Dinosaur Soft Tissue Could Be Biofilm Remnant
	In 2005, a team of paleontologists rushed to claim that they had discovered soft tissue in a dinosaur fossil belonging to a Tyrannosaurus rex that lived more than 65 million years ago. Now, a new study contests the findings of the previous one by revealing that the so-called soft tissue sample is in fact only a biofilm or slime at best. "I believed that preserved soft tissues had been found, but I had to change my opinion ... [read more >>]
	30 July 2008, 06:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Complete Dinosaur Skeleton Found in Mongolia
	The fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur closely related to the famous giant carnivorous Tyrannosaurus, unearthed in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in 2006 by Japanese and Mongolian scientists, is now presented by the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences as one of the most complete fossils of this species ever found. The skeleton is said to belong to a dinosaur known as Tarbosaurus, measuring about 2 meters in length, which walked the Earth so ... [read more >>]
	25 July 2008, 03:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Unique Fossil Brings Evidence of Antarctica's Warm Past
	A new fossil found in the Dry Valleys in the eastern regions of Antarctica, known to have lived some 14 million years ago in an ancient lake, now provides scientists with new evidence that indeed the south polar region of the planet was much warmer in the past. The fossil is a class of crustacea known as ostracods and it was discovered by undergraduate student Richard Thommasson during research at the North Dakota State University laborato ... [read more >>]
	23 July 2008, 02:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Likely Ancestor of Modern Flatfish Found
	The fossils of a fish that might have lived in the shallow reef waters of Europe some 50 million years ago, have been recently identified by researchers as belonging to a possible ancestor for modern flatfish. But unlike modern flatfish which have the eyes on one side of the head and which swim on their sides along the seafloor, the fossils appear to indicate that the fish had one eye on one side of the head and the other atop the skull, s ... [read more >>]
	11 July 2008, 07:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dinosaur Era Feather Reveals Its Colors
	The long debate over a complexly colored fossilized feather belonging to a species of bird that flew in the Earth's skies some 100 million years ago has been settled recently by scientists after they revealed that the coloring patterns were of biological origin, and might contain clues to some of the hues displayed by ancient birds and particular species of dinosaurs. "It solves a conundrum. The banding looks so life ... [read more >>]
	09 July 2008, 04:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Duckbill Fossil Found in Montana
	During a tour of a region where nearly eight years ago a mummified duckbill was found, a public relations coordinator from the Texas museum discovered the fossil of a duckbilled dinosaur that roamed the Earth some 75 million years ago. Leonardo, as the mummified specimen found in Montana was named, is currently on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The author of the discovery, Steven Cowan, a 22 year old employe ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2008, 05:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Missing Link Between Frogs and Salamanders May Have Been Found
	The fossil of an animal that lived on Earth some 290 million years ago, having features resembling those of frogs and salamanders alike, has been found during the 1990s in Texas by a paleontologist and colleagues from the Smithsonian Institution. The fossil remained in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History until 2005, when it was rediscovered by at team of researchers from the University of Calgary who identified it as a ... [read more >>]
	22 May 2008, 05:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Americans, Found in Chile: They Lived 14,500 Years Ago
	It is becoming increasingly clear now that people inhabited Americas earlier than what has been previously believed. A study published in April, based on human coprolites (fossilized feces) found in a cave in Oregon, came up with a date for the remains, of about 14,300 years, which is ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2008, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Earliest Toothless Bird: 131 Million Years Old
	So far, China has provided us with a trove of dinosaur discoveries, including their evolutionary offshoot, the birds. Those fossils explain a lot of the evolution of the first birds. An impressively preserved new Chinese fossil bird fills a gap in this evolution. Eoconfuciusornis ("early Confuciusornis"), described in the Science in China journal, represents a missing link between Archaeopteryx, the oldest found bir ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 03:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 7 Mammal-Like Reptiles
	Mammals evolved from reptiles, that's for sure. Primitive living mammals, the monotremes (platypus and spiny anteaters) clearly show this, via many traits, like egg-laying, bones, and... even their penises. But the reptiles from which mammals evolved no longer exist. In fact, if birds evolved from dinosaurs, the reptiles from which the mammals evolved disappeared even before them. In fact, they ruled the Earth before the ... [read more >>]
