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Categories: Offbeat: Earth and Climate, Paleontology: General
Published New details of Tully monster revealed
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source For more than half a century, the Tully monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium), an enigmatic animal that lived about 300 million years ago, has confounded paleontologists, with its strange anatomy making it difficult to classify. Recently, a group of researchers proposed a hypothesis that Tullimonstrum was a vertebrate similar to cyclostomes (jawless fish like lamprey and hagfish). If it was, then the Tully monster would potentially fill a gap in the evolutionary history of early vertebrates. Studies so far have both supported and rejected this hypothesis. Now, using 3D imaging technology, a team in Japan believes it has found the answer after uncovering detailed characteristics of the Tully monster which strongly suggest that it was not a vertebrate. However, its exact classification and what type of invertebrate it was is still to be decided.
Published How can a pollinating insect be recognized in the fossil record?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Insect pollination is a decisive process for the survival and evolution of angiosperm (flowering) plants and, to a lesser extent, gymnosperms (without visible flower or fruit). There is a growing interest in studies on the origins of the relationship between insects and plants, especially in the current context of the progressive decline of pollinating insects on a global scale and its impact on food production. Pollinating insects can be recognized in the fossil record, although to date, there has been no protocol for their differentiation. Fossil pollinators have been found in both rock and amber deposits, and it is in rock deposits that the first evidence of plant pollination by insects is being studied across the globe. But how can we determine which was a true insect pollinator in the past?
Published Learning about what happens to ecology, evolution, and biodiversity in times of mass extinction
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Studying mass extinction events from the past can build our understanding of how ecosystems and the communities of organisms within them respond. Researchers are looking to the Late Devonian mass extinction which happened around 370 million years ago to better understand how communities of organisms respond in times of great upheaval.
Published Professor unearths the ancient fossil plant history of Burnaby Mountain
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New research led by a paleobotanist provides clues about what plants existed in the Burnaby Mountain area (British Columbia, Canada) 40 million years ago during the late Eocene, when the climate was much warmer than it is today.
Published Apes may have evolved upright stature for leaves, not fruit, in open woodland habitats
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Anthropologists have long thought that our ape ancestors evolved an upright torso in order to pick fruit in forests, but new research from the University of Michigan suggests a life in open woodlands and a diet that included leaves drove apes' upright stature.
Published Oldest bat skeletons ever found described from Wyoming fossils
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have described a new species of bat based on the oldest bat skeletons ever recovered. The study on the extinct bat, which lived in Wyoming about 52 million years ago, supports the idea that bats diversified rapidly on multiple continents during this time.
Published Starting small and simple -- key to success for evolution of mammals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The ancestors of modern mammals managed to evolve into one of the most successful animal lineages -- the key was to start out small and simple, a new study reveals.
Published Humans need Earth-like ecosystem for deep-space living
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Can humans endure long-term living in deep space? The answer is a lukewarm maybe, according to a new theory describing the complexity of maintaining gravity and oxygen, obtaining water, developing agriculture and handling waste far from Earth.
Published Lightning strike creates phosphorus material
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A lightning strike in New Port Richey, Florida, led to a chemical reaction creating a new material that is transitional between space minerals and minerals found on Earth. High-energy events, such as lightning, can cause unique chemical reactions. In this instance, the result is a new material -- one that is transitional between space minerals and minerals found on Earth.
Published Male yellow crazy ants are real-life chimeras
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers discovered that males of the yellow crazy ant have maternal and paternal genomes in different cells of their body and are thus chimeras.
Published Warm liquid spewing from Oregon seafloor comes from Cascadia fault, could offer clues to earthquake hazards
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Oceanographers discovered warm, chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor about 50 miles off Newport. They named the unique underwater spring 'Pythia's Oasis.' Observations suggest the spring is sourced from water 2.5 miles beneath the seafloor at the plate boundary, regulating stress on the offshore subduction zone fault.
Published Woolly mammoths evolved smaller ears and woolier coats over the 700,000 years that they roamed the Siberian steppes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A team of researchers compared the genomes of woolly mammoths with modern day elephants to find out what made woolly mammoths unique, both as individuals and as a species. The investigators report that many of the woolly mammoth's trademark features -- including their woolly coats and large fat deposits -- were already genetically encoded in the earliest woolly mammoths, but these and other traits became more defined over the species' 700,000+ year existence. They also identified a gene with several mutations that may have been responsible for the woolly mammoth's miniscule ears.
Published Spike in major league home runs tied to climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study identifies the influence of climate change in the greater number of home runs in major league baseball in recent years. The researchers found that more than 500 home runs since 2010 can be attributed to warmer, thinner air caused by global warming, and that rising temperatures could account for 10% or more of home runs by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. The researchers examined how the average number of home runs per year could rise for each major league ballpark with every 1-degree Celsius increase in the global average temperature.
Published Ice sheets can collapse faster than previously thought possible
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Ice sheets can retreat up to 600 meters a day during periods of climate warming, 20 times faster than the highest rate of retreat previously measured. An international team of researchers used high-resolution imagery of the seafloor to reveal just how quickly a former ice sheet that extended from Norway retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, about 20,000 years ago.
Published Analysis of dinosaur eggshells: Bird-like Troodon laid 4 to 6 eggs in a communal nest
(via sciencedaily.com) An international research team has determined that Troodon, a dinosaur very close to modern birds, was a warm-blooded animal (an endotherm), but had a reproductive system similar to that of modern reptiles. The scientists applied a new method which allowed for accurate determination of the temperature when the egg's carbonate shell was formed. Furthermore, the researchers showed that Troodon laid 4 to 6 eggs per clutch. As nests with up to 24 Troodon eggs had been found, the scientists conclude that several Troodon females laid their eggs in communal nests.
Published Path to net-zero carbon capture and storage may lead to ocean
(via sciencedaily.com) Engineering researchers have developed a novel way to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the 'infinite sink' of the ocean. The approach uses an innovative copper-containing polymeric filter and essentially converts CO2 into sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) that can be released harmlessly into the ocean. This new hybrid material, or filter, is called DeCarbonHIX (i.e., decarbonization through hybrid ion exchange material). The research has demonstrated a 300 percent increase in the amount of carbon captured compared with existing direct air capture methods.
Published Predatory dinosaurs such as T. rex sported lizard-like lips
(via sciencedaily.com) A new study suggests that predatory dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, did not have permanently exposed teeth as depicted in films such as Jurassic Park, but instead had scaly, lizard-like lips covering and sealing their mouths.
Published Ancient giant amphibians swam like crocodiles 250 million years ago
(via sciencedaily.com) Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a new study.
Published A reconstruction of prehistoric temperatures for some of the oldest archaeological sites in North America
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists often look to the past for clues about how Earth's landscapes might shift under a changing climate, and for insight into the migrations of human communities through time. A new study offers both by providing, for the first time, a reconstruction of prehistoric temperatures for some of the first known North American settlements.
Published Pulsing ultrasound waves could someday remove microplastics from waterways
(via sciencedaily.com) Colorful particles of plastic drift along under the surface of most waterways. These barely visible microplastics -- less than 5 mm wide -- are potentially harmful to aquatic animals and plants, as well as humans. Now, a team reports a two-stage device made with steel tubes and pulsing sound waves that removes most of the plastic particles from real water samples.