Putting a face on the earliest modern Europeans
...ed in the Pestera cu Oase, in western Romania. The fossil specimen is the earliest largely complete example of an early modern human skull known from Europe. The modern humans emerged within eastern Africa some 150,000 years ago, spread temporarily into extreme southwest Asia and into southern Africa, and ...Hofmeyr skull supports the 'Out of Africa' theory
...e, the skull fills a significant void in the human fossil record of sub-Saharan Africa from the period betwe... changed that. The surprising similarity between a fossil skull from the southernmost tip of Africa and similarly ancient skulls from Europe is in agreement w...Science's breakthrough of the year -- The Poincar Theorem
...he oceans. Fishy First Steps: The discovery of a fossil fish with sturdy, jointed fins made a big splash in 2006. The fish is the closest known kin to limbed vertebrates and provides a window into how life left the oceans and ventured onto terra firma. The Science of Invisibility: Though it looks nothin...HYMS researchers focus on human evolution
...at could be Britain's most substantial Neanderthal fossil discovered at Kent's Cavern in Torbay in 1926. The imaging using CMET's micro Computerised Tomography facilities was carried out on behalf of the Natural History Museum's Ancient Occupation of Britain project supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Dr B...Oldest animal fossils may have been bacteria
...y. These bacteria, on the other hand, make better fossil candidates. And bydepositing phosphorite, Thiomargarita even supplies its own rock matrix, orfossil bed. The Nature study's authors, which include Bailey's adviser Frank Corsettiand USC biology graduate student Beverly Flood, were careful not to rul...Shoulder ligament a linchpin in the evolution of flight
...rk of supporting the shoulder. Then Baier hit the fossil record, studying the skeleton of Archaeopteryx lithographica, considered by many paleontologists to be the first bird. Baier even traveled to Beijing to examine the fossilized remains of Confuciusornis, Sinornithoides youngi and Sinornithosaurus mill...Nalco Company and Argonne National
...dvances in technology have the potential to reduce fossil fuel power plant water withdrawal and consumption, leading to more efficient use of water and energy. "Coal-based power plants have re-emerged as the preferred fuel type in new plants to be built in the next decade. Increasingly, water management h...Coral stress 'like never in history'
...de less than it is today," he says. Studying the fossil reefs of the Huon Peninsula, which are now cliff f... Pandolfi. Over the 6000 years recorded in the fossil strata the team found 4 devastating events which resulted in the death of most of the reef indicati......nown. They were unearthed from the rich St Bathans fossil bed, in the Central Otago region of South Island. ...and live-bearing placental mammals. The St Bathans fossil field - which has also produced many other species of animals, including fish and birds - also promi...Two studies on bee evolution reveal surprises
...rhaps the oldest bee ever found -- "pushes the bee fossil record back about 35 million years," according to ...northern Myanmar (Burma). A report on this major fossil discovery, which the researchers say supports a new hypothesis in bee evolution, was published in th...Finding an answer to Darwin's Dilemma
...tion, these large animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record. In a paper published on-line in Science Express, Dr. Narbonnes team argues that a huge increase in oxygen following the Gaskiers Glaciation 580 million years ago corresponds with the first appearance of large animal fossils on the Avalon P...Ancient ape ruled out of man's ancestral line
...n sediment layers, it is the most complete hominid fossil skeleton ever found. Little Foot is of the genus Australopithecus, thought by some to be part of the ancestral line which led directly to man. But research by Dr Jo Walker and Dr Bob Cliff of the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment,...Mixed prairie grasses are better biofuel source, U of M study says
...on in their roots and soil than is released by the fossil fuels needed to grow and convert them into biofuel...rbon dioxide to the atmosphere, although less than fossil fuels. Switchgrass, which is being developed as a perennial bioenergy crop, was one of 16 species i...From hot springs to rice farms, scientists reveal new insights into the secret lives of archaea
...go will describe what may be the earliest archaean fossil evidence yet discovered-rock samples that are 2.71 billion to 2.65 billion years old that were collected from a deep underground gold mine in Ontario, Canada. Ventura and his colleagues discovered that the rocks contained a type of lipid, or oily com...Thorium poised to meet world's energy needs
...tor where thorium could not only gradually replace fossil fuels as the world's energy source, but nuclear energy as well." Thorium, which is plentiful in North America, can produce fewer environmental and human health hazards in its fuel production than the conventional uranium fuel cycle. Most significant...Increase in carbon dioxide emissions accelerating
...cent emissions seem to be near the high end of the fossil fuel use scenarios used by the Intergovernmental P...that on average, nearly half of all emissions from fossil fuel use and land-use changes remain in the atmosphere, with the rest being absorbed by the land and...Ancient predator had strongest bite of any fish, rivaling bite of large alligators and T. rex
...e first true apex predators seen in the vertebrate fossil record. This formidable fish was a placoderms, a d...ineering theory can be in studying the behavior of fossil animals, he added. We cannot actually watch these animals feed or interact, but we can understand t...Plant potential in the pipeline
...impact consumer lifestyles is accelerating even as fossil fuel supplies are dwindling, and the environmental...comes ever more apparent. But plants, rather than fossil fuels, can provide our future energy, fuel and domestic needs and today an international group of sc...Resilient form of plant carbon gives new meaning to term 'older than dirt'
...orld behind the carbon locked deep in the Earth as fossil fuel oils and coal and the carbon that is dissolved in the world's oceans. In soils, the more edible kinds of carbon from plants are quickly digested by bacteria and turned back into carbon dioxide. But about half the organic carbon in soils is less ...Coal, oil or natural gas: all fossil fuels contain the energy of sunlight, stored with the aid of photosynthesis in energy-rich chemical compounds. A researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry in Mlheim on the Ruhr working with colleagues from the Technical Univer...