	19 April 2008, 06:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Australian Mammals
	Mammals are supposed to have bloomed after the disappearance of the dinosaur, 65 million-year ago. During the dinosaur times, all mammals must have been shrew-like creatures hiding during the day and only getting out in the night to hunt for insects. But a fossil jawbone of Teinolophos, an 122 million-year old fossil from southeastern Australia, shows that in the middle of the dinosaur era, platypuses already existed, and they are spec ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2008, 09:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Vertebrates
	Chinese researchers from the University of Xi'an found in 1999, in Kunming area, Yunan (southern China) vertebrate fossils older than 500 Ma. Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys had muscles with a "W" shape (myomeres) in transversal section of the body and a cartilaginous skull and spine. The previous oldest vertebrate fossils were 480 Ma old, but from the Cambrian (542-488 Ma) when most living groups of animals h ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 11:03GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

First Elephants Lived in the Water
	Today we associate elephants with forests and savannas. But a new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that an elephant ancestor called Moeritherium made its home in rivers and swamps. In fact, the closest relatives of the elephants are the ... [read more >>]
	15 April 2008, 03:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Two-Legged Snake
	Today, amongst all living snakes, only male boas and pythons keep vestiges of limbs: two tiny spurs located near their cloaca, used for gripping the female while having sex. But snakes evolved from legged reptiles, like monitor lizards, with which they share some traits (like similar tongues and venom ... [read more >>]
	11 April 2008, 03:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Technique Peeks Inside Opaque Amber
	Opaque amber looks like a stone. The naked eye cannot see anything in this material. But, because it is a fossil resin, it can incorporate fossils like any other amber. So far, palaeontologists have found in amber from fossil insects and ... [read more >>]
	03 April 2008, 03:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Horny Mexican Dinosaur
	One of the most familiar dinosaur images is that of the veggie horned rhino called ceratopsid dinosaur. A new member has been added to this gallery: a Mexican species with large neck frill and three giant horns that lived on a lush beach environment 72 Ma ago (in the Late Cretaceous). The species was found in Coahuila desert, once the bottom of a sea whose shores were roamed by various dinosaurs. The new species is related to the Tricer ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2008, 05:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A 62-Million-Year-Old Marine Crocodile
	Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs (if we exclude birds). Surprisingly or not, they evolved from land animals, fact revealed for example by their longer hind limbs. The first crocodiles during the Triassic (early Mesozoic) even ran on two feet! Now, a Brazilian team has described in a study published in the "Proceedings of The Royal Society B" a pointy-muzzled crocodile that could have dominate ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 05:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest European: 1.2 Million Years Old
	Millions of years ago, we started our evolution in Africa. Then, at a given moment, we began to colonize the rest of the world. When did humans enter Europe for the first time? In June 2007, archaeologists discovered the oldest European human fossils in the Sima del Elefante Cave, 60-ft (18 m) long, at the Sierra Atapuerca archaeological site in the Burgos Province (northern Spain), just 15 mi (25 km) east of the city of Burgos, not ve ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 03:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Short History of Horses' Evolution
	Of all the domestic animals, the horses have been permanently associated with the progresses of human culture and civilization. It boosted human trade, migrations and conquests. The era of the technology let the role of the horse obsolete. The horse was domesticated in the Asian steppes. Today, the genus Equus, comprising the horse, has 7 species: horse (E. caballus), donkey and African wild ass (E. asinus), onager or Asian w ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2008, 11:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest and Most Complete North American Loch Ness Monster
	One group of huge marine reptiles that dominated the seas during the dinosaur eras (Jurassic and Cretaceous, 200 to 65 Ma ago) was represented by the plesiosaurs, long-necked small-headed carnivore animals with flippers resembling those of the sea turtles. These were the animals that inspired the legend of the Loch Ness monster. Now, one of the oldest North American plesiosaurs, belonging to a completely new lineage in this group, has ... [read more >>]
	25 March 2008, 04:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The First Human Ancestor Walking on Two: 6 Million Years Old
