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Categories: Geoscience: Volcanoes, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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There have been heated debates over the size of Jurassic animals. The speculation was set to continue, but now a chance discovery in an Oxfordshire museum has led to palaeontologists publishing a paper on a Jurassic species potentially reaching a whopping 14.4 meters -- twice the size of a killer whale.

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Surveying the body sizes of Earth's living organisms, researchers found that the planet's biomass -- the material that makes up all living organisms -- is concentrated in organisms at either end of the size spectrum.

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A fossil arthropod entombed in 100-million-year-old Burmese amber has been identified as a new genus and species of froghopper, known today as an insect with prodigious leaping ability in adulthood following a nymphal stage spent covered in a frothy fluid.

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Humans inherited genetic material from Neanderthals that affects the shape of our noses, finds a new study.

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An international research team has for the first time successfully isolated ancient human DNA from a Paleolithic artefact: a pierced deer tooth discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. To preserve the integrity of the artefact, they developed a new, nondestructive method for isolating DNA from ancient bones and teeth. From the DNA retrieved they were able to reconstruct a precise genetic profile of the woman who used or wore the pendant, as well as of the deer from which the tooth was taken. Genetic dates obtained for the DNA from both the woman and the deer show that the pendant was made between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago. The tooth remains fully intact after analysis, providing testimony to a new era in ancient DNA research, in which it may become possible to directly identify the users of ornaments and tools produced in the deep past.

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Traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk provide the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, according to a new study.

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Scientists found parallels between the neural circuitry that guides locomotion in sea slugs and in more complex animals like mammals.

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We now know more about the diet of a prehistoric creature that grew up to two and a half meters long and lived in Australian waters during the time of the dinosaurs, thanks to the power of x-rays. Researchers used micro-CT scans to peer inside the fossilized stomach remains of a small marine reptile -- a plesiosaur nicknamed 'Eric' after a song from the comedy group Monty Python -- to determine what the creature ate in the lead up to its death.

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New fossils in amber have revealed that beetles fed on the feathers of dinosaurs about 105 million years ago, showing a symbiotic relationship of one-sided or mutual benefit.

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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.

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The 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the largest U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a new study. The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, one of the largest natural explosions in more than a century, generated a mega-tsunami with waves up to 45-meters high (148 feet) along the coast of Tonga's Tofua Island and waves up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country's most populated island.

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Material left on the seafloor by bronze-age underwater volcanic eruptions is helping researchers better understand the size, hazards and climate impact of their parent eruptions, according to new research.

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The amino acid abundances of two Ryugu particles were measured and compared with their rocky components. The results demonstrate the important role that water plays in the formation of amino acids on the giant precursors of asteroids like Ryugu. Our solar system formed from a molecular cloud, which was composed of gas and dust that was emitted into the interstellar medium (ISM), a vast space between stars. On collapse of the molecular cloud, the early sun was formed, with a large disk of gas and dust orbiting it. The dusty material collided to produce rocky material that would eventually grow in size to give large bodies called planetesimals.

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When the human remains found on board the Swedish warship Vasa (1628) were investigated, it was determined that the skeleton designated G was a man. New research now shows that the skeleton is actually from a woman. About thirty people died when Vasa sank on its maiden voyage in Stockholm, 1628. We cannot know who most of them were, only one person is named in the written sources. When the ship was raised in 1961 it was the scene of a comprehensive archaeological excavation, in which numerous human bones were found on board and examined.

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For the first time, researchers have pinpointed a date when elite Mongol Empire people were drinking yak milk, according to a new study.

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Researchers are learning more about ancient graffiti -- and their intriguing comparisons to modern graffiti -- as they produce a state-of-the-art 3D recording of the Temple of Isis in Philae, Egypt.

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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.

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Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a new study.

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Volcanic relics scattered throughout the Australian landscape are a map of the northward movement of the continent over a 'hotspot' inside the Earth, during the last 35 million years.

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Samples from the asteroid Ryugu collected by the Hayabusa2 mission contain nitrogenous organic compounds, including the nucleobase uracil, which is a part of RNA.