September 12, 2007, 5:48 PM CT

First Prehistoric Reptiles To Possess Modern Ears

The discovery of the first anatomically modern ear in a group of 260 million-year-old fossil reptiles significantly pushes back the date of the origin of an advanced sense of hearing, and suggests the first known adaptations to living in the dark.

In a new study published in PLoS One, Johannes Müller and Linda Tsuji, paleobiologists at the Natural History Museum of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany report that these fossil animals, found in deposits of Permian age near the Mezen River in central Russia, possessed all the anatomical features typical of a vertebrate with a surprisingly modern ear.

When vertebrates had conquered land and the ancestors of modern day mammals, reptiles, and birds first began to diversify, hearing was not of high importance. The first fully terrestrial land vertebrates were, in fact, largely deaf, and lacked any of the anatomical features that would indicate the possession of what is termed impedance-matching hearing - the mechanism by which modern land vertebrates are able to transmit airborne sounds into the inner ear by means of small bony connections.

The ability of modern animals to hear a wide range of frequencies, highly important for prey capture, escape, and communication, was long assumed to have only evolved shortly before the origin of dinosaurs, not much longer than 200 million years ago, and therefore comparatively late in vertebrate history......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

September 10, 2007, 10:21 PM CT

Study reveals predation-evolution link

The fossil record seems to indicate that the diversity of marine creatures increased and decreased over hundreds of millions of years in step with predator-prey encounters, Virginia Tech geoscientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

For decades, there has been a debate between paleontologists, biologists, and ecologists on the role of ecological interactions, such as predation, in the long term patterns of animal evolution.

John Warren Huntley, a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech, and Geosciences Professor Micha Kowalewski decided to look at the importance of ecology by surveying the literature for incidents of predation in marine invertebrates, such as clams and their relatives.

Today, certain predators leave easy to identify marks on the shells of their prey, such as clean, round holes, said Huntley. Such holes drilled by predators can also be found in fossil shells.

The researchers also looked for repair scars on the shells of creatures that survived an attack.

The study was conducted by looking at studies which reported the frequency of drill holes and repair scars in fossil species from the last 550 million years.

First Huntley and Kowalewski found that predation increased notably about 480 million years ago, some 50 million years earlier than previous studies have found. The earlier studies were based on changes in morphology predators with stronger claws and jaws and prey with more ornamented shells. We looked at the frequency of attacks, which increased about 50 million years before the changes in armor, said Huntley......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

September 4, 2007, 6:50 PM CT

Beliefs About Early Cherokee Settlement Patterns Likely Incorrect

By 1763, the world of Cherokee Indians in the Southeastern U.S. was in tatters. The French and Indian War had wracked the sprawling Cherokee settlements that stretched from the headwaters of the Savannah River in South Carolina and Georgia to the Overhills towns in eastern Tennessee. Though 75 years would pass before the Trail of Tears would banish the remnants of the nation west to Oklahoma, the tribe watched hopelessly as much of its history rapidly faded.

Scientists have long wondered why the Cherokee settled where they did, building clusters of small towns in fertile river valleys in mostly mountainous areas.

Researchers have also studied why the society collapsed with such relative speed as the eighteenth century unfolded. Now, two new studies show for the first time that long-held assumptions about Cherokee settlement patterns may have been incomplete at best.

"There has been a lot of speculation about these issues, but it's often been outside the realm of evidence," said Ted Gragson, an anthropologist in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "We were surprised in these studies at the relatively low impact that the Cherokee had on the Southern Appalachian landscape. They really left a very limited footprint on the land they occupied"......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

September 3, 2007, 11:45 AM CT

When Bivalves Ruled The World

Before the worst mass extinction of life in Earth's history -- 252 million years ago -- ocean life was diverse and clam-like organisms called brachiopods dominated. After the calamity, when little else existed, a different kind of clam-like organism, called a bivalve, took over.

What can the separate fates of these two invertebrates tell researchers about surviving an extinction event?