	Walking on two feet is one of the main traits of the human being. A new study published in the journal "Nature" shows that the six-million-year-old Kenyan hominin could have been the first species able to walk bipedally, based on bone anatomy. "This provides really solid evidence that these fossils actually belong to an upright-walking early human ancestor," said lead author Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologis ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2008, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

One Miracle: The Petrified Forest
	One of the wonders of the American southwest is found in northeastern Arizona: an enormous petrified forest, a real geological treasure the scientists learned about to the end of the 19th century. Petrified Forest National Park from Arizona comprises a surface of 218,533 acres (341.5 sq mi; 885 km²) of petrified wood, mostly of the coniferous species Araucarioxylon arizonicum, 170 million years old, since the Jurassic epoch. ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 10:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mummified Dinosaur Uncovered
	There are mummies which can be older than those of the ancient pharaohs. Some even older than 65 Ma. An amazingly preserved "dinosaur mummy", containing a lot of tissues and bones inside skin wrapping, is being brought to light in North Dakota's state museum. Dakota is an Edmontosaurus, one of the largest duckbilled dinosaurs and was discovered in southwestern North Dakota in 2004. The fossilized skin of the 67-Ma-old dino ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 03:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest North American Primate: 55 Million Years Old
	Today, North America is a land of prairies and oak or coniferous forests. But once, it was a tropical paradise and like any tropical environment, monkeys were present. Now, a research published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" describes the earliest-known primate to inhabit North America. The 55.8 million-year-old creature weighed about 28g, measured 7.5cm long and fed on insects and fruits. The team has main ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 04:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Living Turtles, More Modern Than Previously Thought
	Turtles are grandmas amongst present-day reptiles. And it's not only about their slower movements. They appeared 250 Ma ago, before snakes, crocodiles and dinosaurs emerged. But even the oldest known turtles already had a well developed shell. Modern turtles differ a lot from those early ancestors, but many rushed to attribute them a very old age. A newly-found fossil backs the idea that modern turtles have a much more recent origin. ... [read more >>]
	14 March 2008, 04:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Pterosaurs Had Teen Sex
	These were the first flying vertebrates, and the largest: some had a wingspan of over 10 m (33 ft). But pterosaurs were precocious also from other points of view: they had teen sex, before reaching full size. These are the results of a research published in the journal Biology Letters, which analyzed the growth rings in hundreds of bones belonging to the species Pterodaustro guiñazui that inhabited Argentine 100-million years ... [read more >>]
	13 March 2008, 04:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fossil Pygmy Bones Found in Palau
	Nowadays, relict populations of the pygmy race are found not only in central Africa, but also in many parts of southern Asia: Aeta in Philippines, Semang in Malaya, Mani in Thailand, the Andamanese tribes from the Andaman archipelago, Rampasasa from Flores island, and many pygmy tribes also inhabited the mountains of New Guinea or in Vanuatu archipelago. A new research published in the science journal "PLoS ONE" describes pygmy f ... [read more >>]
	11 March 2008, 04:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Largest Echolocating Bat Ever!
	The flight-adapted fragile bones of the bats are hard to fossilize. That's why scientists have been complaining about the scarce number of bat fossils, for obtaining clues about how mammals evolved for flight. After the description of the oldest known bat species, Onychonycteris finneyi, 52.5 million years old, encountered in Wyoming's fossil-rich Green River formation, which was fully adapted to flight, a new bonanza of foss ... [read more >>]
	10 March 2008, 04:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The "Hobbit" of Flores Was Just a Cretin!
	The small 18,000-year-old human skull discovered in Flores Island, Indonesia, in 2003, provoked quite a stir. Many people came up with hypotheses of a new hominid species, Homo floresiensis, that evolved locally from Homo erectus and co-existed with modern humans, Homo sapiens. Others suggested that the skull could have belonged to a person suffering from a genetic condition known as microcephaly ("small head"). The resear ... [read more >>]
	10 March 2008, 03:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Symbols of the Flowers
	The rose is by far the flower most charged of symbolism and meaning. 25 Ma years old petrified fossils of roses (Rosa sp) have been found. The oldest known human representation of a flower is that of a rose. It appears on a silver medal found in a tomb from the Altay Mountains region (southern Siberia) and it seems to be 7.000 years old. 5,000 years ago, the rose was cultivated in the Middle East (Babylon, Persia and Syri ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 09:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Human Is 7.2 Million Years Old!
