Early Humans Thrived in Rainforests
For generations, scientists looked to the East African savanna as the birthplace of our species. But recently some researchers have put forward a different history: Homo sapiens evolved across the…
Lasers, Waffle Fries and the Secrets in Pterosaurs’ Tails
Above the shores of prehistoric seas and lakes, pterosaurs roamed the skies. They were feathered creatures that ranged in size from pigeons to planes, and the first vertebrates known to…
Museum With Renowned Dinosaur Fossils Gets a $25 Million Gift
Carole Kamin first walked through the doors of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1975 after taking a job as a buyer for the Pittsburgh museum’s gift shop. Awe-struck…
Plesiosaur Fossils Preserve Both Skin and Scales on Ancient Sea Monster
With serpentine necks, flippers and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, plesiosaurs have captured imaginations since paleontologists uncovered the first specimen more than two centuries ago. Their skeletal anatomy is…
The Search for the Original Silly Goose in the Fossil Record
It’s taken decades, but scientists may have finally found Earth’s first fowl. It started in 1993 on Vega Island, a frigid, windswept rock off the Antarctic Peninsula. A mostly headless…
Ancient DNA Points to Origins of Indo-European Language
In 1786, a British judge named William Jones noticed striking similarities between certain words in languages, such as Sanskrit and Latin, whose speakers were separated by thousands of miles. The…
See Lucy Run, 3.2 Million Years Ago
More than three million years after her death, the early human ancestor known as Lucy is still divulging her secrets. In 2016, an autopsy indicated that the female Australopithecus afarensis,…
Eeny Meeny Miny Mo, Catch a Pterosaur by Its Neck
Around 76 million years ago, something took a bite out of a young pterosaur. Pterosaurs were large, flying reptiles that roamed our planet’s skies when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Some…
66 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Vomit Is Found in Denmark
Let’s be candid here. Vomit is something you want to get rid of. You don’t want it hanging around for a day, or an hour, or even a few minutes.…
Extinct Human Species Lived in a Brutal Desert, Study Finds
Chimpanzees live only in African rainforests and woodlands. Orangutans live only in the jungles of Indonesia. But humans live pretty much everywhere. Our species has spread across frozen tundras, settled…