Clues

How did one of the world’s biggest dinosaurs walk? Footprints offer clues | Science

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How does an animal as big as a semitruck move around? That’s a question scientists have long asked about sauropods, the largest known dinosaurs, which may have weighed as much as 70 tons. Did they walk like a giraffe, picking up their two left and right legs in a dignified march? Or like an elephant, … Read more

Geneticists find clues to sudden unexplained child deaths | Science

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In 1997, Laura Gould put her 15-month-old daughter, Maria, down for a nap and returned to find her unresponsive. She had died suddenly, with no clues to explain the tragedy besides a fever the night before. When her daughter’s body was sent to the medical examiner’s office, “I thought they’d call me in an hour … Read more

Pavlovian Experiments on Locusts Provide New Clues on How Smell Works in The Brain

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From the fragrance of brewing coffee to the smell of rain soaking the soil, distinguishing scents is one of the reasons that having a sense of smell is wonderful. But how smells such as coffee can be understood by our brain, no matter the season, location, or time is a complex question to answer. There’s … Read more

A Rare, Isolated Script Invented From Scratch Holds Clues to The Evolution of Writing

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A rare script from a language in Liberia has provided some new insights into how written languages evolve. “The Vai script of Liberia was created from scratch in about 1834 by eight completely illiterate men who wrote in ink made from crushed berries,” says linguistic anthropologist Piers Kelly, now at the University of New England, Australia. … Read more

Breathtaking Fossil of Baby Dinosaur Tucked in Its Egg Yields New Evolutionary Clues

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A rare and exquisitely preserved dinosaur embryo tucked inside an egg like a baby bird has been unearthed in southern China, providing an “unprecedented glimpse” into dinosaur development.   With a posture that resembles modern bird embryos close to hatching, the fossilized embryo is a remarkable find which raises the possibility that evolutionary links between … Read more

New Clues about the Origins of Biological Intelligence

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In the middle of his landmark book On the Origin of Species, Darwin had a crisis of faith. In a bout of honesty, he wrote, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and … Read more