	When Toumai ("Hope of Life" in the local Goran language) was found in Chad in 2001, that changed all the theories about human evolution. This ape-like human lived in a forested area, sharing its habitat with other monkeys and apes. It probably spent some time in the trees and perhaps walked upright. A French team has determined the age of Toumai at between 6.8 and 7.2 million years old. When the nearly-complete crani ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 04:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 9 Patagonian Dinosaurs
	180 Ma ago, northern dinosaurs were separated, on a supercontinent called Laurasia, from the southern dinosaurs, located on a supercontinent called Gondwana. About 10 new species of dinosaurs are found annually, and the hotbed of southern dinosaur discoveries is represented by Patagonia (the southern part of Argentina). 1. Argentinosaurus is the largest dinosaur ever found. It was a sauropod that could reach 35 m (115 ft) in ... [read more >>]
	28 February 2008, 10:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Duck-Billed Sail-Headed Dinosaur Found in Mexico
	72 millions year ago, the Mexican beaches were not roamed by tourists and mariachi, but by dinosaurs. One of them has been described in the "Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology": a large duck-billed veggie dinosaur with a sail-shaped crest. Velafrons coahuilensis lived just 7 million years before the dinosaur demise. This species witnessed the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaur world, as the impact took place in the Yucatan Pe ... [read more >>]
	27 February 2008, 05:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's Oldest Bunny: It Lived 53 Million Years Ago!
	Bunnies may look like fluffy eared rodents, but they are not. They have their own zoological order called Lagomorpha, which comprises hares, rabbits and a Guinea pig-like family of mammals called pikas. Now, scientists have found what appears to be the oldest remains of an ancestor of today's rabbits and hares. The 53-million-year-old fossils are made of small ankle bones and they were uncovered in Gujarat (central Indi ... [read more >>]
	26 February 2008, 05:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 10 European Dinosaurs
	There are around 800 species of dinosaurs described worldwide. Dinosaur fossils have been found in all continents, Antarctica included. But, if you ask somebody about dinosaurs, the most popular are those discovered in North America, like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. Other hotbeds of dinosaur discoveries are Argentina and China-Mongolia, while Saharan dinosaurs have been made famous by the expeditions led by Paul Sereno. But wh ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 10:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A 100,000-Year-Old Human Skull from China: Is it a Hybrid?
	Classical theory says Homo sapiens left Africa 50-60,000 years ago, entering Asia. But a new human skull, dated to be 80,000 to 100,000 years old, found in China, could rewrite the human evolution. The shattered fossil has been found in the Henan province, by a team led by Chinese archaeologist Li Zhanyang. While the Chinese report states that the fossil came from a modern human, experts are more tempted to say that the skull belongs to an ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 03:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Largest Frog Ever: 40 cm (1.3 ft) Body Length!
	World's largest frog is the African Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) from central Africa: 13 in (33 cm) in body length (legs excluded), and weighs up to 7 lb (3 kg). But a newly discovered fossil frog from Madagascar dwarfed it: the armored amphibian had a body 16-inch (40 cm) long (and probably weighed around 5 kg (11 lb)! The fossil frog lived 65 million to 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, during the last 5 million ... [read more >>]
	19 February 2008, 02:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dinosaur-Era Australian Crayfish Show Once There Was Only One Continent!
	Crayfish are found an all continents and adapted to diverse freshwater environments, but even if they resemble tiny lobsters, the freshwater decapods cannot survive in the saltwater of the sea, that's why biologists have been puzzled for 150 years by their wide range. Now, extremely old fossils explain this on their origin during the time when a sole continent was found: Pangaea. "Crayfish body fossils and burrows discovered ... [read more >>]
	07 February 2008, 04:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Modern Birds Appeared 100 Million Years Ago!
	The oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, lived 150 million years ago, but this species and its relatives can be hardly differentiated from dinosaurs. And for about 90 million years on, fossil birds had been toothed, being very different from the modern types. Fossils resembling modern birds started to appear around the demise of the dinosaurs. But a new research published in the journal "BMC Biology" and made by a team ... [read more >>]
	06 February 2008, 03:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Ancestor of Modern Crocodiles Found in Brazil!
	Crocodiles are the living relatives of the only surviving Archosauria group of reptiles (birds are directly evolved from dinosaurs, thus living dinosaurs). But what you may have not suspected is that crocodiles evolved from land animals (even if you are accustomed with the image of the beast stalking in the water), fact revealed for example by their longer hind limbs. Crocodiles during the early Mesosoic era even ran on two feet! In Oct ... [read more >>]
