Scientists solve 50-year-old mystery involving 2-billion-year-old rock
For half a century, geologists have been baffled by perforations in a piece of quartzite, a type of rock, in Western Australia. The markings...
When our Earth’s single most important evolutionary innovation originated
Sometime in Earth’s early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis...
Scientists solve the mystery of icy plumes that may foretell deadly supercell storms
When a cloudy plume of ice and water vapor billows above the top of a severe thunderstorm, there is a good chance a violent...
Scientists reveal new explanation for the rise of ocean animals
A study from Yale and Georgia Tech offers a new context for a pivotal step in the evolution of life on Earth: the dramatic...
Scientists find the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas
Footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico provide the earliest unequivocal evidence of human activity in the Americas and offer insight...
Scientists discover four dinosaurs in Montana this summer
A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana...
Animals died in ‘toxic soup’ during Earth’s worst mass extinction, shows study
The end-Permian mass extinction event of roughly 252 million years ago—the worst such event in earth's history—has been linked to vast volcanic emissions of...
Scientists reveal the volcanic secrets inside our Earth
Lava samples have revealed a new truth about the geological makeup of the Earth's crust and could have implications for volcanic eruption early warning...
Prehistoric humans rarely mated with their cousins, shows study
Scientists screened ancient humans that lived during the last 45,000 years to find out how closely related their parents were. The results surprising: ancient humans...
Modern snakes evolved from a few survivors of dinosaur-killing asteroid
A new study suggests that all living snakes evolved from a handful of species that survived the giant asteroid impact that wiped out the...