rexes descended on a carcass with their bone-crunching teeth.

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Prehistoric mammals bulked up, rather than develop bigger brains, to boost their survival chances once dinosaurs had become extinct, research suggests.

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Spinosaurus is the largest predatory dinosaur known -- over two metres longer than the longest Tyrannosaurus rex -- but the way it hunted has been a subject of debate for decades. In a new paper, palaeontologists have taken a different approach to decipher the lifestyle of long-extinct creatures: examining the density of their bones.

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New research has revealed that soil erosion and wildfires contributed to a mass extinction event 201 million years ago that ended the Triassic era and paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs in the Jurassic period.

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Scientists describe the find of a new softshell turtle from the end of the Cretaceous Period.

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Relatively small, but fearsome-looking stegosaur measured about 2.8 meters (9 feet) from nose to tail -- but scientists can't tell whether the remains are those of an adult or juvenile.