	01 February 2008, 03:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Horseshoe Crab Ever: 445 Million Years Old!
	These weird creatures are called horseshoe crabs, but they have nothing to do with the actual crabs. They are not crustaceans, but related with the extinct trilobites, sea scorpions (that could reach 3 m or 10 ft in length) and with the living scorpions. They are amongst the largest living arthropods and are considered living fossils. That's because the oldest horseshoe crab known is a 350-million-year-old fossil from th ... [read more >>]
	29 January 2008, 03:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Cross-Section Dinosaur Skin Found!
	This is more than bones and fossilized feces: the fossilized skin of this dinosaur found in northeastern China (Liaoning Province) even had a wound, and it is by now the best sample of dinosaur skin. The 130-million-year-old Psittacosaurus (parrot lizard) was a sheep sized beaked dino, forebear of the later more famous horned dinosaurs, like Triceratops and its relatives. This fossilized dino had a bite wound on its lower left side com ... [read more >>]
	17 January 2008, 02:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Beetles Are Much Older than Dinosaurs
	There are more described beetle species than all the other described animal species. And it is believed that there are even more undescribed species, by the order of millions, to be included into the beetles' Coleoptera Order, with 17 "superfamilies" and 168 families. Many will disappear before description, as we destroy their environments. But, a new research published in the journal "Science" explains this t ... [read more >>]
	27 December 2007, 05:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The First Whale: a Cat Sized Deer-Like Veggie!
	The blue whale can be up to 33 m (100 ft) in length and weigh 181 tons, yet its recently described ancestor was just a large cat sized deerlike hoofed mammal. The semiaquatic creature, called Indohyus, inhabited southern Asia some 48 million years ago, and has been described in a research published in the journal "Nature". It was an artiodactyl (even-toed ungulate), from the group comprising pigs, sheep, hippos, deer and gira ... [read more >>]
	20 December 2007, 02:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Did the First Birds 'Take off' from the Ground?
	Bird flight has fascinated humans since ever. And by over 150 years, with the discovery of the oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, a vivid debate divides scientists into two camps: those who say birds evolved from ground-dwelling ancestors and developed flight by taking off from the ground and those saying that birds evolved from tree-dwellers and flight first appeared by gliding from branches. Most fossils sustain the second theory. Now the f ... [read more >>]
	08 November 2007, 07:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dinosaurs Breathed Just Like Birds
	Only few doubt that birds are just living dinosaurs. Besides clues like feathers and similar bones, a new research comes with novel proofs that dinosaurs did resemble birds. The researchers at the University of Manchester point in their article published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences that dinosaurs breathed just like birds. Fossil bones of theropod dinosaurs, like the Velociraptor, from which ... [read more >>]
	07 November 2007, 06:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fast Melting Glaciers Expose 7,000 Years Old Fossil Forest
	Melting ice has ‘provided’ us with frozen mammoths and even frozen people, like the famous Oetzi from the Alps, as if they were kept in a fridge. No wonder that melting glaciers in Western Canada, which recently reached a historic minimum, have unveiled 7,000-year-old tree stumps. The prehistoric tree stumps were left behind by the retreating melting glaciers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, some 40 mi (60 km) north of Vancouver, British ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 06:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Known Jellyfish: 505 Million Years Old
	Imagine you find your grandma's jelly fossilized hundreds of millions of years later… Such an unusual find took place in Utah: the oldest till now discovered fossil of a jellyfish, over 500 million years old. Such soft-bodied animals rarely leave behind fossils, unlike animals with hard shells or skeletons (bones or crusts). "The fossil record is biased against soft-bodied life forms such as jellyfish, because they leav ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 04:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Our Teeth - 165 Million Years Old
	Your teeth pattern rooted within the first reptiles struggling to turn into mammals. A new fossil mammal species from the Jurassic era, during the full blown dinosaur evolution, reveals that the basic tooth pattern encountered in all mammal species today emerged independently at least twice in the past, and also points that early mammals were much varied than previously believed. The remains of Pseudotribos robustus were discovered in 1 ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 03:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Technique "Revives" 50 Million Years Old Spider
	Sophisticated techniques are needed to investigate living tiny spiders. But what about a 50-million-year-old one? Such a fossil has been "revived" in an amazing 3D imagery. Dr David Penney from The University of Manchester and researchers from Ghent University in Belgium described the use of ‘Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography’ (VHR-CT) for a ‘digitally dissect’ of extremely small fossils, showing off th ... [read more >>]
	31 October 2007, 05:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia