The mode and tempo of extinctions and extirpations after the first contact phase of human settlements is a widely debated topic. As the last major landmass to be settled by humans, New Zealand offers a unique lens through which to study interactions of people and biota. By analyzing ancient DNA …
The mode and tempo of extinctions and extirpations after the first contact phase of human settlements is a widely debated topic. As the last major landmass to be settled by humans, New Zealand offers a unique lens through which to study interactions of people and biota. By analyzing ancient DNA …
The present study documents the wood-boring trace fossil Asthenopodichnium from the Palaeocene sediments of the Barmer Hill Formation (BHF) in the Barmer Basin, Western Rajasthan, India. The Asthenopodichnium trace fossils are loosely to tightly packed, pouch-like burrows or almond-shaped structures identified as Asthenopodichnium lignorum, whereas lozenge and J-shaped structures are …
Pterosaurs were winged cousins of the dinosaurs and lived from around 200 million years ago to 66 million years ago, when the last pterosaurs disappeared during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. The pterosaurs are thought to have declined in diversity before their final extinction, suggesting that gradual …
The rainfall pattern in North East (NE) India shows a large variation both spatially and temporally5 . Due to this, severe flood occurs frequently in the region. Therefore, it is important to study the variability of pre-monsoon and summer monsoon showers of the region in the geological past. The quantitative …
Fungi have recently been found to comprise a significant part of the deep biosphere in oceanic sediments and crustal rocks. Fossils occupying fractures and pores in Phanerozoic volcanics indicate that this habitat is at least 400 million years old, but its origin may be considerably older. A 2.4-billion-year-old basalt from …
Hyoliths are abundant and globally distributed ‘shelly’ fossils that appear early in the Cambrian period and can be found throughout the 280 million year span of Palaeozoic strata. The ecological and evolutionary importance of this group has remained unresolved, largely because of their poorly constrained soft anatomy and idiosyncratic scleritome, …
Islands are ideal systems to model temporal changes in biodiversity and reveal the influence of humans on natural communities. Although theory predicts biodiversity on islands tends towards an equilibrium value, the recent extinction of large proportions of island biotas complicates testing this model. The well-preserved subfossil record of Caribbean bats—involving …
Fossilised leaves recovered from a crater lake in New Zealand provided insight on how climate changed and affected the Antarctic ice-sheet 23 million years ago, a scientist said on Thursday. The leaf fossils found at Foulden Maar, in the Otago region of South Island, held evidence of a sharp increase …
Stromatolite fossils formed around 3,700 million years ago in what is now Greenland predate the previous oldest fossil evidence for life on Earth by more than 200 million years.
The reported incidence of neoplasia in the extinct human lineage is rare, with only a few confirmed cases of Middle or Later Pleistocene dates reported. It has generally been assumed that pre-modern incidence of neoplastic disease of any kind is rare and limited to benign conditions, but new fossil evidence …
We describe the earliest evidence for neoplastic disease in the hominin lineage. This is reported from the type specimen of the extinct hominin Australopithecus sediba from Malapa, South Africa, dated to 1.98 million years ago. Original Source
New excavations in Liang Bua, where the remains of the ‘Hobbit’ (Homo floresiensis) were discovered, show that this diminutive human species used this cave between 190,000 and 50,000 years ago, and not until as recently as 12,000 years ago as previously interpreted; modern humans have been present in Australia since …
Biospheric relationships between production and consumption of biomass have been resilient to changes in the Earth system over billions of years. This relationship has increased in its complexity, from localized ecosystems predicated on anaerobic microbial production and consumption to a global biosphere founded on primary production from oxygenic photoautotrophs, through …
In 1991, Robert S. Desowitz asked, “Did the primitive malaria begin as a parasite of some prehistoric reptile that later was picked up by a mosquito, or was it first a parasite of the mosquito that later became established in the reptile?” This question has been debated for years and …
The rise of plastics since the mid-20th century, both as a material element of modern life and as a growing environmental pollutant, has been widely described. Their distribution in both the terrestrial and marine realms suggests that they are a key geological indicator of the Anthropocene, as a distinctive stratal …
Indore: In a rare discovery, palaeontologists have stumbled upon a nine crore-year-old rare coral fossil similar to that of brain coral in Bagh beds of Narmada valley region. This suggests the presence of marine life and sea in Central India during evolution. Discovery of coral fossil is also likely to …
Just 38 per cent of U.S. schoolchildren were taught that climate change is linked to fossil fuels, with many teachers spending less than an hour a year on the subject Nearly two-thirds of schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught lessons on climate change that do not rise to the level …
Biologists have described a new species of extinct plant, based on two fossil flowers that were trapped in chunks of amber for at least 15 million years. Strychnos electri belongs to the genus whose tropical shrubs, trees and vines are famous for producing the deadly toxin strychnine. The US researchers …
This paper presents the first Indo-French Prehistorical Mission in the Himalayan foothills, northwestern India, and introduces the results of the multidisciplinary research program “Siwaliks” under the patronage of Professor Yves Coppens, from the Collège de France and Académie des Sciences, France. This program is dedicated to the discovery of cut …
The fossil record provides striking case studies of biodiversity loss and global ecosystem upheaval. Because of this, many studies have sought to assess the magnitude of the current biodiversity crisis relative to past crises—a task greatly complicated by the need to extrapolate extinction rates. Here we challenge this approach by …
