News
Cajon Pass appears primed for a massive earthquake crossing two major Southern California faults
4+ day, 4+ hour ago (1241+ words) New modeling suggests Cajon Pass sits near peak stress, raising concern about a rupture crossing two major Southern California faults. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) The ground north and east of Los Angeles holds one of Southern California's most uneasy meeting…...
Ancient Velociraptor cousin glided on four wings and hunted birds
1+ week, 1+ day ago (1156+ words) The new microraptor dinosaur Jian changmaensis (left) attacks the early bird Gansus yumenensis (right) in what is now the Changma Basin of northwestern China approximately 120 million years ago. (CREDIT: illustration by Lewis La Rosa, colorized by J'o Canola) A fossil…...
Iron meteorites unlock secrets of the early solar system and Earth's origin
1+ week, 3+ day ago (1000+ words) Iron meteorites suggest Earth's nitrogen and phosphorus may have come from early inner solar system planetesimals. (CREDIT: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook) The ingredients that help make a planet livable did not necessarily come from where many scientists once thought. A…...
Fossil discovery solves 500-million-year-old mystery about the dawn of animal life
1+ week, 4+ day ago (763+ words) Tiny honeycomb-like colonies from southern China have opened a long-running gap in the story of animal life. For decades, bryozoans seemed oddly absent from the Cambrian explosion, the burst of diversification that filled ancient seas with most major animal groups....
World's largest scorpion lived in Britain 415 million years ago
1+ week, 5+ day ago (1249+ words) Fossils from Britain confirm Praearcturus gigas was a giant scorpion more than a meter long in the Early Devonian. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) A giant predator was stalking what is now Britain roughly 415 million years ago, long before forests spread…...
New analysis reveals why Ganymede has a magnetic field when other moons do not
1+ week, 6+ day ago (871+ words) This natural-color image of Ganymede was captured by the Galileo spacecraft during its first flyby of the moon. (CREDIT: NASA/JPL) Ganymede has long looked like a contradiction in orbit. Jupiter's largest moon is the only moon known to generate…...
Ancient oceans started to suffocate 8 million years before the Triassic mass extinction
2+ week, 13+ hour ago (1092+ words) Alaska rock records show ocean deoxygenation began nearly 8 million years before the end-Triassic mass extinction. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) By tracing chemical signals preserved in ancient rocks from Alaska, geologists found that oxygen loss in marine…...
Triassic fossil reveals a beaked, bipedal reptile that looked like an ostrich dinosaur
2+ week, 2+ day ago (912+ words) Reconstruction of Labrujasuchus expectatus, a new species of Shuvosauridae from Late Triassic rocks of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. (CREDIT: Art by Jorge Gonzalez, copyright NHMLAC Dinosaur Institute) The Late Triassic was full of animals that look almost familiar, right up…...
A massive rift is splitting Africa apart forming Earth's sixth ocean
2+ week, 3+ day ago (1081+ words) In the vast deserts of Ethiopia, a remarkable phenomenon has been quietly unfolding since 2005an extraordinary 35-mile-long crack known as the East African Rift. (CREDIT: Reuters) The desert floor in Ethiopia looks fixed and ancient, but it is moving. Across the…...
In 2010, Earth's molten core suddenly reversed direction and scientists don't know why
2+ week, 4+ day ago (1183+ words) Swarm constellation satellites and ground data reveal a startling 2010 reversal in molten core flow beneath the Pacific and suggest it may now be weakening. (CREDIT: ESA) A river of molten iron, more than 2, 000 kilometers below the surface, appears to have…...