A lot, says UWM paleoecologist Margaret Fraiser. Her research into this particular issue not only answers the question; it also supports a relatively new theory for the cause of the massive extinctions that occurred as the Permian period ended and the Triassic period began: toxic oceans created by too much atmospheric carbon dioxide (C02).

The theory is important because it could help researchers predict what would happen in the oceans during a modern "C02 event." And it could give them an idea of what recovery time would be.

Studying the recovering ecology is equally significant, says Fraiser. The evolution of surviving species in the aftermath of the mass extinction set the stage for dinosaurs to evolve later in the Triassic.

From air to water Fossil records suggest that trauma in the oceans actually began in the air.

"Estimates of the C02 in the atmosphere then were between six and 10 times greater than they are today," says Fraiser, an assistant professor of geosciences. It makes sense, she says. The largest continuous volcanic eruption on Earth -- known as the "Siberian Traps" -- had been pumping out C02 for about a million years previous to the Permian-Triassic mass extinction......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:20:28 GMT

Fossilized Cypress Trees May Reveal 8-million-year-old Climate

The scientists have already offered several climate models that define the ancient weather on earth. But, now they have perhaps come up with a new source of climate patters that existed 8 millions years ago — this may very soon be revealed by a group of newly discovered fossilized swamp cypress trees.

A team of Hungarian scientists have recently unearthed some fossilized swamp cypress trees that stood on the earth swaying 8 million years ago i.e. the late Miocene geological period when the Carpathian basin, presently Hungary, was a swamps-surrounded freshwater lake.

To add to the teams achievement, the wood of 16 Taxodium trees was preserved in an open-cast coal mine instead of getting petrified, i.e. turning to stone. This allows the geologists study samples of the ancient trees as if they were sections cut from a piece of living wood!

Excited about the rare state of the find, Alfred Dulai, geologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum said,

The importance of the findings is that so many trees got preserved in their original position in one place. But the real rarity about these trees is that .... their original wood got preserved .... they did not turn into stone.


Data that can be collected from these fossil trees can definitely throw light on the climatic patters of the pre-historic times.

This would help analyze the changing trend of the earths climatic conditions from 300 million years ago till date, through what it was like 8 million years back.

Image Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source

July 19, 2007, 10:43 PM CT

Rise of dinosaurs in Late Triassic more gradual

Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors.

The fossils were excavated from the Hayden Quarry at Ghost Ranch, an area made famous through the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe, by a team of paleontologists from the University of California, Berkeley, the American Museum of Natural History and The Field Museum. The finds, including fossil bones of a new dinosaur predecessor the scientists have named Dromomeron romeri, are described in a cover story in the July 20 issue of Science.

"Up to now, paleontologists have thought that dinosaur precursors disappeared long before the dinosaurs appeared, that their ancestors probably were out-competed and replaced by dinosaurs and didn't survive," said co-author Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and a curator in the campus's Museum of Paleontology. "Now, the evidence shows that they may have coexisted for 15 or 20 million years or more".

As per primary authors Randall Irmis and Sterling Nesbitt, graduate students, respectively, at UC Berkeley and at New York's American Museum, the new bones provide anatomical information that tells paleontologists about the evolution of dinosaur precursors, their transition into true dinosaurs and how dinosaurs diversified......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 05:15:15 GMT

New Hominid Fossil-finds To Fill Evolution-understanding Gaps

How did humans evolve? Though many hypotheses have been put forward that can define the human evolutionary process, it is perhaps for the first time; the crucial gap has actually been understood!

The answer seems to be lying in a new fossil-find! Yes, scientists have discovered hominid fossil fragments that date back somewhere between 3.5 million and 3.8 million years ago.

Unearthed in the Afar desert at Woranso-Mille, the fossil-find possesses several complete jaws and one partial skeleton. The place is located near where the famous fossil skeleton — Lucy — was found in 1974.

According to Ethiopian archaeologist Yohannes Haile Selassie,

This is a major finding that could fill a gap in human evolution.

The fossil hominids from the Woranso-Mille area sample a time period that is poorly known in human evolutionary study.

After this recent discovery, following the last years find of the 4.1 million-year-old fossils in the region, it seems, Ethiopias this area will perhaps one day reveal the most continuous human evolution-record.

