213 results
- Animals
The dinosaurs in the backyard
Chickens are some of the closest relatives of dinosaurs, and though genetic tinkering the birds might even one day be turned into tiny dinos.
- Life
New tree of life confirms strange history of birds
A genetic analysis supports some odd groupings in the bird tree of life, showing a lot of convergent evolution in avian history.
- Life
Flightless birds’ history upset by ancient DNA
The closest known relatives of New Zealand’s small, flightless kiwis were Madagascar’s elephant birds, so ancestors must have done some flying rather than just drifting with continents.
- Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
- Life
Dinos straddled line between cold- and warm-blooded
Tyrannosaurus rex and other dinosaurs straddled line between cold- and warm-blood, a new analysis finds.
- Animals
The giraffes that sailed to medieval China
Chinese exploration of the world is often left out of Western textbooks (at least it was left out of mine), but for a brief period, from 1405 to 1433, the Chinese under Ming emperor Yongle sent out numerous trade missions that reached as far as present-day Kenya. During the fourth expedition, which left China in 1413, part of the fleet led by commander Zheng He sailed to Bengal in India, where in 1414 they met envoys from the African coastal state of Malindi (now part of Kenya). The men from Malindi had brought with them as tribute giraffes, and they gave one of those giraffes to the Chinese, who took it home.
- Anthropology
Sticks, stones and bones reveal emergence of a hunter-gatherer culture
A cave in southern Africa was occupied by people very much like those living in the region today.
- Humans
DNA unveils enigmatic Denisovans
Technical advances amplify the genetic record of a Stone Age humanlike population, ancestors of modern Melanesians.
- Humans
Killing fields of ancient Syria revealed
Stone corrals were used to trap whole herds of animals for mass slaughter.
- Archaeology
Stone Age engraving traditions appear on ostrich eggshells
Fragments indicate symbolic communication on 60,000-year-old water containers.
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Yawn
Latest research awakens debate over why people can’t keep their mouths closed.
- Humans
Deep African roots for toolmaking method
A method for trimming stone-tool edges appeared 75,000 years ago in southern Africa, archaeologists contend, long before previous evidence of the practice.
