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When Mike Poben, an opal buyer and and fossil fanatic, bought a bucket of opal from an Australian mine, he was surprised to find to find what looked like an ancient tooth in the pile. Later, he also found a fossilized jaw piece — one that was shiny and glistening with opal. After showing the two opalized specimens to paleontologists in 2014, Poben learned that they were part of a previously unknown dog-size dinosaur species, a new study finds. This dino lived about 100 million years ago in Australia, back when the landscape was lush and dotted with lakes. The...

Researchers have discovered the fossilized remains of a herd of dinosaurs in an opal mine in the Australian outback. The fossils were found in the mine near Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, and include a new dinosaur species as well as the world’s most complete opalized dino, according to experts. “We initially assumed it was a single skeleton, but when I started looking at some of the bones, I realised that we had four scapulae (shoulder blades) all from different sized animals,” said Dr. Phil Bell, lead researcher from the University of New England in Australia, in a statement. The...

Thousands of people living near Sydney's Olympic Park are facing an uncertain Christmas Eve after residents of a newly opened apartment building reported unsettling noises, generating fears of a possible collapse and prompting evacuations Monday. Emergency responders were called to the Opal Tower on the city's west side across the street from the site of the 2000 Sydney Olympics after residents reported hearing "cracking noises" during the morning, New South Wales Police said in a statement.

The new Australian dinosaur, named Weewarrasaurus pobeni, was about the size of a large dog. The ancient creature was an ornithopod dinosaur, part of a group of small plant-eating species that moved around on two legs and that were particularly abundant on the Cretaceous floodplains of eastern Australia.A fragment of the jawbone of Weewarrasaurus pobeni was found deep in an underground mine at the Wee Warra locality close to the Grawin/Glengarry opal fields, approximately 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Lightning Ridge, central-northern New South Wales.The fossil was analyzed by a team of paleontologists from the Australian Opal Centre and...

A new type of treatment that trains immune system cells to better recognize the AIDS virus may help control the deadly and incurable infection, Australian researchers reported on Friday. Tests on monkeys infected with a similar virus shows the treatment controlled the infection, although it does not cure it, and tests are already planned in people. The treatment is called OPAL, for Overlapping Peptide-pulsed Autologous Cells, and would be categorized as an immunotherapy technique, or a so-called therapeutic vaccine, Stephen Kent of the University of Melbourne and colleagues said. Writing in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens, they...

Man accused of trying to help al-Qaida sought US public rebellion MICHAEL RUBINKAM The Associated Press SCRANTON, Pa. - A man charged with trying to help al-Qaida blow up U.S. energy facilities described in chilling detail a plan to target a natural gas refinery and wrote that it would lead to "instant rebellion" by an American public disgusted over the Iraq war... Michael C. Reynolds, 49, of Wilkes-Barre, is on trial here on federal charges of providing material support to terrorists. He was arrested in December 2005 after he tried to meet a purported al-Qaida contact near a hotel where...

Federal agents contend that a Pennsylvania man tried to work with al Qaeda in a plot to blow up the Alaska pipeline, another pipeline in Pennsylvania and a refinery in New Jersey, according to a published report. Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, has not officially been charged with terrorism, but a prosecutor at a hearing said that Reynolds tried to "provide material aid to al Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that a tip from Shannen Rossmiller - a judge from Conrad,...

FORT WORTH - Skeletal remains found more than a week ago in northwest Fort Worth are those of Opal Jennings, the 6-year-old girl abducted as she played outside her grandparents' Saginaw home in 1999, DNA testing has determined. Opal died from a crushing blow to the head, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. Her death has been officially ruled a homicide, the release states. A news conference was scheduled for Monday afternoon. The confirmation, made through DNA tests, ends an almost five-year mystery about what happened to Opal. Opal was playing with two younger...