Scientists solve 1,500-year-old mystery of the first pandemic
For centuries, historians have debated what caused the Plague of Justinian, the world’s first recorded pandemic.
Now, for the first time, scientists have found direct...
These dinosaur eggs reveal secrets of ancient climate
Eighty-five million years ago, dinosaurs roamed a world filled with dramatic changes.
Volcanoes erupted frequently, oceans lost oxygen in some regions, and waves of extinctions...
Scientists identify new dinosaur from 125-year-old Welsh fossil
Sometimes scientific discoveries aren’t made in the field but in the quiet corners of museum drawers.
That’s exactly what happened in Wales, where paleontologists from...
One wrong hit could send an asteroid on a collision course with Earth
When a massive asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, the solution seems straightforward; smash a spacecraft into it and knock it off course.
That’s exactly what...
Ancient rubbish heaps reveal the secret social life of bronze age Britons
Huge prehistoric rubbish heaps, known as middens, are giving archaeologists fresh insight into the feasting habits of communities living in Britain more than 3,000...
Ancient mammoth microbes reveal the world’s oldest bacterial DNA
Scientists have made a remarkable discovery hidden within the remains of mammoths that roamed Earth more than a million years ago.
An international team led...
Life on Earth probably got some help from space
The greatest challenge facing astrobiologists is that there is only one planet known to us that has life.
Of all the bodies of the Solar...
Scientists find huge hydrogen reservoir under ocean floor
Scientists have uncovered evidence of a vast natural hydrogen system deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a discovery that could one day provide a new...
Why baby pterosaurs, not adults, dominate the fossil record
For two tiny flying reptiles, death came suddenly and violently 150 million years ago.
Now, thanks to remarkable fossils discovered in southern Germany, paleontologists have...
These 165-million-year-old insects show early leaf mimicry strategies
Around 165 million years ago, some insects in what is now northeastern China developed an extraordinary trick: they evolved wings that looked almost identical...