EARLY EARTH - INDO DAILY

This little amoeba committed grand theft

Oct 14, 2016 (SPX)

About 100 million years ago, a lowly amoeba pulled off a stunning heist, grabbing genes from an unsuspecting bacterium to replace those it had lost. Now Rutgers...

Was the secret spice in primal gene soup a thickener?

Oct 13, 2016 (SPX)

The original recipe for gene soup may have been simple - rain, a jumble of common molecules, warm sunshine, and nighttime cooling. Then add a pinch of thickener...

Coral study reveals secrets of evolution

Oct 12, 2016 (SPX)

Corals first appeared on earth nearly half a billion years ago during the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle categori...

Research to answer a 'crushing' evolutionary question

Oct 12, 2016 (SPX)

Studying the physical features of long-extinct creatures continues to yield surprising new knowledge of how evolution fosters traits desirable for survival in d...

World's oldest vocal organ suggests dinosaurs couldn't sing

Oct 12, 2016 (UPI)

New research suggests dinosaurs couldn't sing, at least not in the way moderns do. Scientists say a newly discovered ancient voice box, the world's oldest vocal...

Protein-like structures from the primordial soup

Oct 10, 2016 (SPX)

The story starts at least four billion years ago, when there was no living matter on the planet. Sometime around then, smaller chemical compounds formed into la...

How evolution has equipped our hands with 5 fingers

Oct 07, 2016 (SPX)

Have you ever wondered why our hands have exactly five fingers? Dr. Marie Kmita's team certainly has. The researchers at the Institut de recherches cliniques de...

Methane muted: How did early Earth stay warm

Oct 07, 2016 (SPX)

For at least a billion years of the distant past, planet Earth should have been frozen over but wasn't. Scientists thought they knew why, but a new modeling stu...

Today's most successful fish weren't always evolutionary standouts

Oct 06, 2016 (SPX)

Take a glance around the oceans, rivers and lakes of today and you'll confront an astonishing diversity of fish, from narrow-bodied eels to the 25-foot-long gia...

Researchers describe new large prehistoric shark

Oct 05, 2016 (SPX)

Megalolamna paradoxodon is the name of a new extinct shark described by an international research team who based their discovery on fossilized teeth up to 4.5 c...

Bizarre new species of extinct reptile shows dinosaurs copied body, skull

Oct 05, 2016 (SPX)

Iconic dinosaur shapes were present for at least a hundred million years on our planet in animals before those dinosaurs themselves actually appeared. In a stud...

Study reveals new extinct species of giant shark

Oct 03, 2016 (UPI)

Analysis of ancient shark teeth, collected in Japan, Peru and the United States, has yielded a new extinct shark species named Megalolamna paradoxodon. Scientis...

Fossils are informing the future of conservation

Sep 27, 2016 (UPI)

Which species are worth saving? Which species will survive global warming? Which will thrive? Conservationists are facing hard questions and tough decisions as ...

Ancient eggshell protein to help scientists study evolutionary history

Sep 27, 2016 (UPI)

New evidence suggests proteins can persist for much longer than previously thought, potentially offering scientists a deeper view of genetic history. A team of ...

Ornamented heads drove arms race of giant dinosaur bodies

Sep 27, 2016 (UPI)

Which came first, giant dinosaur heads or massive dino bodies? New research suggests large ornamented heads triggered the rapid increase in body mass among Jura...

Ancient arthropod ancestor had mouth like penis worm

Sep 26, 2016 (UPI)

Thanks to new fossil evidence out of Greenland, scientists have finally solved the mystery of what exactly the mouth of a unique group of ancient arthropods loo...

Giant algal bloom explains the White Cliffs of Dover

Sep 20, 2016 (UPI)

A massive algae bloom in the Southern Ocean is helping scientists understand how the White Cliffs of Dover came to be some 100 million years ago. The iconic whi...

Study: Dinosaurs' color patterns reveal habitat preferences

Sep 15, 2016 (UPI)

Until recently, colors used in renderings of dinosaurs were simply an artist's best guess. New technologies and the discovery of preserved dino pigments have al...

Did meteorites bring life's phosphorus to Earth?

Sep 14, 2016 (SPX)

Meteorites that crashed onto Earth billions of years ago may have provided the phosphorous essential to the biological systems of terrestrial life. The meteorit...

First Signs Of Animal Life On Earth May Be From Microbes

Sep 14, 2016 (SPX)

Evidence suggests that microbes existed on Earth as far back as 3.7 billion years ago, a billion years after the planet formed. Animal remains, however, don't a...