Category Archive for "Latest on Evolution"

In a first, fossil dinosaur feathers found near the South Pole

Ten exquisitely preserved fossil feathers found in Australia represent the first solid evidence that feathered dinosaurs lived at Earth’s poles, paleontologists report in an upcoming study in the journal Gondwana Research. The feathers date back 118 million years to the early Cretaceous period, when Australia was much farther south and joined with Antarctica to form…

Beetle fossilised in amber reveals earliest evidence of prehistoric pollination as scientists discover the insect had flower traces on its feet when it died 99million years ago

The earliest-known example of a pollinating insect has been found preserved in amber dating back to around 99 million years ago, researchers report. The fossilised tumbling flower beetle was found with pollen still stuck to its legs preserved in amber from deep inside a mine in northern Myanmar's Hukawng Valley. The find pushes back the…

Scientists find early humans moved through Mediterranean earlier than believed

An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed. The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years…

New data on the evolution of plants and origin of species

There are over 500,000 plant species in the world today. They all evolved from a common ancestor. How this leap in biodiversity happened is still unclear. In the upcoming issue of Nature, an international team of researchers, including scientists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, presents the results of a unique project on the evolution of plants.…

The last mammoths died on a remote island

The last woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean; they died out 4,000 years ago within a very short time. An international research team from the Universities of Helsinki and Tübingen and the Russian Academy of Sciences has now reconstructed the scenario that could have led to the mammoths' extinction. The researchers…

These Butterflies Evolved to Eat Poison. How Could That Have Happened?

The caterpillar of the monarch butterfly eats only milkweed, a poisonous plant that should kill it. The caterpillars thrive on the plant, even storing its toxins in their bodies as a defense against hungry birds. For decades, scientists have marveled at this adaptation. On Thursday, a team of researchers announced they had pinpointed the key…

Here’s what happened on the day an asteroid hit Earth and killed the dinosaurs

A new study has uncovered the after-effects of an asteroid impact which wiped out 75% of life on the planet. Scientists analysed rocks which filled the gigantic impact crater left by the doomsday space rock, which caused an explosion equivalent to 10 billion of the nuclear bombs which destroyed Hiroshima in World War II. A…

A 550-million-year-old worm was one of the first animals to move and make decisions, a new study says

Who would've thought an ancient worm would fill in an important blank in evolution? Tracks from a worm-like creature were preserved in fossils nearly 550 million years old. Researchers said the fossils indicate the earliest evidence of animals making decisions and moving on their own, according to a study published in Nature. The team of…

First cells may have emerged because building blocks of proteins stabilized membranes

Life on Earth arose about 4 billion years ago when the first cells formed within a primordial soup of complex, carbon-rich chemical compounds. These cells faced a chemical conundrum. They needed particular ions from the soup in order to perform basic functions. But those charged ions would have disrupted the simple membranes that encapsulated the…

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction. And when their populations crashed, emptying a land whose diversity of large animals equaled…

Category Archives: Latest on Evolution