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Categories: Geoscience: Volcanoes, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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Right at the bottom of the deep sea, the first very simple forms of life on earth probably emerged a long time ago. Today, the deep sea is known for its bizarre fauna. Intensive research is being conducted into how the number of species living on the sea floor have changed in the meantime. Some theories say that the ecosystems of the deep sea have emerged again and again after multiple mass extinctions and oceanic upheavals. Today's life in the deep sea would thus be comparatively young in the history of the Earth. But there is increasing evidence that parts of this world are much older than previously thought.

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Researchers report that the flexible shoulders and elbows that allow us to throw a football or reach a high shelf may have evolved as a natural braking system that let our primate ancestors get out of trees without dying. The researchers used sports-analysis software to compare the climbing movements of chimpanzees and small monkeys called mangabeys. While the animals climb up trees similarly, the researchers found that the shallow, rounded shoulder joints and shortened elbow bones that chimps have -- similar to humans -- allow them to fully extend their arms above their heads when climbing down, holding onto branches like a person going down a ladder to support their greater weight. When early humans left forests for the grassy savanna, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and using tools for hunting and defense. The findings are among the first to identify the significance of 'downclimbing' in the evolution of apes and early humans.

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What is the risk of a volcano erupting? To answer this question, scientists need information about its underlying internal structure. However, gathering this data can take several years of fieldwork, analyses and monitoring, which explains why only 30% of active volcanoes are currently well documented. A team has developed a method for rapidly obtaining valuable information. It is based on three parameters: the height of the volcano, the thickness of the layer of rock separating the volcano's reservoir from the surface, and the average chemical composition of the magma.

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A team of researchers has recreated one of the scents used in the mummification of an important Egyptian woman more than 3500 years ago.

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Scientists use cutting edge scanning technology to reconstruct 'fossil monster' that lived half a billion years ago. The creature's soft anatomy was well-preserved, allowing it to be imaged almost completely: It fills a gap in our understanding of the evolution of arthropods such as insects and crustaceans.

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Researchers have discovered the fossils of two new abelisaurs in Morocco, showing the diversity of dinosaurs in this region at the end of the Cretaceous period.

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An international team of scientists found that volcanic eruptions can cause the Pacific Walker Circulation to temporarily weaken, inducing El Niño-like conditions. The results provide important insights into how El Niño and La Niña events may change in the future.

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For the first time, a group of researchers have successfully extracted ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick. The analysis provides a fascinating insight into the diversity of plant species cultivated at that time and place, and could open the way to similar studies on clay material from other sites and time periods.

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When a sabertooth tiger called out, what noise did it make -- a mighty roar or a throaty purr? A new study examined the data behind the arguments for each vocalization and found that the answer was more nuanced than they thought -- and that it could depend on the shape of a few small bones.

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A research team has used advanced sequencing technology to analyze Ötzi's genome to obtain a more accurate picture of the Iceman's appearance and genetic origins.

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Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler, was a 15th century prince and military leader who was so terrifying, he's thought to have inspired the creation of the literary vampire, Count Dracula. Now, a scientific examination of his letters is giving new insights into his health. Researchers say the results suggest that Vlad probably had skin and respiratory conditions and could have even cried literal tears of blood.

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Fossilized feces preserve evidence of ancient parasites that infected an aquatic predator over 200 million years ago, according to a new study.

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New research links chemical changes in seawater to volcanic activity and changes.

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A remarkable new fossil from China reveals for the first time that a group of reptiles were already using whale-like filter feeding 250 million years ago.

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Geoscientists have long thought that water -- along with shallow magma stored in Earth's crust -- drives volcanoes to erupt. Now, thanks to newly developed research tools, scientists have learned that gaseous carbon dioxide can trigger explosive eruptions.

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Kama?ehuakanaloa (formerly L??ihi Seamount), a submarine Hawaiian volcano located about 20 miles off the south coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i, has erupted at least five times in the last 150 years, according to new research led by Earth scientists at the University of Hawai'i at M?noa.

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Ancient pathogens that escape from melting permafrost have real potential to damage microbial communities and might potentially threaten human health, according to a new study.

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Caecilians are an illusive type of snakelike amphibian that live in aquatic and subterranean environments. In some species, mothers produce a special type of nutrient-rich skin that juveniles consume, similar to the way in which humans breastfeed their children. A new study shows this behavior passes on microbes to juvenile caecilians, inoculating them to jump-start a healthy microbiome.

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Sabertooth cats make up a diverse group of long-toothed predators that roamed Africa around 6-7 million years ago, around the time that hominins -- the group that includes modern humans -- began to evolve. By examining one of the largest global Pliocene collections of fossils in Langebaanweg, north of Cape Town in South Africa, researchers present two new sabertooth species and the first family tree of the region's ancient sabertooths. Their results suggest that the distribution of sabertooths throughout ancient Africa might have been different than previously assumed, and the study provides important information about Africa's paleoenvironment.

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Scientists have described an unusual fossil from around 125 million years ago in China that shows a dramatic moment in time when a carnivorous mammal attacked a larger plant-eating dinosaur. The two animals are locked in mortal combat, and it's among the first evidence to show actual predatory behavior by a mammal on a dinosaur. The fossil's presence challenges the view that dinosaurs had few threats from their mammal contemporaries during the Cretaceous, when dinosaurs were the dominant animals.