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 Prehistory
5 December 2007
Between The Sheets
Life on Earth may have originated as the organic filling in a multilayer sandwich of mica sheets...
13 November 2007
Digging Chimps Provide Insights Into Early Human Diet
Even when food is plentiful above ground, chimps still prefer to dig for roots and tubers, indicating that perhaps our hominid ancestors were not such big meat-eaters after all...
19 October 2007
Language-Gene Evolution Shared By Humans And Neanderthals
Adaptive changes in a human gene involved in speech and language processing were shared by our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals...
27 July 2007
The Dino Dynasty Reconsidered
Our understanding of dinosaur lineage is flawed, says a new study that contends dinosaurs actually lived alongside their ancestors for tens-of-millions of years. And the possibilities for paleontological revision don't end there, as another study has cleared the way for yet more possibilities (as if we needed any more) as to how the dino dynasty ended so abruptly...
11 June 2007
Dino Detectives Decode Death Dance
The peculiar pose - wide-open mouth, head thrown back and recurved tail - of many fossilized dinosaurs has led two paleontologists to challenge long established theories about how these creatures died...
4 June 2007
Humans Took First Steps In Tree Tops
UK scientists say that our ability to walk upright developed from foraging for food in forest tree tops, not from walking on all fours on open land...
12 March 2007
Ancient Man Built For Fighting
The short legs of our ape-like ancestors were advantageous for fighting and not tree climbing, suggests a new study...
12 January 2007
Migration Out Of Africa May Have Occurred Later Than Previously Thought
Modern humans spread out of Africa up to 50,000 years later than previously thought, say anthropologists...
27 November 2006
Permian Extinction Triggered Rise Of Complex Marine Organisms
While the Permian-Triassic extinction event wiped out an estimated 95 percent of marine species, it also laid the foundation for the explosive growth in complex marine organisms and ecosystems...
26 October 2006
Back To The Drawing Board For Human Migration Patterns
Human polyomavirus, a benign virus used as a marker for tracing human migration out of Africa, appears to be evolving much faster than previously thought, making it an unreliable yardstick and calling into question hundreds of previous studies that relied on it...
15 September 2006
Did Civilization Emerge Thanks To A Change In The Weather?
Using evidence from archaeological digs and the palaeoclimatic record, one scientist claims that significant changes in social organization have coincided with abrupt climate change. But this isn't about yet another ancient civilization collapsing. Rather, it's about the changes societies undergo as adaptive responses to climate change. In fact, what we call civilization may be the by-product of these social adaptations to environmental change...
11 September 2006
Homo Sapiens Brow-Beaten By Neanderthals
We modern-day humans think that we're pretty good looking compared to our brow-ridged, potato-nosed Neanderthal relatives; but new findings indicate that perhaps it is we who are the evolutionary freaks...
27 July 2006
Global Warming Behind Early Primate Diaspora?
What prompted early primates to travel between continents 55 million years ago has perplexed scientists for years. Could rapid global warming have been the driving force?
2 June 2006
Smoking Gun For Permian-Triassic Extinction Found
Scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact in Antarctica that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history and led to the rise of the dinosaurs...
1 May 2006
Volcano Study Suggests Bronze Age History Needs Rewrite
History professors may need to revise their lecture notes thanks to new evidence that disputes some commonly held assumptions about Aegean and Near Eastern civilization trade links...
10 March 2006
Geologists Hope To Disprove Asteroid Mass Extinction Scenario
University of Leicester scientists suggest extraterrestrial theories are flawed and that more down to earth factors could have accounted for past mass extinctions...
24 February 2006
 Food For Thought
Was it a shoreline diet rich in iodine that triggered explosive brain growth in early hominids? One scientist thinks so, although his detractors maintain that language and tool-use were the catalysts for our big brains...
11 November 2005
Volcanic Clay May Have Served As Womb For Emergent Life
The mineral clay surrounding undersea hydrothermal vents has been found to not only incubate methanol, but also to trigger the creation of other biomolecules...
5 October 2005
Oxygen Increase Behind Rise Of Mammals
A rapid rise in atmospheric oxygen levels 50 million years ago gave mammals the evolutionary nudge they needed to dominate the planet...
12 July 2005
Humans Behind Early Oz Ecosystem Collapse?
The massive extinctions of animals 50,000 years ago in Australia and the arrival of the first humans may be linked...
4 March 2005
Hobbit's Small Brain May Have Had Advanced Cognitive Abilities
Scientists studying the skull of the recently discovered Hobbit creature believe the chimp sized brain posessed surprisingly advanced cognitive abilities...
1 December 2004
Geologists Say End-Permian Mass Extinction Not Caused By Asteroid
Geochemical analysis suggests that the cause of one of Earth's biggest extinction events may have been volcanic, rather than an asteroid impact...
20 September 2004
Ancient Man Spread The Love Around
New genetic insights into ancient mating and migration patterns reveal that men travelled far and wide to sow their wild oats...
14 May 2004
Scene Of Planetary Reboot Located
Long before the age of the dinosaurs, a meteor the size of a mountain smashed into northern Australia wiping out 90% of all life...
27 October 2003
Clay May Have Been Catalyst For Life
Clays may have spurred the spontaneous assembly of fatty acids into the first living cells...
11 September 2003
Different Dinosaur Death Theory Erupts
The extinction of the dinosaurs – thought to be caused by an asteroid impact – was more likely to have been caused by a huge volcanic eruption from deep within the earth's mantle...
20 May 2002
Age Of Dinosaurs Began With Comet Impact
Comets colliding with the earth not only helped wipe out the dinosaurs, but may have originally helped bring them to prominence 200 million years ago...
Related:
Animal Kingdom
Biology
Environment
Evolution
Genetics
Humans
Mind/Brain
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