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===================================================================================================================== Textbooks on methane-metabolising organisms might have to be rewritten after researchers in a University of Queensland-led international project today (23 October) announced the discovery of two new organisms. Deputy Head of UQ's Australian Centre for Ecogenomics in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Associate Professor Gene Tyson said these new organisms played an unknown role in greenhouse gas emissions and consumption. "We sampled the microorganisms in the water from a deep coal seam aquifer 600m below the earth's surface in the Surat Basin, near Roma, Queensland, and reconstructed genomes of organisms able to perform methane metabolism," Associate...

The extinct turtle was about 2 feet long from head to tail. Its streamlined shell was adapted for living in a riverine environment. When it was alive, 76 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, Southern Utah looked more like present-day Louisiana. The climate was wet and hot, and the landscape was dominated by rivers, bayous and lowland flood plains. It lived alongside tyrannosaurs, armored ankylosaurs, giant duck-billed dinosaurs such as Gryposaurus and Parasaurolophus, and other dinosaurs that left abundant fossil remains in the Upper Cretaceous Kaiparowits Formation of Southern Utah. But those fossil beds also hold the remains of...

Sir Mick Jagger has a new animal named after him. Scientists have named an extinct swamp-dwelling creature that lived 19 million years ago in Africa after the Rolling Stones frontman, in honor of a trait they both share—their supersized lips. "We gave it the scientific name Jaggermeryx naida, which translates to 'Jagger's water nymph,'" said study co-author Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University. The animal's fossilized jaw bones suggest it was roughly the size of a small deer and akin to a cross between a slender hippo and a long-legged pig. Researchers uncovered the fossils—consisting of multiple jawbone fragments—amid the...

FULLERTON – Rumors swirled around Laguna Lake for 40 years that a vicious snapping turtle named "Old Bob" lurked beneath its water lilies. Turns out the talk was not some exaggerated fish tale. On Thursday, dredging company workers snared the 100-pound snapper near a park dam in the north-central part of the city. A Santa Monica contractor, hired to scoop out fish during a $2 million restoration of the 7-acre lake, netted the 50-year-old, 36-inch alligator snapping turtle along with catfish, crappie and bluegills.

Scientists from Leeds University have discovered that the world was ruled by pig-like creatures for a million years. The “Age of the Porcine” occurred around 260 million years ago - when the creatures called lystrosaurs were the few survivors of a mass extinction. Nearly 95 pct of the living species were destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions leaving behind pigs in a “golden age” of no predators. They had Earth’s abundant plant-life all to themselves. “We can only speculate on how lystrosaurs survived while the rest died. Perhaps its ability to burrow and hibernate protected it from the worst...

A TERRIFIED man set himself on fire after claiming he came face-to-face with a Yeti – who told him he would die soon. The disturbed man was so scared by the "meeting" that he doused himself in petrol and set himself alight. The incident happened in the village of Malyy Manok, in the Republic of Khakassia, in south-central Russia. He said he came face to face with the mythical creature – also known as the Abominbal Snowman – in the Taiga forest. The man died from his injuries. Yetis are claimed to be large, ape-like beasts living in the Himalayan...

A REMOTE village has become the scene of a real-life sci-fi film after a strange creature was discovered.With scaly skin and calf-like hooves, the bizarre animal looks like a genetic mutation between a buffalo and a crocodile. The creature, which was found in Thailand, appears to have the rough, scaly head of a reptile and limbs and hooves of a mammal. It is not the first time a genetic cross between two species has been found, but it is one of the most unusual animals spotted. The animal died soon after birth, according to a local website, but is believed...

The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death Only a few genetic changes were enough to turn an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague. Pieter Bruegel the ElderThe Triumph of Death (1562), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. By: Carrie ArnoldOctober 6, 2015 Comments (1) Download PDF Print Each year, 4 million people visit Yosemite National Park in California. Most bring back photos, postcards and an occasional sunburn. But two unlucky visitors this summer got a very different souvenir. They got the plague.This quintessential medieval disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and transmitted most often by fleabites,...

The genetic heritage of New Zealand's first dog, the now extinct kuri, is being unravelled by University of Otago scientists using state-of-the-art ancient DNA analysis. University of Otago PhD student Karen Greig has sequenced the complete, or near complete, mitochondrial genomes of 14 kuri represented by bones recovered from Wairau Bar, one on New Zealand's earliest and most important archaeological sites. Kuri were smallish dogs about the size of cocker spaniels and were brought to New Zealand from East Polynesia in the colonising canoes that arrived in the early fourteenth century AD. They were the only domesticated animal to be...

