*Northeast China fossil provides new information about earliest ancestors of today’s mammals*
A well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today’s mammal species–the placental mammals. (more…)
Scientists seeking to understand the origin of the human mind may want to look to honeybees — not ancestral apes — for at least some of the answers, according to a University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist.
CU-Boulder Research Associate John Hoffecker said there is abundant fossil and archaeological evidence for the evolution of the human mind, including its unique power to create a potentially infinite variety of thoughts expressed in the form of sentences, art and technologies. He attributes the evolving power of the mind to the formation of what he calls the “super-brain,” or collective mind, an event that took place in Africa no later than 75,000 years ago. (more…)
*3.2 million-year-old human predecessor had arches in feet*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Feet arches give humans a spring in their steps, shock absorbing abilities, and stiff platforms to propel themselves forward, allowing them to walk upright consistently. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri and Arizona State University have found proof that arches existed in a predecessor to the human species that lived more than 3 million years ago. This discovery could change scientists’ views of human evolution. The study is being published this week in Science.
Carol Ward, an MU researcher in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences at the MU School of Medicine, and William Kimbel and Donald Johanson, director and founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, studied a 3.2 million-year-old fourth metatarsal of Australopithecus afarensis. A team from the Institute of Human Origins and National Museum of Ethiopia led by Kimbel discovered the fossil in Hadar, Ethiopia. The species is often referred to as “Lucy,” the nickname of the most complete fossil skeleton of the species to be discovered. (more…)
T. rex was the only big carnivore in western North America 65 million years ago that was capable of making such large gouges. Image credit: Nicholas Longrich
It turns out that the undisputed king of the dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, didn’t just eat other dinosaurs but also each other. Paleontologists from the United States and Canada have found bite marks on the giants’ bones that were made by other T. rex, according to a new study published online Oct. 15 in the journal PLoS ONE.
While searching through dinosaur fossil collections for another study on dinosaur bones with mammal tooth marks, Yale researcher Nick Longrich discovered a bone with especially large gouges in them. Given the age and location of the fossil, the marks had to be made by T. rex, Longrich said. “They’re the kind of marks that any big carnivore could have made, but T. rex was the only big carnivore in western North America 65 million years ago.” (more…)
A new study of the High Arctic climate roughly 50 million years ago led by the University of Colorado at Boulder helps to explain how ancient alligators and giant tortoises were able to thrive on Ellesmere Island well above the Arctic Circle, even as they endured six months of darkness each year.
