EARLY EARTH - INDO DAILY

Mar 04, 2014 (SPX)

Mark Puttick and colleagues investigated the rates of evolution of the two key characteristics that preceded flight: body size and forelimb length. In order to ...

Oldest bit of crust firms up idea of a cool early Earth

Feb 25, 2014 (SPX)

With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 b...

The ups and downs of early atmospheric oxygen

Feb 24, 2014 (SPX)

A team of biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside, give us a nontraditional way of thinking about the earliest accumulation of oxygen in the a...

Evolution stuck in slime for a billion years

Feb 24, 2014 (SPX)

Tasmanian researchers have revealed ancient conditions that almost ended life on Earth, using a new technique they developed to hunt for mineral deposits. The f...

Theory on origin of animals challenged: Animals needs only extremely little oxygen

Feb 19, 2014 (SPX)

One of science's strongest dogmas is that complex life on Earth could only evolve when oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose to close to modern levels. But now s...

How evolution shapes the geometries of life

Feb 19, 2014 (SPX)

Why does a mouse's heart beat about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, although the mouse lives about a year, while an elephant sees 70 ...

Ancient reptile birth preserved in fossil

Feb 18, 2014 (SPX)

Ichthyosaur fossil may show the earliest live birth from an ancient Mesozoic marine reptile, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Ryosuke Motani from t...

Giant mass extinction may have been quicker than previously thought

Feb 13, 2014 (SPX)

The largest mass extinction in the history of animal life occurred some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent ...

Mass extinction may not cause all organisms to 'shrink'

Feb 12, 2014 (SPX)

The sizes of organisms following mass extinction events may vary more than previously thought, which may be inconsistent with the predictions of the so-called '...

'Steak-knife' teeth reveal ecology of oldest land predators

Feb 12, 2014 (SPX)

The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a University of Toronto Mississauga study has found. Graduate stu...

Researchers discover 'epic' new Burgess Shale site in Canada

Feb 12, 2014 (SPX)

Yoho National Park's 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale - home to some of the planet's earliest animals, including a very primitive human relative - is one of t...

Mass extinction happened fast: study

Feb 10, 2014 (AFP)

Something wiped out nearly all life on Earth more than 250 million years ago, and whatever unleashed this mass die-off acted much faster than previously thought...

Strange marine mammals of ancient North Pacific revealed

Feb 06, 2014 (SPX)

The pre-Ice Age marine mammal community of the North Pacific formed a strangely eclectic scene, research by a Geology PhD student at New Zealand's University of...

Forest emissions, wildfires explain why ancient Earth was so hot

Feb 06, 2014 (SPX)

The release of volatile organic compounds from Earth's forests and smoke from wildfires 3 million years ago had a far greater impact on global warming than anci...

Largest evolutionary study of sponges sheds new light on animal evolution

Feb 06, 2014 (SPX)

Sponges are an important animal for marine and freshwater ecology and represent a rich animal diversity found throughout the world, from tropical climates to th...

Pompeii-style volcano gave China its dinosaur trove

Feb 04, 2014 (AFP)

A treasure trove of fossilised dinosaurs and other long-extinct species in northeastern China was created, Pompeii-style, by an erupting volcano, scientists sai...

How did we get 4 limbs? Because we have a belly

Jan 29, 2014 (SPX)

All of us backboned animals - at least the ones who also have jaws - have four fins or limbs, one pair in front and one pair behind. These have been modified dr...

University of Hawaii scientists make a big splash

Jan 28, 2014 (SPX)

Researchers from the University of Hawaii - Manoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawren...

Scientists reveal why life got big in the Earth's early oceans

Jan 28, 2014 (SPX)

Why did life forms first begin to get larger and what advantage did this increase in size provide? UCLA biologists working with an international team of scienti...

Discovery of new Tiktaalik roseae fossils reveals key link in evolution of hind limbs

Jan 16, 2014 (SPX)

discovery of well-preserved pelves and a partial pelvic fin from Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old transitional species between fish and the first legged...