Scientists Just Discovered Ancient Squirrels Were Way More Metal Than You Think
One of my favorite old-school ways to call someone crazy is saying they’re “nuttier than squirrel shit.” It’s…
Scientists Thought Alaska Fossils Were Mammoths, They Were Whales
For several decades, the story of why woolly mammoths disappeared seemed remarkably simple and unquestioned; radiocarbon-dated fossils across…
Hidden in the dust: The 2-billion-year-old asteroid crater that holds the secret clue to ending an ice age
Scientists have identified the Yarrabubba impact crater in Western Australia as the Earth’s oldest, dating back 2.229 billion…
146,000-Year-Old Tool Discovery Reveals Unexpected Adaptations to Harsh Ice Age Life
Ice Age tools dating back 146,000 years were recently discovered in an ancient Chinese cave, revealing surprising human…
146,000-year-old Ice Age humans used advanced stone tools for butchery and survival
A new study from central China is changing how scientists think about creativity and survival among ancient humans.…
Lion-sized Armadillo and Giant Tortoise Found in Texas Cave Surprise Paleontologists
Paleontologist John Moretti searching for fossils in the stream that flows through Bender’s Cave. Credit: John Moretti. Deep…
Lion-sized armadillo, ancient tortoises: Ice Age creatures discovered in Central Texas
The floor of Bender’s Cave looked like a graveyard. Fossils spread across the submerged stream bed in every…
Neanderthals May Have Used Birch Tar as Natural Antibiotic
New experiments show that tar made from birch bark — long known as a tool adhesive — can…
Neanderthals May Have Hunted Giant Elephants that Roamed across Prehistoric Europe
Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in…
40,000-Year-Old Ice Age Symbols May Be First Step in Writing
The mammoth figurine from Vogelherd Cave. (Photo: University of Tübingen / Hildegard Jensen CC BY 4.0) Long before…
Japanese Archipelago Was Once a Refuge for Cave Lions
Between 73,000 and 20,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene), the Japanese Archipelago was inhabited by cave lions (Panthera spelaea),…
Scientists Found the Coldest Seawater in History from when Snowball Earth Reached Freezing Temperatures of Minus 15° Celsius
Illustration of “Snow Ball” Earth. Earth froze over 717 million years ago. Ice crept down from the poles…