Ancient DNA News
May 14, 2024
Top Headlines
May 8, 2024 New research shows human activity is significantly altering the ways in which marine organisms are preserved, with lasting effects that can both improve and impair the fossil ...
May 1, 2024 Researchers have provided new age estimates and revised provenance information for the Liujiang human fossils, shedding light on the presence of Homo sapiens in the region. Using advanced dating ...
Apr. 29, 2024 How did North America's saber-toothed cats hunt without breaking their unwieldy saber-like canines, which are vulnerable to sideways bending stresses? A paleontologist provides mechanical evidence that during adolescence, when young cats were ...
Apr. 23, 2024 Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs from the Geiseltal site in central Germany. ...
Latest Headlines
updated 11:00pm EDT
Apr. 18, 2024 The origin of life continues to remain a matter of debate. The ribonucleic acid (RNA) world hypothesis proposes that 'ribozymes' which store genetic ...
Apr. 15, 2024 Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. ...
Apr. 11, 2024 Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...
Apr. 9, 2024 Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the ...
Apr. 3, 2024 The earliest dinosaurs had rapid growth rates, but so did many of the other animals living alongside them, according to a new ...
Mar. 28, 2024 New DNA sequencing technologies have identified the historical remains of George Washington's grandnephews, Samuel Walter Washington and George ...
Mar. 28, 2024 What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...
Mar. 21, 2024 Scientists have explored the puzzling world of rays that lived 150 million years ago and discovered a previously hidden diversity -- including a new ray species. This study significantly expands the ...
Mar. 12, 2024 An international team of palaeontologists applied recently developed methods to measure theropod (carnivorous) dinosaur species diversity. The newly applied method uses both traditional phylogenetic ...
Mar. 4, 2024 Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other ...
Earlier Headlines
Mar. 4, 2024 Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants ...
Feb. 29, 2024 A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...
Feb. 28, 2024 A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like ...
Feb. 20, 2024 By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from ...
Feb. 14, 2024 A new study explores the weight great fossil sites have on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and quantified the power these sites have on our understanding of ...
Feb. 14, 2024 Vittrup Man was born along the Scandinavian coast before moving to Denmark, where he was later sacrificed, according to a new ...
Feb. 14, 2024 Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might ...
Feb. 12, 2024 Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the ...
Feb. 9, 2024 Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...
Feb. 9, 2024 Nearly 400 exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating back 470 million years have been discovered in the south of France by two amateur paleontologists. The discovery provides unprecedented ...
Feb. 8, 2024 Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study. The results, which are ...
Feb. 6, 2024 A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden ...
Feb. 5, 2024 A new species of pterosaur from specimens found on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, has been ...
Feb. 2, 2024 In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new ...
Jan. 29, 2024 The first analysis results now confirm that the grave in Tiarp is one of the oldest stone burial chambers in Sweden. The researchers noted that some parts of the people buried in the grave are ...
Jan. 24, 2024 DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new ...
Jan. 24, 2024 The brown bear is one of the largest living terrestrial carnivores, and is widely distributed across the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike many other large carnivores that went extinct at the end of the ...
Jan. 22, 2024 Gliding winged-reptiles were amongst the ancient crocodile residents of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England, researchers at the have ...
Jan. 15, 2024 New research has precisely dated some of the oldest fossils of complex multicellular life in the world, helping to track a pivotal moment in the history of Earth when the seas began teeming with new ...
Jan. 11, 2024 Researchers have identified a 3D fragment of fossilized skin that is at least 21 million years than previously described skin fossils. The skin, which belonged to an early species of Paleozoic ...
Monday, March 4, 2024
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
- A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert
- Vittrup Man Crossed Over from Forager to Farmer Before Being Sacrificed in Denmark
- Some Pre-Roman Humans Were Buried With Dogs, Horses and Other Animals
Monday, February 12, 2024
Friday, February 9, 2024
- Surprisingly Vibrant Color of 12-Million-Year-Old Snail Shells
- New Fossil Site of Worldwide Importance Uncovered in Southern France
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Monday, February 5, 2024
Friday, February 2, 2024
Monday, January 29, 2024
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
- DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment
- Ancient Brown Bear Genomes Sheds Light on Ice Age Losses and Survival
Monday, January 22, 2024
Monday, January 15, 2024
Thursday, January 11, 2024
- Oldest Known Fossilized Skin Is 21 Million Years Older Than Previous Examples
- Prehistoric Person With Turner Syndrome Identified from Ancient DNA
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Thursday, December 7, 2023
- Molecular Fossils Shed Light on Ancient Life
- Ancient DNA Analysis Reveals How the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire Shifted Populations in the Balkans
- It Turns Out, This Fossil 'plant' Is Really a Fossil Baby Turtle
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Monday, December 4, 2023
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Thursday, November 16, 2023
- Plants That Survived Dinosaur Extinction Pulled Nitrogen from Air
- Birds Set Foot Near South Pole in Early Cretaceous, Australian Tracks Show
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Monday, November 6, 2023
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Friday, October 20, 2023
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
- Mummified Feces Reveals Pre-Columbian Cultures of the Caribbean Consumed a Diversity of Plants
- Evolutionary Secrets of 'Old Tom' And the Killer Whales of Eden Revealed by Genetic Study
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Friday, October 6, 2023
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Monday, October 2, 2023
- DNA from Discarded Whale Bones Suggests Loss of Genetic Diversity Due to Commercial Whaling
- A Hygiene Program for Chromosomes
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Friday, September 22, 2023
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Friday, September 1, 2023
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
Monday, August 28, 2023
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
- Newly Discovered 'primitive Cousins of T Rex' Shed Light on the End of the Age of Dinosaurs in Africa
- Noncoding DNA Explains a Majority of the Heritability of Dairy Cattle Traits, Like Milk Production and Fertility
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Friday, August 18, 2023
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
- Fossil Feces Infested With Parasites from Over 200 Million Years Ago
- New Research Links Early Europeans' Cultural and Genetic Development Over Several Thousand Years
Tuesday, August 8, 2023
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
- Ancient DNA Reveals Diverse Community in 'Lost City of the Incas'
- Family Trees from the European Neolithic
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Friday, July 21, 2023
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Friday, July 14, 2023
Thursday, July 13, 2023
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Monday, June 26, 2023
Friday, June 23, 2023
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Friday, June 16, 2023
- Fossil Study Sheds Light on Famous Spirals Found in Nature
- New Dinosaur Discovered: Ankylosaurs May Have Been Far More Diverse Than Originally Thought
Friday, June 9, 2023
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Thursday, June 1, 2023
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
- 4,000-Year-Old Plague DNA Found -- The Oldest Cases to Date in Britain
- 107-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Bones: Oldest in Australia
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Monday, May 8, 2023
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Tuesday, May 2, 2023
- 'Golden' Fossils Reveal Origins of Exceptional Preservation
- Fossil Find in California Shakes Up the Natural History of Cycad Plants