News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Spring is a time for budding flowers, tender green leaves and baby animals. But 66 million years ago, that gentle season instead brought mass death and carnage from Earth’s catastrophic impact with a massive space rock. Earth was forever changed after an enormous asteroid smashed into our planet at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million … Read more
Spring is a time for budding flowers, tender green leaves and baby animals. But 66 million years ago, that gentle season instead brought mass death and carnage from Earth’s catastrophic impact with a massive space rock. Earth was forever changed after an enormous asteroid smashed into our planet at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million … Read more
On a spring day 66 million years ago, as flowers bloomed and baby birds hatched in what is now North Dakota, a ball of fire streaked across the sky and wiped out nearly three-quarters of life on Earth. So says a new high-resolution study of fossilized fish bones, which pinpoints the season of the Cretaceous-Paleogene … Read more
In a first for paleontology, scientists have found hundreds of tiny, fossilized fecal pellets crammed inside a fish braincase dating to about 9 million years ago. The wee fossil poops, also known as coprolites, were deposited by scavengers – probably worms – that devoured the fish’s decaying head, including its brain. As they munched the flesh … Read more
Two tiny fossils, each smaller than an aspirin pill, contain fossilized nerve tissue from 508 million years ago. The bug-like Cambrian creatures could help scientists piece together the evolutionary history of modern-day spiders and scorpions. Still, it’s not clear exactly where these fossils – both specimens of the species Mollisonia symmetrica – fit on the arthropod … Read more
We take it for granted that virtually every habitat on Earth is alive with the sounds of animals, from the haunting songs of whales in the oceans to the riotous symphony of birds, frogs and insects in forests to the hubbub of humans and our technological creations in cities the world over. Yet for most … Read more
The largest ichthyosaur fossil ever found in the UK has been unearthed in the Rutland Water Nature Reserve Life 10 January 2022 By Jason Arunn Murugesu The ichthyosaur skeleton found at Rutland Water Nature Reserve MATTHEW POWER PHOTOGRAPHY Gigantic dolphin-like marine reptiles once swam the seas. Now, a near complete fossilised skeleton of a 180-million-year-old … Read more
A suite of plant and animal fossils from a site in New South Wales date back about 16 million years to a time when the region was blanketed in lush rainforests Life 7 January 2022 By Chen Ly Fossil of a mygalomorph spider from the McGraths Flat, Australia Michael Frese An immaculately preserved fossil of … Read more
The arid heart of Australia may not easily support life now, but once, many aeons ago, it was lush and teeming. What is now arid desert and dry shrub- and grasslands was once thick with dense forests, alive with life. In one of these grasslands, in the Central Tablelands of NSW, paleontologists have found … Read more
We sort of take for granted the depictions of prehistoric beasties illustrated in the books of our childhood. But piecing together Earth’s murky past is a lot harder than it sounds. Scientists have to rely on fragmentary bones, weathered footprints, impressions in rock – these don’t always capture the fine details of the complex, … Read more