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  • Podcast: Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story
  • TV Highlights This Week

News Articles: fossils

Youcef Sellam in his lab with the fossil filaments found in the gypsum.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

An Algerian scientist splits his gaze between microbes and Mars

Searching for small fossils in big rocks requires specialized tools --tools that scientists could also use to look for evidence of life on Mars in rocks that may be similar on both planets.

March 06, 2025
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
A lump of chewed up crinoid fragments from 66 million years ago is now at a museum in Denmark.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

66 million years ago, a fish chewed up and spit out food. It's now a fossil in Denmark

The fossil was found at a cliff in Denmark. Fossilized vomit is called regurgitalite, and it's a type of trace fossil, which tells scientists about an organism's daily life.

January 29, 2025
|
By:
  • James Doubek
<em>Navaornis</em> in hand.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Small fossil has big implications for bird brain evolution

Birds descended from the dinosaurs, but researchers have known relatively little about how the bird's brain took shape over millions of years. A new fossil sheds light on that mystery.

November 13, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
Two complete skeletons of the dinosaur <em>Psittacosaurus</em> from one of the sites analyzed by the research team. Some scientists say these fossils show evidence of preservation due to their burrows collapsing.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Dinosaurs unearthed in China may have ended with a collapse, not a catastrophe

There's an area in China that's home to a huge trove of dinosaur fossils. It used to be thought it was formed through a Pompeii-like volcanic eruption, stopping dinosaurs in their tracks. But new evidence has come to light about how it likely came to be.

November 09, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
Paleontologist Dany Azar holds up one of his treasures that he discovered in a piece of amber from the early Cretaceous: The oldest mosquito ever found.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

In Lebanon, the 'Amber Man' digs up golden time capsules from the age of the dinosaurs

When dinosaurs reigned some 130 million years ago, flowering plants were taking over the world. That change is sealed in ancient amber specimens on the slopes of Lebanon that Danny Azar knows so well.

June 28, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
This illustration depicts a washed-up <em>Ichthyotitan severnensis </em>carcass on the beach.

Tagged as: 

  • Research News

Largest-ever marine reptile found with help from an 11-year-old girl

A father and daughter discovered fossil remnants of a giant ichthyosaur that scientists say may have been the largest-known marine reptile to ever swim the seas.

May 06, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
<em>Selkirkia tsering</em> fossil found in a collection from the Fezouata Formation in Morocco.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Ancient predatory worms have scientists rethinking the history of life on Earth

500 million years ago, the world was a very different place. During this period of time, known as the Cambrian period, basically all life was in the water. The ocean was brimming with animals that looked pretty different from the ones we recognize today — including a group of predatory worms with a throat covered in teeth and spines.

Researchers thought these tiny terrors died out at the end of the Cambrian period. But a paper published recently in the journal Biology Letters showed examples of a new species of this worm in the fossil record 25 million years after scientists thought they'd vanished from the Earth. One of the authors of the paper, Karma Nanglu, tells us how this finding may change how scientists understand the boundaries of time.

Curious about other weird wonders of the ancient Earth? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

April 17, 2024
|
By:
  • Rachel Carlson,
  • Emily Kwong,
  • and 1 more

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

That giant extinct shark, Megalodon? Maybe it wasn't so mega

The ancient extinct shark that starred in the film The Meg is thought to be the largest shark that ever swam the Earth. But there's debate over what it really looked like.

January 26, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
Kelp forests are tiered like terrestrial rainforests and serve as key habitats for many marine animals.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

New fossils suggest kelp forests have swayed in the seas for at least 32 million years

A new study of kelp fossils from the coast of Washington state show that kelp forests, which host all manner of marine life, developed tens of millions of years ago.

January 24, 2024
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
Scientists studying fossil human footprints in New Mexico say their age implies that humans arrived in North America earlier than thought.

Tagged as: 

  • Research News

Fossil footprints in New Mexico suggest humans have been here longer than we thought

A new study of fossil footprints in White Sands National Park bolsters the argument that humans may have lived in North America longer than thought.

October 07, 2023
|
By:
  • Alice Fordham
A blue morpho butterfly sits on a leaf. A new study finds that butterflies likely originated somewhere in western North America or Central America around 100 million years ago.

Tagged as: 

  • Research News

Butterflies originated in North America after splitting from moths, new study suggests

Butterflies likely split from nocturnal moths around 100 million years ago in present-day western North America or Central America, a new study of the winged insects finds.

May 17, 2023
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
A photo of the the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moab, Utah. A construction project at the site recently damaged some of the tracks and trace fossils.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

A construction project caused damage to 100-million-year-old dinosaur tracks in Utah

A project to replace the boardwalk at the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moah, Utah, cause minor damage to tracks and trace fossils at the site, a Bureau of Land Management paleontologist found.

April 04, 2022
|
By:
  • Joe Hernandez
Fossilized section of the giant millipede <em>Arthropleura</em>, found in a sandstone boulder in the north of England.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

An extinct millipede the length of a car once roamed northern England

A group of geologists stumbled on the fossil of the giant creature, known as Arthropleura, during a "social trip" to England's Northumberland region in 2018. It's the largest such fossil ever found.

December 21, 2021
|
By:
  • Scott Neuman
An artistic reconstruction of <em>Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus</em> in moss.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Researchers found a new species of water bear fossilized in a hunk of ancient amber

Research into the evolution of tardigrades has been severely hindered by a lack of fossils. This new discovery could offer researchers insight into how the creatures lived millions of years ago.

October 08, 2021
|
By:
  • Nell Clark
Brachiosaurus dinosaur, a relative of the newly discovered species, seen in computer artwork.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Scientists Discover Not 1, But 2 New Dinosaur Species In China

Scientists analyzing fossils from the country's northwest regions say two specimens were from previously unknown species.

August 13, 2021
|
By:
  • Josie Fischels
  • Load More

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