Ampyx priscus in linear formation (Moroccan Lower Ordovician Fezouata Shale). Credit: Jean Vannier, Laboratoire de Geologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes, Environnement (CNRS / ENS de Lyon / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1)

Fossils show lining up is primal urge

Gigantic dinosaurs like the sauropod Diplodocus, which weighed over 15 tons and was longer than an 18-wheeler truck, would have had problems with potentially lethal overheating. Hot blood from the body core would have been pumped to the head, damaging the delicate brain. New research shows that in sauropods, evaporation of moisture in the nose and mouth would have cooled extensive networks of venous blood destined for the brain. Other large dinosaurs evolved different brain-cooling mechanisms, but all involving evaporative cooling of blood in different regions of the head. Credit: Life restoration by Michael Skrepnick. Courtesy of WitmerLab at Ohio University.

Huge dinosaurs evolved different cooling systems to combat heat stroke

A small, feathered theropod dinosaur, Saurornitholestes langstoni was long thought to be so closely related to Velociraptor mongoliensis that some researchers called it Velociraptor langstoni—until now. Credit: Jan Sovak.

Paleontologists discover complete Saurornitholestes langstoni specimen

The Sosnogorsk lagoon just before a deadly storm. Credit: Mikhail Shekhanov for the Ukhta Local Museum

The earliest well-preserved tetrapod may never have left the water

A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected Earth's oceans. The findings may also answer questions about how marine life eventually recovered. Credit: Michael Henehan & Pincelli Hull

Mystery solved: Ocean acidity in the last mass extinction

In this handout image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, a color image from NASA’s Curiosity rover’s Mast Camera shows part of the wall of Gale Crater, the location on Mars where the rover landed August 5, 2012 on Mars. Credit: NASA via Getty Images

Mars once had salt lakes similar to those on Earth

Giant gold nugget found in California

Prospecting for gold just got a lot easier

The Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison designed and built the South Pole Ice Core (SPICE) drilling system, called the Intermediate Depth Drill. Based on a Danish drill called the Hans-Taunsen drill, the Intermediate Depth Drill was purpose-built for coring 1,500 meters of ice. The ice cores collected at this depth (from the South Pole) contain atmospheric gases from the past 40,000 years, the time of transition from the last ice age to the present warm climate. Credit: T.J. Fudge

Ice core source discovery adds to study of volcanic activity, climate...

Siamraptor skull reconstruction. Credit: Chokchaloemwong et al., 2019

Meet Siamraptor suwati, a new species of giant predatory dinosaur from...

Ancient fossils reveal fresh clues about early life on land

Ancient fossils reveal fresh clues about early life on land

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