A species of Galapagos giant tortoise thought to have been made extinct 150 years ago will be bred in captivity, officials said, after DNA studies showed specimens discovered in the last decade had a similar genetic makeup. The breeding program involving 32 tortoises — 19 ...
A secret world of animals and plants — including unknown species — may live in warm caves under Antarctica's glaciers, scientists said Friday. The caves, hollowed out by steam from active volcanoes, are light and could reach temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), researchers ...
For nearly 3 billion years, the evolution of life on Earth remained mostly stalled at the single-cell stage, yielding a watery world teeming with bacteria. But then the melting some 650 million years ago of Snowball Earth — when oceans at the equator were frozen ...
In dense Chinese forests populated by dinosaurs 160 million years ago, two furry critters resembling flying squirrels glided from tree to tree, showing that even in such a perilous neighborhood early mammals had succeeded in going airborne. Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of fossils ...
A species of spider that usually travels no further than a few feet from where it was hatched likely made an epic sea journey on a "land raft" from South Africa to call Australia home, a study said Thursday. The Australian trapdoor spider, known scientifically ...
A giant, flying turkey as tall as a kangaroo once roamed Australia, paleontologists said Wednesday, after an analysis of fossils and bones from around the country revealed five extinct bird species. A team from Flinders University in South Australia said they were all chunky relatives ...
Two teams of astronomers said Thursday they have for the first time detected a key chemical building block of life swirling around infant stars that resemble our sun before its planets formed. The molecule, methyl isocyanate, "plays an essential role in the formation of proteins, ...
The understanding of human origins was turned on its head on Wednesday with the announcement of the discovery of fossils unearthed on a Moroccan hillside that are about 100,000 years older than any other known remains of our species, Homo sapiens. Scientists determined that skulls, ...
A team of excavators in Bulgaria has resumed a search for fossils of an ape-like creature that may be the oldest-known direct ancestor of man and whose discovery has challenged the central hypothesis that humankind originated in Africa. The Graecopithecus freybergi, who lived 7.2 million ...
Tyrannosaurus rex had scales, not feathers, a study Wednesday said, rescuing the dinosaur's reputation as a fearsome killer with a rough-and-tough hide. Recent research has claimed to provide evidence for feathers in ancestors of T. rex, and suggested the iconic carnivore may itself have sported ...
Featuring slime and suction, a kiss from a tubelip wrasse — a colorful reef fish — is no one's idea of romance. But it is perfectly suited for eating a hazardous diet using one of the animal kingdom's most unique feeding strategies. Scientists on Monday ...
A bird in the Galapagos Islands, known as a cormorant, lost its ability to fly over time due to genetic changes that mirror bone disease in humans, researchers said Thursday. Researchers hope that further study may one day open the door to treatments for bone ...
