A pocket shark found in the Gulf of Mexico has turned out to be a new species. And the mysterious pouches it is named for, up near its front fins? Scientists say they squirt little glowing clouds into the ocean. Researchers have named the species ...
Gulp! Jurassic mammal was the first one able to eat politely
A shrew-like primitive mammal that inhabited China 165 million years ago represents a milestone in mammalian evolution, scientists said on Thursday, boasting a key anatomical trait in its throat that helped usher in the era of polite table manners. Scientists described an exquisitely preserved Jurassic ...
For its next mission in our solar system, NASA plans to fly a drone copter to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in search of the building blocks of life, the space agency said Thursday. The Dragonfly mission, which will launch in 2026 and land in 2034, ...
Crocodiles are sometimes described as living fossils for their close resemblance to their forebears who roamed the Earth during the age of the dinosaurs. But if you happened to find yourself a time machine that sent you back to the Mesozoic Era, not all the ...
Spike in Martian methane raises hope for microbial life, then fades
Mars has a methane mystery. NASA's Curiosity rover last week detected the highest-ever levels of the colorless, odorless gas over the course of its seven year mission on the red planet, raising hopes that the methane could be evidence of the existence of microbial life. But ...
What is the absolute limit to human endurance? 2.5 BMR, say U.S. scientists
U.S. scientists who studied the performance of myriad athletes — including adventurous souls who spent five long months running across the United States — have come up with an estimate of the absolute physiological boundary of human endurance. The conclusions are pretty technical but the ...
Invasive species can dramatically reshape environments and cause extinction, even when they do not prey on their newfound neighbors, according to new research that highlights the dangers of altering habitats. The six-year study of lizards on a string of remote islands found that the arrival ...
Modern humans split from Neanderthals far earlier than thought, study suggests
Scientists seeking to unlock the mysteries of human evolution have in recent years relied on increasingly sophisticated DNA techniques that provide "molecular clocks" to date the remains of our ancient ancestors. But a new analysis that instead examines fossil teeth provides an alternative approach — ...
Scientists launch push to beat cancer's ability to adapt against treatments
Cancer scientists in Britain are launching what they call the world's first "Darwinian" drug development program in a bid to get ahead of cancer's ability to become resistant to even the newest treatments and recur in many patients. While not abandoning the search for an ...
Researchers in Germany have unearthed a new species of flying dinosaur that flapped its wings like a raven and could hold vital clues as to how modern-day birds evolved from their reptilian ancestors. For more than a century and a half since its discovery in ...
Bat-winged dinosaur was intriguing, brief detour in evolution of flight
A fossil unearthed in northeastern China of a feathered dinosaur a bit bigger than a blue jay that possessed bat-like wings represents a remarkable but short-lived detour in the evolution of flight and the advent of birds, scientists said on Wednesday. The dinosaur, named Ambopteryx ...
160,000-year-old Chinese fossil sheds light on Denisovans, the mysterious kin of Neanderthals
Nearly 40 years after it was found by a monk in a Chinese cave, a fossilized chunk of jawbone has been revealed as coming from a mysterious relative of the Neanderthals. Contemporaries of the Neanderthals — and like them, possibly wiped out by anatomically modern ...
