
How Fake Fossils Pervert Paleontology [Excerpt]
A nebulous trade in forged and illegal fossils is an ever-growing headache for paleontologists

How Fake Fossils Pervert Paleontology [Excerpt]
A nebulous trade in forged and illegal fossils is an ever-growing headache for paleontologists

`Proto-Ichthyosaur' Sheds Light on Fish-Lizard Beginnings
Regular readers will know that I have a major interest in ichthyosaurs, the so-called fish-lizards of the Mesozoic (see links below). As you'll know if you keep your finger on the pulse of Mesozoic reptile news, last week saw the publication of a really interesting new animal from the Lower Triassic: the Chinese `proto-ichthyosaur' Cartorhynchus [...]


Mind-Blowing Fossil Preserves Tiny Horse Carrying Unborn Foal
BERLIN: The former oil shale mining site of Messel, near Frankfurt, Germany, is well known for its spectacular fossils of organisms that lived between 47 million and 48 million years ago, during the Eocene epoch.

Human or Hobbit?
The arguments over an ancient skeleton just won’t die

New Artifact-Filled Chambers Revealed under Teotihuacan
Rooms beneath the mysterious city contain jade statues, jaguar remains and thousands of other objects

Fern Frozen in Time by Volcanic Flow Reveals Stunning Detail
It defies belief, but a 180 million year old fern fossil unearthed in Sweden is so exquisitely preserved that it is possible to see its cells dividing.

45,000-Year-Old Man's Genome Sequenced
An analysis of the oldest known DNA from a human reveals a mysterious group that roamed northern Asia

The "Shanklin Croc" and the Dawn of the Tethysuchian Radiation
Hey, Darren, how's it going with that plan to discuss all the fossil crocodylomorph groups? Huh? Well, ha ha, it ain't going so well… goddam life getting in the way of my blogging.

Fossils Rewrite History of Sex
Evidence of bony organs in ancient fish suggests that they copulated, although many of their descendants stopped doing so

Primordial Giant Kangaroos Did Not Hop, They Walked

Drought Exposes Once-Submerged Oregon Town to Archaeological Dig
Record drought on the U.S. West Coast has exposed the ruins of an Oregon hamlet once submerged under the waters of a man-made reservoir, allowing a rare opportunity for an archaeological excavation, a U.S.

Submarine Exosuit Makes Its First Manned Ocean Dive
Editor's Note: Veteran science journalist Philip Hilts is working with a team of archeologists, engineers and divers off the shore of Antikythera, a remote Greek island, where a treasure ship by the same name sank in 70 B.C.