Whatever be it, these series of hominid fossil finds in the region will surely place Ethiopia in the forefront while referring paleo-anthropology.

Image Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:07:30 GMT

Human-sized Penguins Roamed Peru Desert 42 Million Years Ago

It is somewhat like a tailoredtale for kids with human-sized penguins and King Kong-like seals engaged in human-like behaviors and talk alike man! But it seems, such fantasizing have been referred from prehistoric ages.

You can have just the like feeling, as you too discover what a North Carolina State University paleontologist unearthed from the Atacama Desert in Peru human-sized Penguins!

The fossils of the two giant penguins, unlike the other such giant-animal finds, didn’t seem to need ice for survival.

This find provided the first complete skull from an ancient giant penguin, revealing the third largest penguin known, which stood about 4.5 feet (1.5 meters) tall! The fossil finds of the other new penguin species dates back to 42 million years!

It was amazingly about three feet or a meter tall, comparable to today’s second largest living penguin — the king penguin as most modern South American penguins are 2 feet or 0.6 meter tall or even less.

Yes, the discovery clearly reveals that penguins migrated to the equatorial regions more than 30 million years earlier than thought. And, that was predicted to be one of the warmest periods in the last 65 million years.

Cuing the popular image of penguins choice of icebergs as their favorite habitat, the finding surely kicks up queries on — both this popular thought as well as the ancient climate of the Peru desert!

So, is it less to be feared of losing the penguins’ present day habitats to global warming? as they may perhaps have inherited their ancestral habits of thriving without ice as well, perhaps in the desert!
Image Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:38:26 GMT

Ancient Gray Wolves Ate Mammoths, Musk Oxes!

Do you know, the gray wolves that roamed the earth about 10,000 years ago, during the last ice age at Alaska could amazingly not just prey animals much larger than themselves, but also devour them completely, including their bones? No, its no fantasy or another kids fiction.

This is a discovery by a new study. It reveals the ancient wolves with short snouts, strong jaws, and massive canine teeth, not prevalent among todays wolves this credits them with big bite forces-specialization.

Astonishingly, it is found that the animals ate a varied diet of mammoth, musk ox, bison, and horse! Thanks to the chemical signatures in the wolf bones, which suggested their diets.

The skull and tooth bones collected decades ago from the permafrost have been used for analyzing their activities and this surprising characteristics.

Died at the end of the Pleistocene epoch along with mastodons, saber-toothed cats and other big animals, the bones are stored today at museums in the U.S. and Canada.

Thus, it seems that the Alaskan ancient wolves didn’t have to compete with larger relatives the dire wolves, allowing them to spread their populations farther south.

But, will this find in late Pleistocene mammals can provide clue to the current climate changes affect on species diversity? Perhaps, yes. But, a single find is too less an evidence to conceptualize a worldly phenomenon change.

Image Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source

June 20, 2007, 1:25 PM CT

New World's first gunshot victim

Peruvian archaeologists have excavated the remains of what they believe to be the earliest documented gunshot victim in the Americas.

The well-preserved skeleton was found in an Inca cemetary located in a suburb of Lima. The skull contains two holes, one at the front, and the other at the back.

Guillermo Cock and Elena Goycochea, who led the dig at the Puruchuco cemetary, have so far found 72 skeletons at the site, at least 35 of which also showed signs of violent death. Some had crushed cheekbones or broken hands, while others appear to have been hacked, torn or impaled. All the bodies were found in shallow graves, and the traditional Inca burial ritual, in which the head faces eastward, was not performed. The bodies therefore appear to have been buried hastily.

Ceramics and other artifacts found at the burial site indicate that the remains date to the 1530s. And an electron microscopic analysis of the skull revealed the presence of miniscule iron particles around the holes, suggesting that the wounds were created by a Spanish musket ball or an arquebus (an early muzzle-loaded firearm). This evidently entered the victim's skull from the back, and exited at the front through the face. This may have been fired from a range of up to 100 feet, while the victim was trying to escape. Subsequently, the team of archaeologists found two other apparent gunshot victims at the site......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source