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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some odd-looking fish fossils discovered in the bowels of several European museums may help solve a lingering question about evolutionary theory, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The 50 million-year-old fossils -- which have one eye near the top of their heads -- help explain how flatfish such as flounder, sole and halibut developed the strange but useful trait of having both eyes on one side. For flatfish, which lie on their sides at the bottom of the sea, this arrangement gives them the use of two watchful eyes. But the trait has posed a problem for evolutionary...

Cat-sized reptiles once roamed what is now the icebox of Antarctica, snuggling up in burrows and peeping above ground to snag plant roots and insects. The evidence for this scenario comes from preserved burrow casts discovered in the Transantarctic Mountains, which extend 3,000 miles (4,800 km) across the polar continent and contain layers of rock dating back 400 million years. "We've got good evidence that these burrows were made by land-dwelling animals rather than crayfish," said lead researcher Christian Sidor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Washington and curator at UW's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Ancient...

The first-ever chimpanzee fossils were recently discovered in an area previously thought to be unsuitable for chimps. Fossils from human ancestors were also found nearby. Although researchers have only found a few chimp teeth, the discovery could cause a shake-up in the theories of human evolution. “We know today if you go to western and central Africa that humans and chimps live in similar and neighboring environments,” said Nina Jablonski, an anthropologist at the California Academy of Sciences. “This is the first evidence in the fossil record that they coexisted in the same place in the past.” It had previously...

CHICAGO (AFP) - French fossil hunters have pinned down the age of Toumai, which they contend is the remains of the earliest human ever found, at between 6.8 and 7.2 million years old. The fossil was discovered in the Chadian desert in 2001 and an intense debate ensued over whether the nearly complete cranium, pieces of jawbone and teeth belonged to one of our earliest ancestors. Critics said that Toumai's cranium was too squashed to be that of a hominid -- it did not have the brain capacity that gives humans primacy -- and its small size indicated a creature...

It's been called the world's single greatest assemblage of primeval fossils - an accidental Canadian treasure that scientists literally stumbled upon 100 years ago in B.C.'s Rocky Mountains. The Burgess Shale fossil site in present-day Yoho National Park is a one-of-a-kind, 530-million-year-old time capsule containing the stunningly well-preserved remains of an entire undersea ecosystem from a crucial phase in the history of life - a lost world filled with dozens of bizarre creatures destined to become evolution's losers, but also with a primitive ancestor of the human race itself. Now, a team of British and Canadian scientists has solved the...

AYIA NAPA, Cyprus - An abattoir used by early Cypriots, a place where animals went to die, or a shelter that ultimately proved a death trap? Cypriot and Greek scientists are studying a collapsed cave filled with the fossilized remains of extinct dwarf hippopotamuses — descendants of hippos believed to have reached the island a quarter-million years ago. Paleontologists have unearthed an estimated 80 dwarf hippos in recent digs at the site just outside the resort of Ayia Napa on the island's southeastern coast. Hundreds more may lie beneath an exposed layer of jumbled fossils. Scientists hope the fossil haul,...

New Haven, Conn. — The gigantic fossil claw of an 390 million-year-old sea scorpion, recently found in Germany, shows that ancient arthropods — spiders, insects, crabs and the like — were surprisingly larger than their modern-day counterparts. “Imagine an eight-foot-long scorpion,” said O. Erik Tetlie, postdoctoral associate in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale, and an author of the report online in Royal Society Biology Letters. “The claw itself is a foot-and-a-half long — indicating that these ancient arthropods were much larger than previous estimates — and certainly the largest seen to date.” Colleague and co-author Markus Poschmann...

ARCHAEOLOGY: New human fossils found in Georgia, north of Africa, have some rethinking migration of early man. DMANISI, Georgia - The forested bluff that overlooks this sleepy Georgian hamlet seems an unlikely portal into the mysteries surrounding the dawn of man. Think human evolution, and one conjures up the wind-swept savannas and badlands of east Africa's Great Rift Valley. Georgians may claim their ancestors made Georgia the cradle of wine 8,000 years ago, but the cradle of mankind lies 3,300 miles away, at Tanzania's famed Olduvai Gorge. But it is here in the verdant uplands of southern Georgia that David...

Dinosaur Deaths Outsourced to India? Boulder, CO, USA - A series of monumental volcanic eruptions in India may have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not a meteor impact in the Gulf of Mexico. The eruptions, which created the gigantic Deccan Traps lava beds of India, are now the prime suspect in the most famous and persistent paleontological murder mystery, say scientists who have conducted a slew of new investigations honing down eruption timing. "It's the first time we can directly link the main phase of the Deccan Traps to the mass extinction," said Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller....

