By Simona Kitanovska All teeth evolved from a single ancient sea predator, according to a new study. The study explains how certain species evolved to grow teeth by pinpointing their likely origin in an armored ray that swam the oceans 100 million years ago. They evolved from jagged spikes along the snout of the primitive
By Joseph Golder Bottled water or tap? How you answer that question could have some major implications for your long-term health, a new study into the health effects of ingested plastic particles shows. That study also contained this startling fact: People are eating the equivalent of one plastic credit card every week in their diet.
By Darko Manevski Scientists are expecting to make major advances in identifying how owls evolved based on the discovery of a remarkably well-preserved skeleton of an extinct species that lived more than 6 million years ago. The incredibly intact fossil even included the remains of the bird’s last meal, a small mammal that was still
By Georgina Jadikovskaall Fans of the novel “Perfume” by German author Patrick Süskind may one day be able to experience some of the pong and stench of the 18th-century world he described as scientists have revealed plans to recreate odors of the past. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
By Georgina Jadikovskaall An international research campaign involving over 100 scientists from 12 countries has begun investigating the dramatic warming in the Arctic — at an estimated rise of two to three degrees Celsius, or about 3.5 to 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit — over the last 50 years. The campaign, named HALO-(AC)3, is a joint research
By Zachary Rosenthal It’s not just the air on Pluto that is cold — the volcanoes on the dwarf plant are frigid, too. According to a group of scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission team, which recently turned up new discoveries about the “geological wonderland,” Pluto’s volcanoes don’t shoot out lava when they erupt. Instead,
By Martin M Barillas Suburbanites and country people have an unheralded advantage over city dwellers, who show less ability in orienting themselves, according to a study. A research team has published a new study in the journal Nature, finding that childhood influences a sense of direction into adulthood. With participation from 400,000 participants in 38
By Joseph Golder Scientists found about 20 large 80-million-year-old dinosaur eggs when they unearthed a titanosaur nesting site in Brazil. The dinosaur egg nest, which dates back to the Cretaceous period, approximately 145 to 66 million years ago, was discovered in an abandoned limestone mine in the rural area of Ponte Alta, in the southeastern
By Anamarija Brnjarchevska Mammals put brawn before brains to survive the post-dinosaur world, according to new research. Prehistoric mammals bulked up, rather than develop bigger brains, to boost their survival chances once dinosaurs had become extinct and were “fairly dim-witted” compared to mammals today, say Scottish scientists who led the study. For the first 10
By Anamarija Brnjarchevska A venomous sea snail could hold the key to developing more effective painkillers with a reduced risk of addiction, researchers say. Deadly venom produced by cone snails has occasionally killed humans, and there is no antitoxin available. However, a team led by researchers from the University of Glasgow is trying to learn
