EARLY EARTH - INDO DAILY

Complex shell patterns helped octopus ancestors fine-tune their buoyancy

Apr 13, 2021 (UPI)

Prior to their disappearance at the end of the Cretaceous Period, ammonoids, ancestors of today's octopus, squid and cuttlefish, were a constant presence in Ear...

Amber fossil proves Cretaceous beetle ate pollen of flowering plants

Apr 12, 2021 (UPI)

Today, the majority of pollination services for both crops and wild plants are provided by bees and butterflies, but less is known about the identities of the p...

Microbe discovered in evolutionary stasis for millions of years

Apr 09, 2021 (SPX)

"This discovery shows that we must be careful when making assumptions about the speed of evolution and how we interpret the tree of life," said Eric Becraft, th...

Study: T. rex's short arms may have reduced biting risk of hunting in packs

Apr 05, 2021 (UPI)

A 45-foot-long T. rex may have 3-feet long arms--the equivalent of a 6-foot human with 5-inch arms, study author Kevin Padian, emeritus professor at the Univers...

Exploring the evolution of Earth's habitability regulated by oxygen cycle

Apr 02, 2021 (SPX)

Professor Jianping Huang from Lanzhou University is the corresponding author of the review entitled "The oxygen cycle and a habitable Earth", which is the cover...

Preconditions for life already 3.5 billion years ago

Apr 01, 2021 (SPX)

In their publication "Ingredients for microbial life preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old fluid inclusions," the researchers suggest that organic carbon compounds ...

450-million-year-old sea creatures had a leg up on breathing

Apr 01, 2021 (SPX)

Trilobites were a group of marine animals with half-moon-like heads that resembled horseshoe crabs, and they were wildly successful in terms of evolution. Thoug...

Early Earth's hot mantle may have led to Archean 'water world'

Mar 31, 2021 (SPX)

The new findings challenge earlier assumptions that the size of the Earth's global ocean has remained constant over time and offer clues to how its size may hav...

Extra 100 million years before Earth saw permanent oxygen rise

Mar 30, 2021 (SPX)

And the study, from an international team led by the University of Leeds and including researchers from the University of California-Riverside, Harvard Universi...

Researchers find Spinosaurus' dense bones allowed it to hunt underwater

Mar 23, 2021 (UPI)

A group of paleontologists analyzed the density of Spinosaurid bones and compared them to animals such as penguins, hippos, and alligators to determine that bot...

What sparked life on Earth? Perhaps bolts from the blue

Mar 17, 2021 (SPX)

A new study by researchers at Yale and the University of Leeds contends that over time, these bolts from the blue unlocked the phosphorus necessary for the crea...

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

Mar 17, 2021 (SPX)

In 2019, University of Vermont scientist Andrew Christ looked at it through his microscope - and couldn't believe what he was seeing: twigs and leaves instead o...

Lightning strikes played a vital role in life's origins on Earth

Mar 17, 2021 (SPX)

Minerals delivered to Earth in meteorites more than 4 billion years ago have long been advocated as key ingredients for the development of life on our planet. S...

Traces of primordial Earth's magma ocean found hiding in Greenland's rocks

Mar 12, 2021 (UPI)

At some point during Earth's infancy, the molten ocean that covered the planet began to cool and crystalize, yielding Earth's earliest rocks and landforms. This...

Full-bellied fossil suggests flies were active pollinators 47 million years ago

Mar 11, 2021 (UPI)

Analysis of the fossil, published this week in the journal Current Biology, suggests the fly gorged itself on plant food prior to its demise. Scientists used po...

Fossilized fish larvae undermine popular theory of vertebrate origins

Mar 10, 2021 (UPI)

Evolutionary biologists have long contended that the blind, filter-feeding larvae of modern lampreys represent an evolutionary holdover from millions of years a...

Bite of juvenile T. rex was less ferocious than an adult tyrannosaurus

Mar 09, 2021 (UPI)

The fossil record is rich with the bones of adult T. rex dinosaurs, allowing for detailed analysis of the predator's powerful bite -- a bite strong enough to cr...

Oceans were stressed preceding abrupt, prehistoric global warming

Mar 09, 2021 (SPX)

Led by Northwestern University, the researchers analyzed shells from foraminifera, an ocean-dwelling unicellular organism with an external shell made of calcium...

Rise of marine predators reshaped ocean life much like a mass extinction event

Mar 09, 2021 (SPX)

Scientists at Umea University in Sweden and the Florida Museum of Natural History used paleontological databases to build a multilayered computer model of the h...

'Pompeii of prehistoric plants' unlocks evolutionary secret

Mar 09, 2021 (SPX)

New research into fossils found at the 'Pompeii of prehistoric plants', in Wuda, Inner Mongolia, reveals that the plants, called Noeggerathiales, were highly-ev...