Classic Rockers Reprise 'No Nukes' Initiative Browne, Nash, Raitt Urge Congress To Halt Loans For New PlantsPOSTED: 4:22 pm EDT October 23, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Rock musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash are putting a new millennium twist on their 1970s anti-nuclear message, urging Congress not to approve federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. "Thirty years ago, we felt that this monster was dead," Nash said. "It's trying to raise its ugly head." Nearly three decades ago, the three were prominent in the anti-nuke movement, helping organize the "No Nukes" concerts at Madison Square Garden that...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — The skeleton of what is believed to be a new dinosaur species — a 105-foot plant-eater that is among the largest dinosaurs ever found — has been uncovered in Argentina, scientists said Monday.Standing alongside a replica of a neck vertebra more than 3 feet high, scientists from Argentina and Brazil said the find was remarkable because they have recovered the most complete skeletons one of one of these "giants" found so far.They said the Patagonian dinosaur appears to represent a previously unknown species of Titanosaur because of the unique structure of its neck. They...

Many people are convinced that human evolution is a fact. Often they will cite the existence of hominids in the fossil record as evidence for their conviction. These creatures presumably represent evolutionary intermediates between an ape-like creature and modern humans. The standard evolutionary model for human origins views Homo habilis as the first member of our genus (Homo). This hominid initially appears in the fossil record about 2.6 million years ago (mya) and seemingly gives rise directly to Homo erectus around 1.9 mya. The direct transformation of H. habilis into H. erectus appeared to gain support from the recovery of...

Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved. The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man's early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other. And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a...

Two hominid fossils discovered in Kenya are challenging a long-held view of human evolution. The broken upper jaw-bone and intact skull from humanlike creatures, or hominids, are described in Nature. Previously, the hominid Homo habilis was thought to have evolved into the more advanced Homo erectus, which evolved into us. Now, habilis and erectus are now thought to be sister species that overlapped in time. The new fossil evidence reveals an overlap of about 500,000 years during which Homo habilis and Homo erectus must have co-existed in the Turkana basin area, the region of East Africa where the fossils were...

Ancient human fossils show women much smaller Thu Aug 9, 2007 10:18AM EDT NAIROBI (Reuters) - Homo erectus, long viewed as a crucial evolutionary link between modern humans and their tree-dwelling ancestors, may have been more ape-like than previously thought, scientists unveiling new-found fossils said on Thursday. Revealing an ancient skull and a jawbone from two early branches of the human family tree -- Homo erectus and Homo habilis -- a team of Kenyan scientists said they were surprised to find that early female hominids were much smaller than males. The skull was the first discovery of a female Homo...

Kenyan Fossils May Add New Branch to Human Family Tree John Roach for National Geographic News August 8, 2007 A pair of fossils recently discovered in Kenya is challenging the straight-line story of human evolution. Traditional evolutionary theories of the genus Homo suggest a successive progression: Homo habilis gave rise to Homo erectus, which then begat modern humans, Homo sapiens. H. erectus is commonly seen as the most similar ancestor to modern humans, differing mostly by having a brain about three-quarters the size. But the newly found upper jawbone and skull, which come from two separate skeletons, suggest that H....

Ethiopia unveils new find of ancient fossils Tue Jul 10, 2007 12:13PM EDT ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered hominid fossil fragments dating from between 3.5 million and 3.8 million years ago in what could fill a crucial gap in the understanding of human evolution. Ethiopian archaeologist Yohannes Haile Selassie said the find included several complete jaws and one partial skeleton and were unearthed in the Afar desert at Woranso-Mille, near where the famous fossil skeleton known as Lucy was found in 1974. "This is a major finding that could fill a gap in...

Scientists exploring a mine have uncovered a natural Sistine chapel showing not religious paintings, but incredibly well preserved images of sprawling tree trunks and fallen leaves that once breathed life into an ancient rainforest. Replete with a diverse mix of extinct plants, the 300-million-year-old fossilized forest is revealing clues about the ecology of Earth’s first rainforests . The discovery and details of the forest are published in the May issue of the journal Geology. “We’re looking at one instance in time over a large area. It’s literally a snapshot in time of a multiple square mile area,” said study team...

PARIS (AFP) - Caves in the Sun-scorched, treeless wilderness of southern Australia's Nullarbor plain have revealed one of the world's most remarkable collections of fossils, including species of now-extinct kangaroos that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. The three Thylacoleo caves, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the coast, were uncovered by potholers in 2002. The find "is without precedent in Australia. Several new and previously incompletely known species are represented by whole skeletons," enthuse a team of researchers, reporting on the treasure trove in Thursday's issue of Nature. The fossils date back to the Middle Pleistocene era,...

Two aging incumbents thought to be likely retirement candidates -- US Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) -- announced Thursday they will both seek re-election in 2008. Stevens, a seven-term incumbent, will be 84 in 2008. Domenici, a six-term incumbent, will be 76 in 2008...