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Stephen Pates, a researcher from Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, has uncovered secrets from the ancient oceans. With Dr Rudy Lerosey-Aubril from New England University (Australia), he meticulously re-examined fossil material collected over 25 years ago from the mountains of Utah, USA. The research, published in a new study in Nature Communications, reveals further evidence of the great complexity of the oldest animal ecosystems. Twenty hours of work with a needle on the specimen while submerged underwater exposed numerous, delicate microscopic hair-like structures known as setae. This revelation of a frontal appendage with fine filtering setae has allowed researchers to...

Neanderthals are often depicted as having straight spines and poor posture. However, these prehistoric humans were more similar to us than many assume. University of Zurich researchers have shown that Neanderthals walked upright just like modern humans - thanks to a virtual reconstruction of the pelvis and spine of a very well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton found in France... Since the 1950s, scientists have known that the image of the Neanderthal as a hunched over caveman is not an accurate one. Their similarities to ourselves - both in evolutionary and behavioral terms - have also long been known, but in recent years...

Tiny holes in the bones indicate that they passed through a large bird’s digestive system, according to Professor Pawel Valde-Nowak of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. It’s not clear, however, whether the bird attacked and ate the young Neanderthal or scavenged the remains of a dead child. Believed to be about 115,000 years old, the bones are the oldest human remains ever discovered in Poland. Experts from the Jagiellonian University and Washington University in St. Louis confirmed that the remains are digital bones from a child’s hand. The Archaeological Museum of Krakow and the Polish Academy of Sciences also participated...