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 Himalaya bordering the north and the Western Ghats in the south of India form biodiversity hotspots. Given this evidence one can assume that areas with greater variety in landscape are home to a greater number of species. General observation backs this theory: mountains have more biodiversity than plains just …
Mumbai: It came before the dinosaurs. It existed on this planet 350 million years ago, and survived for almost 80 million years before it became extinct. On Saturday, it will be back from the dead
Chief Minster Shivraj Singh Chouhan chaired a meeting of State Wildlife Board here today which recommended setting up of National Dinosaur Fossil Park near Bagh in Dhar district. More than 100 dinosaur eggs were found in Bagh in Dhar district in the year 2006, which are estimated to be 6.5 …
In 1824, a group of people thronged the home of Oxford professor William Buckland. They reported to the professor the finding of a large jawbone from a quarry not far from his quarters at Oxford University. Buckland had by then acquired fame as a geologist with a keen knowledge of …
Flowering plants and insects share a pollen-and-nectar history that goes back a long way. According to fossil records most of the insect groups originated before flowering plants appeared, which is some 140 to 190 million years ago. This would be during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Scientists at …
Palaeontologists must model the causes of biodiversity rather than simply cataloguing fossils, says Douglas Erwin, as they curate the only record of ecosystems undamaged by humans.
Hundreds Of Dino Egg Clusters Found Radha Venkatesan | TNN Coimbatore: Geologists in Tamil Nadu have stumbled upon a Jurassic treasure trove buried in the sands of a river bed. Sheer luck led them to hundreds of fossilized dinosaur eggs, perhaps 65 million years old, underneath a stream in a …
Chicago: Doomsday predicters can take some solace. Fears that a hurtling ball of fire can ravage the Earth has been laid to rest as a new study says comets probably won
evolution Link...or is it? A well-preserved fossil of primitive lemur Darwinius masilla, nicknamed Ida is believed to represent the point from which the group of monkeys, apes and humans (anthropoids) evolved. The fossil lacks the traits which characterize a modern lemur, a non-human primate. Instead it has a bone in …
evolution First blood Palaeontologists dug up a dinosaur bone buried for 80 million years in Montana, usa. The find yielded blood and bone cells and collagen protein
zoology Undersea myths The mystery behind the underwater display of natural glow, seen by sailors time and again, has been solved. It is the bioluminescent marine fireworm that secretes a mucous which gives out a green glow to attract mates and ward off predators. Reported in the March issue of …
technology Mediaeval books dated by DNA testing Timothy Stinson from the North Carolina State University is using modern dna testing to trace the evolution of the book industry during the Middle Ages. Thousands of volumes, handwritten during the mediaeval period on parchments made of animal skin, still exist today. Scholars …
The largest extant snakes live in the tropics of South America and southeastAsia where high temperatures facilitate the evolution of large body sizes among air-breathing animals whose body temperatures are dependant on ambient environmental temperatures (poikilothermy. Very little is known about ancient tropical terrestrial ecosystems, limiting our understanding of the …
The discovery in Colombia of a giant species of fossil snake is news in itself. But a wider, more controversial inference to be drawn is that tropical climate in the past was not buffered from global warming.
By Jonathan Amos, The New York Times Spectacular fossil forests have been found in the coal mines of Illinois by a US-UK team of researchers... The group reported one discovery last year, but has since identified a further five examples. The ancient vegetation