Scientists say the rat is part of an "amazing group of rodents" only found in a remote part of Sulawesi Island in Indonesia.A new species of rat has been discovered on an island in Indonesia. The previously unknown hog-nosed shrew rat (Hyorhinomys stuempkei) was found in a remote and mountainous region of Sulawesi Island located about two days' hike from the closest village. Scientists consider the rat so exceptional that they have described it not only as a new species but a new genus - a step up from the "new species" label. The rat was discovered by an international...

BIZARRE images of the insides of a wild pig – which has FLUORESCENT blue fat – have emerged online leaving people scratching their heads. Blue pigmentation is often caused by copper poisoning – but the land where the animal was shot only has mercury mine shafts. The post's author – GlendilTEK – on imgur website wrote how none of the pigs shot by his in-laws on the Californian ranch had blue fat. He wrote how the rest of the pig was "normal" – the meat, the blood, and the hide.

Visibly straining as he holds it aloft, a Japanese fisherman grimaces as he proudly displays a terrifyingly large fish caught in the waters off Japan. With a gaping mouth large enough to swallow a small child, this creature - believed to be a wolffish - would not look out of place in a science fiction film. The massive catch was reeled in by Hirasaka Hiroshi, a fisherman who has made a career of landing and then eating unusual fish. Normally growing to about 1.2m in length, the wolffish Hirasaka caught measured close to two metres

Imaging of Mollivirus particles. (A) Scanning electron microscopy of two isolated particles showing the apex structure. (B) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of an ultrathin section of an open particle after fusion of its internal lipid membrane with that of a phagosome. (C) Enlarged view of the viral tegument of a Mollivirus particle highlighting the layer made of a mesh of fibrils (black arrow), resembling Pandoraviruses’ intermediate layer, and the underneath internal membrane (white arrow). Three ∼25-nm interspaced rings are visible around the mature particle. (D) Light microscopy (Nomarski optics 63×) imaging of a lawn of Mollivirus particles, some of...

Beachgoers in Lubec, Maine, near the Canadian border, tried to save a 30-foot-long basking shark that recently washed ashore, according to a video showing the desperate rescue attempt. Onlooker Mark Olsen recorded the video Wednesday morning, when more than a dozen people spent several hours pouring buckets of ocean water into the large shark's gills and onto its skin. The 30-foot-long shark can be seen immobile, lying on its side with a bloodied fin in the video. Despite the efforts to save the shark, it died Wednesday afternoon, according to Lubec Town Administrator John Sutherland. He said the College of...

Full title: The stuff of nightmares! Insect that looks like a wasp but crawls like a praying mantis is captured devouring a fly (after ripping off its prey's legs) If you have a fear of creepy crawlies, you may want to approach with caution. A YouTube user has captured a mantidfly, which looks like a wasp but has the front legs, sharp jaws and bulging eyes of a praying mantis, tucking into a small fly. The video shows the active hunter feasting on the fly's body, which it holds in its front legs and nibbles on like a human stripping...

INCREDIBLE Basking Sharks filmed from a drone Tobermory Scotland

AN ARTIST is claiming to have seen a mythical yeti for long enough to sketch the "giant primate".Russian Andrey Lyubchenko says people will think he is "insane", but insists he saw the legendary beast which was happy for him to draw its portrait. He claims the brief encounter was in the mountains of the Kemerovo area of Siberia, in Russia, and he telepathically communicated with the hairy mythological mammal. He said: "It happened so unexpectedly and fast that I had no time to get scared. "There was a clear feeling that this was a thinking creature, I felt he was...

The fabled Bishopville swamp creature known as Lizard Man appears to have surfaced again Sunday afternoon. Sarah, a Sumter woman who says she went to church with a friend Sunday morning, stepped out of the sanctuary to see the Lizard Man running along the tree line. So, she did what anyone else would do--took a picture with her phone. "My hand to God, I am not making this up," she wrote in an email to the WCIV newsroom. "So excited!" She says they were just a mile or so from Scape Ore Swamp, the site of a similar spotting of...

The man, who provided a full name but chose to remain anonymous, told Cryptozoology News that the encounters have been happening since 2009 in a remote area in the North Cascades. “Sometimes it is just 5 to 10 minutes, other times they stay for hours,” he said. “I leave them food and they visit,” he continued. From apples to carrots, to beef jerky, cookies and candy bars, the ex-law enforcement officer claims the creatures eat it all and leave him alone. The man says he was looking for an old mine in the mountains the first time he came across...

Four Mountain Lion sightings have been reported in the San Francisco area since June 30. A joint press release from the Presidio Trust, the National Park Service and San Francisco Animal Care and Control said three of the sightings were made by members of the public, while one of the sightings was captured by a neighborhood security camera. Authorities believe the recent sightings are of the same mountain lion. The animal was last seen on Friday, July 3, in southwest San Francisco near Lake Merced. The mountain lion also was spotted on the 1000 block of Gough Street on July...