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Categories: Environmental: Wildfires, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology
Published Tanks of the Triassic: New crocodile ancestor identified
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes before going extinct around 200 million years ago. Today, their fossils are found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.
Published Earth's earliest forest revealed in Somerset fossils
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The oldest fossilized forest known on Earth -- dating from 390 million years ago -- has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of South West England.
Published Fossils of giant sea lizard with dagger-like teeth show how our oceans have fundamentally changed since the dinosaur era
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Fossils of a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived 66 million years ago, show a dramatically more biodiverse ocean ecosystem to what we see today.
Published Fossil named 'Attenborough's strange bird' was the first in its kind without teeth
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new fossil, named 'Attenborough's strange bird' after naturalist and documentarian Sir David Attenborough, is the first of its kind to evolve a toothless beak. It's from a branch of the bird family tree that went extinct in the mass extinction 66 million years ago, and this strange bird is another puzzle piece that helps explain why some birds -- and their fellow dinosaurs -- went extinct, and others survived to today.
Published Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World'
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other functional RNA strands, while also allowing new variants of the molecule to emerge over time. These remarkable capabilities suggest the earliest forms of evolution may have occurred on a molecular scale in RNA, and also bring scientists one step closer to re-creating autonomous RNA-based life in the laboratory.
Published 2020 extreme weather event that brought fires and snow to western US
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The same weather system that led to the spread of the devastating Labor Day wildfires in 2020 brought record-breaking cold and early-season snowfall to parts of the Rocky Mountains. Now, new research is shedding light on the meteorology behind what happened and the impacts of such an extreme weather event.
Published Scientists ID burned bodies using technique used for extracting DNA from woolly mammoths, Neanderthals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to research.
Published Slimming down a colossal fossil whale
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same weight range as modern whales and smaller than the largest blue whales ever recorded.
Published Study finds drought fuels invasive species after wildfires
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California's coastal sage scrub ecosystems.
Published Change in gene code may explain how human ancestors lost tails
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like monkeys.
Published Cooler, wetter parts of Pacific Northwest likely to see more fires, new simulations predict
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate continues to get warmer and drier.
Published High resolution techniques reveal clues in 3.5 billion-year-old biomass
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyze the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia is one of these rare sites: there are rocks there that are around 3.5 billion years old containing traces of the microorganisms that lived at that time. A research team has now found new clues about the formation and composition of this ancient biomass, providing insights into the earliest ecosystems on Earth.
Published Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats has long been in flux
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source It has been long assumed that Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats was formed as its ancient namesake lake dried up 13,000 years ago. But new research has gutted that narrative, determining these crusts did not form until several thousand years after Lake Bonneville disappeared, which could have important implications for managing this feature that has been shrinking for decades to the dismay of the racing community and others who revere the saline pan 100 miles west of Salt Lake City. Relying on radiocarbon analysis of pollen found in salt cores, the study concludes the salt began accumulating between 5,400 and 3,500 years ago, demonstrating how this geological feature is not a permanent fixture on the landscape.
Published Butterfly and moth genomes mostly unchanged despite 250 million years of evolution
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Comparison of over 200 high-quality butterfly and moth genomes reveals key insights into their biology, evolution and diversification over the last 250 million years, as well as clues for conservation.
Published An awkward family reunion: Sea monsters are our cousins
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain -- the part of the brain controlling vital functions like blood pressure and heart rate -- of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit.
Published Did neanderthals use glue? Researchers find evidence that sticks
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought.
Published Wildfires linked to surge in mental health-related emergency department visits
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new studyshows wildfires lead to an increase of anxiety-related emergency department visits in the western United States, amplifying the concerning parallel trajectory of two escalating public health crises -- mental health and climate change.
Published Mystery solved: The oldest fossil reptile from the alps is an historical forgery
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Palaeontological analysis shows that a renowned fossil thought to show soft tissue preservation is in fact just paint. The fossil discovered in 1931 was thought to be an important specimen for understanding early reptile evolution. While not all of the celebrated fossil is a forgery, scientists urge caution in how the fossil is utilized in future.
Published Ancient retroviruses played a key role in the evolution of vertebrate brains
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or 'retrotransposon' is essential for myelin production in mammals, amphibians, and fish. The gene sequence, which they dubbed 'RetroMyelin,' is likely a result of ancient viral infection, and comparisons of RetroMyelin in mammals, amphibians, and fish suggest that retroviral infection and genome-invasion events occurred separately in each of these groups.
Published Anthropologists' research unveils early stone plaza in the Andes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Located at the Callacpuma archaeological site in the Cajamarca Basin of northern Peru, the plaza is built with large, vertically placed megalithic stones -- a construction method previously unseen in the Andes.