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Archaeologists working at the ancient Hittite settlement of Kayalıpınar, located in Türkiye's Sivas province, have uncovered a remarkably well-preserved clay tablet containing a bird omen text...The discovery was made as part of an ongoing excavation led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Maner of Koç University's Department of Archaeology and Art History. The site, historically known as Samuha, holds immense historical importance as a major administrative and religious center of the Hittite Empire...The tablet offers insights into Hittite divination practices, particularly the interpretation of bird movements as omens. Known as "bird oracles", these texts were central to Hittite spiritual and state...

[Video : Lead Actors: Reggie McGuire, Hannah Bradley. Secular museum docent (Reggie McGuire) presents his best case for evolution at the natural history museum, but little does he know that Christina (Hannah Bradley) has a few questions at the end of his talk that turn the tables…... Length: 67 Minutes [McGuire, beginning at 3:41 mark of vid] I encourage you to visit the exhibits that will help you visualize what we've discussed today. These exhibits should be marked in the maps that we provided for you. First, we have a wonderful exhibit that shows that apes and humans share about...

Moa were nine species of giant flightless endemic birds that belonged to six genera grouped into three different families. They evolved into a wide variety of sizes to become the largest terrestrial herbivores in prehistoric New Zealand.

One hundred years ago, a public high school teacher stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching human evolution. His nation is still feeling the reverberations today. The law books record it as State of Tennessee v. John T. Scopes. History remembers it as the “ Monkey Trial.” The case ballooned into a national spectacle, complete with a courthouse showdown between a renowned, agnostic defense attorney and a famous fundamentalist Christian politician who defended the Bible on the witness stand.

Scientists have confirmed the rediscovery of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, a species previously thought to be extinct for over 60 years.This ancient, egg-laying mammal was found deep within the rainforests of Indonesia.It is scientifically known as Zaglossus attenboroughi and named after the legendary naturalist David Attenborough.Echidnas, characterized by their spiky fur and beaks, are often referred to as "living fossils" due to their ancient lineage, believed to have originated around 200 million years ago during the time of dinosaurs...In 2023, during an Oxford University expedition to the remote Cyclops Mountains — located 2,000m (6,561ft) above sea level — a glimmer of...

Paleontologists have described a new species of the extant bee genus Leioproctus from a fossil specimen found in southern New Zealand.Named Leioproctus barrydonovani, the new species lived during the Middle Miocene epoch, some 14.6 million years ago.The ancient insect belongs to Leioproctus, a large genus within the plasterer bee family Colletidae.Extant Leioproctus species are small, black, hairy bees between 4 and 16 mm in length.They are found in Australasia and South America, and include the most common native bees in New Zealand...The specimen (total length of the body is 6.4 mm) was recovered from the Middle Miocene deposits of the...

There is no single answer to this puzzle. Dinosaurs dominated the planet for around 179 million years and during that time, evolved into an enormous array of different shapes and sizes. Some were tiny, like the diminutive Albinykus, which weighed under a kilogram (2.2lbs) and was probably less than 2ft (60cm) long. Others were among the biggest animals to have ever lived on land, such as the titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, which may have weighed up to 72 tonnes. They ran on two legs, or plodded on four. And along with these diverse body shapes, they would have produced an equally...

“Why is it that man ever chooses to sin? The answer is that man has fallen away from God (and) his whole nature has become perverted and sinful. Man’s whole bias is away from God. By nature he hates God and feels that God is opposed to him. His god is himself…his own abilities and powers and desires (Man) likes and covets the things which God prohibits, and dislikes the things and kind of life to which God calls him. These are no mere dogmatic statements. They are facts (that) alone explain the moral muddle and the ugliness that characterize...

In two separate incidents at Otay Mesa and San Ysidro, agents discovered a total of 28 parrots and three chickens during suspected smuggling attempts. The first incident unfolded on April 30 at the Otay Mesa port of entry. After the 51-year-old driver exited his vehicle, officers noticed peculiar bulges around his ankles. A safety pat-down revealed a shocking discovery: six live, undeclared parrots crammed inside the man’s boots, according to a CBP release. A further search of the vehicle uncovered six additional parrots, sadly, two of which had died. Just days later, on May 4, at the San Ysidro port...

New work on the skeletal remains of scarlet macaws found in an ancient Pueblo settlement indicates that social and political hierarchies may have emerged in the American Southwest earlier than previously thought. Researchers determined that the macaws, whose brilliant red and blue feathers are highly prized in Pueblo culture, were persistently traded hundreds of miles north from Mesoamerica starting in the early 10th century, at least 150 years before the origin of hierarchy is usually attributed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the acquisition and control of macaws, along with other valued...

Meet Mosura fentoni, a bizarre 506-million-year-old “sea-moth” with three eyes, claws, and an abdomen full of gills. This ancient predator sheds light on arthropod evolution and reveals stunning internal anatomy from a fossil site like no other. Credit: Danielle Dufault, © ROM, edited A newly uncovered 506-million-year-old creature called Mosura fentoni is rewriting the story of early ocean life. With three eyes, tooth-lined jaws, and gill-lined abdominal segments, it’s a strange but telling fossil from the Burgess Shale. A New Predator Emerges From Deep Time Paleontologists from the Manitoba Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have uncovered an extraordinary...

