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Categories: Geoscience: Geomagnetic Storms, Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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New examinations of skeletons and animal embryos have allowed researchers to discover how mammals developed protruding, flexible noses. This study contributes to uncovering the origin of mammals' strong sense of smell and creates the potential for new animal models, like chickens or frogs, that are often used in lab experiments to investigate facial development disorders such as cleft palate.

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The Earth's atmosphere has been used as a 'laboratory' to carry out a physics experiment which could help to improve the performance of GPS.

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Researchers trace the first tusks back to ancient mammal relatives that lived before the dinosaurs and shed light on the evolution of mammalian tusks by first defining what makes a tusk a tusk.

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Humans did not cause woolly mammoths to go extinct -- climate change did. For five million years, woolly mammoths roamed the earth until they vanished for good nearly 4,000 years ago -- and scientists have finally proved why. The hairy cousins of today's elephants lived alongside early humans and were a regular staple of their diet -- their skeletons were used to build shelters, harpoons were carved from their giant tusks, artwork featuring them is daubed on cave walls, and 30,000 years ago, the oldest known musical instrument, a flute, was made out of a mammoth bone.

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Researchers found that complex teeth, a hallmark of mammals, also evolved several times in reptiles, prompting the evolutionary success of plant-eating lizards. However, contrary to mammals their tooth evolution was not unidirectional.

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Although there has been evidence of our species living in rainforest regions in Southeast Asia from at least 70,000 years ago, the poor preservation of organic material in these regions limits how much we know about their diet and ecological adaptations to these habitats. An international team of scientists has now applied a new method to investigate the diet of fossil humans: the analysis of stable zinc isotopes from tooth enamel. This method proves particularly helpful to learn whether prehistoric humans and animals were primarily eating meat or plants.

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When an asteroid struck 66 million years ago and wiped out dinosaurs not related to birds and three-quarters of life on Earth, early ancestors of primates and marsupials were among the only tree-dwelling (arboreal) mammals that survived, according to a new study.

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Two thirds of all mammals vanished from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 30 million years ago, when the climate on Earth changed from swampy to icy. But we are only finding out about this mass extinction now. Researchers examined hundreds of fossils from multiple sites in Africa, built evolutionary trees, and pinpointed each species' first and last known appearances. The climate shift 'was a real reset button.'

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The first 3D reconstructions of extinct Cretaceous birds reveal a reptilian tooth replacement pattern.

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As early as 18,000 years ago, humans in New Guinea may have collected cassowary eggs near maturity and then raised the birds to adulthood, according to an international team of scientists, who used eggshells to determine the developmental stage of the ancient embryos/chicks when the eggs cracked.

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When researchers first started to look at animal bones from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco, they wanted to learn about the diet and environment of early human ancestors who lived there between 120,000 and 90,000 years ago. But they soon realized that the bones they had found weren't just meal scraps. They'd been shaped into tools, apparently for use in working leather and fur.

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Peacock tails are just one example of how evolution walks a line between favoring traits that make it easier to survive, and traits that make it easier to find a mate. In a new study, scientists have found evidence of this age-old conundrum in the form of a fossil bird from the Early Cretaceous with a pair of elaborate tail feathers longer than its body.

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A new study has discovered the oldest known cavities found in a mammal, the likely result of a diet that included eating fruit.

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The conditions under which early members of the genus Homo dispersed outside Africa were analysed on a broader scale, across Europe during the Early and Middle Pleistocene. The model is based on the comparison of functional trait distribution of large herbivorous mammals in sites with archaeological or fossil evidence of human presence and in sites, which lack evidence of human presence.

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Bird dispersal movements are thought to depend on complex demographic and genetic factors. Researchers show that there may be a simpler explanation: bird dispersal distances depend on the morphology and flight efficiency of the wings. Bird populations and the capacity of species to move across the landscape can determine which species will thrive and which may become endangered.

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The rise and fall of Earth's land surface over the last three million years shaped the evolution of birds and mammals, a new study has found, with new species evolving at higher rates where the land has risen most.

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Scientists have discovered three new species of ancient creatures from the dawn of modern mammals that hint at rapid evolution immediately after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

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A major space weather event could have a catastrophic impact on Earth, disabling communications and electrical systems. Researchers are using the Frontera supercomputer to develop new geomagnetic forecasting methods and improve the Geospace Model used by NOAA for operational purposes. They hope to increase the lead time for space weather events from 30 minutes to 1-3 days, localize space weather forecasts, and provide uncertainty estimates.

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A new study has revealed that over the last 20,000 to 50,000 years, birds have undergone a major extinction event, inflicted chiefly by humans, which caused the disappearance of about 10 to 20 percent of all avian species. According to the researchers, the vast majority of the extinct species shared several features: they were large, they lived on islands, and many of them were flightless.

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Understanding the Sun's magnetic dynamo could help predict solar weather, such as potentially dangerous geothermal storms, solar flares and sunspots. Mathematicians have proposed a new model of the Sun that matches observed data.