Scientists have been wondering for years which dinosaur could run the fastest. Now, new simulation models are offering a fresh look at dinosaur speed. This renewed interest has roots in a major discovery from 1964, when paleontologist John Ostrom and his team uncovered Deinonychus—a dinosaur with a lightweight body, long claws, and strong legs. Its features challenged the long-held image of dinosaurs as sluggish reptiles and instead pointed to an active, fast-moving predator. This discovery helped launch what scientists call the “dinosaur renaissance,” a major shift in how experts understood dinosaur behavior. Instead of slow-moving reptiles, some dinosaurs began to...

A newly discovered fossil of a four-legged whale in Peru sheds new light on the evolution of whales and their journey across the oceans. ***************************************************************** A fascinating new discovery has been made off the coast of Peru, where paleontologists have unearthed the remains of a previously unknown four-legged whale species. This remarkable find, which was made about 42.6 million years ago during the middle Eocene, is shedding new light on the evolutionary transition of whales from land-dwelling mammals to the aquatic giants we recognize today. As reported in Current Biology, the whale species, named Peregocetus pacificus, was found in the...

Ants are among the most familiar insects on Earth today, but their origins remain cloaked in deep evolutionary history. Until now, the oldest known ant specimens came from amber deposits in France and Myanmar, dating to the Cretaceous period around 100 million years ago. But a new discovery—published recently in the journal Current Biology—pushes that timeline back even further. “Our team has discovered a new fossil ant species representing the earliest undisputable geological record of ants,” said lead author Anderson Lepeco in a recent statement. “What makes this discovery particularly interesting is that it belongs to the extinct ‘hell ant,’...

Holotype of Sirenobethylus charybdis. Credit: Qiong Wu ***************************************************************************** A 99-million-year-old wasp species used a Venus flytrap-like abdomen to capture prey and may represent a new insect family, revealing unexpected diversity in ancient parasitoid behavior. An extinct lineage of parasitic wasps from the mid-Cretaceous period, preserved in amber, may have used a Venus flytrap-like abdomen to capture and immobilize their prey. According to research published in BMC Biology, fossils of the species Sirenobethylus charybdis, named after the sea monster from Greek mythology known for swallowing and regurgitating water, are approximately 99 million years old and may represent an entirely new family...

Extremely rare fossil of an ancient scorpion unearthed at China's Jehol Biota. The scorpion would've been a key species in the Cretaceous ecosystem, scientists say.A known treasure trove of Early Cretaceous fossils has turned up a never-before-seen species of scorpion that lived around 125 million years ago.The venomous scorpion was larger than many ancient -- and modern -- scorpion species. Researchers believe it would’ve been a key species in the food chain, gobbling up spiders, lizards and even small mammals that lived in its ancient ecosystem.It is just the fourth terrestrial scorpion fossil to be found in China and the...

A bizarre new genus and species of ornithomimid dinosaur has been identified from the fossilized remains found in 2014 in Coahuila, Mexico. Life reconstruction of Mexidracon longimanus. Image credit: Ddinodan / CC BY 4.0. The newly-identified dinosaur species roamed Earth during the Late Cretaceous epoch, some 73 million years ago. Named Mexidracon longimanus, the ancient creature was around 3 m (10 feet) in length. It belongs to Ornithomimidae, a family of theropod dinosaur that evolved a toothless beak and were likely omnivorous or herbivorous, superficially resembling living ostriches. “Ornithomimosaurs are a clade of ostrich-like theropod dinosaurs characterized by relatively small...

LONDON — The mystery of dinosaur origins has taken an unexpected turn toward the equator. While paleontologists have long searched southern regions for clues about where these magnificent creatures first evolved, new research suggests we may have been looking in the wrong latitude altogether. A new study indicates that the first dinosaurs may have emerged in Earth’s ancient tropics, forcing scientists to reconsider long-held theories about their origins. For years, paleontologists believed dinosaurs originated in what is now southern South America and southern Africa, since the oldest unequivocal dinosaur fossils come from late Carnian rock formations (around 230 million years...

Someone posted a thread about a 'Dinosaur superhighway.' It got me thinking, and that's never going to turn out well. Imagine if dinosaurs drove cars and had those Burma Shave signs. ================================= No matter how hard You sweat and toil See, in the end You’ll become oil. BURMA SHAVE ================================= When it comes to rocks Don’t be annoyed Just watch out for That asteroid. BURMA SHAVE ================================= You may think yourself An apex creature, But no matter what, T.Rex will eat’chya. BURMA SHAVE =================================Your turn. 😂😮😁😉🤣😁😮😂😊😍

The human ability to walk and run efficiently on two feet arose around 2 million years ago with our Homo erectus ancestors. But our earlier relatives, the australopithecines, were also bipedal around 4 million years ago. Given the long arms and different body proportions of species like Australopithecus afarensis, though, researchers have assumed that australopithecines were less capable of walking on two legs than modern humans. In a study published online Dec. 18 in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers modeled the skeletal and muscular anatomy of Lucy to determine her maximum running speed, the energetic costs associated...