[left caption] [Right caption/credit] OFFICIAL Denver Museum of Nature & Science : Colorado Discovery: Museum Scientists Identify New Species Apart from some feathered dinosaurs that were destined to become birds, one of the few land vertebrates to survive the catastrophe that wiped out the remaining large dinosaurs and marine reptiles at the K-Pg boundary, was to go one to give rise to the entire mammalian order. They were small fury, probably nocturnal insectivores. The fossil of one of these, from 65 million years ago (at about the time of the K-Pg mass extinction), has recently b ..read more

Human head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis Gilles San Martin via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0) Phylogenetic trees for primate lice and their vertebrate hosts redrawn from Reed et al . [9]. Trees are shown as cladograms with no branch length information, and are based on molecular and morphological data. Dashed lines between trees represent host-parasite associations. Humans are unique in being parasitized by two genera (Pediculus and Pthirus). (Herd, K.E., Barker, S.C. & Shao, R.(2015)) Photo credits: J. W. Demastes, T. Choe, and V. Smith. Genomic Diversity in the Endosymbiotic Bacteri ..read more

Acacia forests in the Atbai Desert, near Bir al-Ajjami Atbai Survey Project, Yale University Ring tombs of likely Late Antique age (c. 1st Millennium CE) at Di’irabab Atbai Survey Project, Yale University New rock art discoveries in Eastern Sudan tell a tale of ancient cattle, the ‘green Sahara’ and climate catastrophe From my own experience, the Sahara Dessert, at least the Tunisian part of it, is cold and wet! At least that was what we experience a few years ago when we went there in early June, to avoid the heat of summer. That was a mistake, as Tunisia was experiencing one of the ..read more

Sadeem Qdaisat, Dr. Hector Mendez-Gomez and Dr. Elias Sayour discuss their new study. Photo by Nate Guidry Dr. Elias Sayour, Chong Zhao and Arnav Barpujari discuss the mRNA cancer vaccine developed at the University of Florida New mRNA cancer vaccine triggers fierce immune response to fight malignant brain tumor - UF Health Contrary to the bizarre antivaxxer claims that the mRNA vaccines used against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 somehow causes cancer, based on nothing more substantial than the fact that some people who developed cancer had previously been vaccinated, there ..read more

Electron microscopy showing the parasitic Candidatus Nanohaloarchaeum antarcticus: the small circular shape, attached to its host, Halorubrum lacusprofundi. Image Credit: Joshua N Hamm Another example of the parasitic Candidatus Nanohaloarchaeum antarcticus attached to its host, Halorubrum lacusprofundi. Image Credit: Joshua N Hamm Archaea can be picky parasites - NIOZ The Bible is silent on the subject of microorganisms because they were unknown to the Bronze Age authors. But now we know better than them, we can see other ways in which they refute several basic creationist dogmas. Fi ..read more

Scientists have produced a remarkable reconstruction of what a Neanderthal woman would have looked like when she was alive. It is based on the flattened, shattered remains of a skull whose bones were so soft when excavated they had the consistency of "a well-dunked biscuit". Researchers first had to strengthen the fragments before reassembling them. Expert palaeoartists then created the 3D model. BBC Studios Shanidar Z: what did Neanderthals do with their dead? Illustrated reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Hermann Schaaffhausen, 1888. 65,000 years before creationists believe the Un ..read more

Islands in the Vona Vona Lagoon of the New Georgia Group, Solomon Islands. This island group hosts four species of Hipposideros bats, including the two featured in the study of convergent evolution across the archipelago. Credit: RG Moyle Diadem leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros diadema Michael Pennay via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0) Researchers parse oddity of distantly related bats in Solomon Islands that appear identical | KU News There is something strange about the Solomon Islands, lying east of Papua New Guinea and northeast of Australia. The bats that inhabit the islands seem to have evolv ..read more

Arabica coffee - the result of a random hybridization event Coffea arabica Newly sequenced genome reveals coffee’s prehistoric origin story — and its future under climate change - UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo Creationists insist on seeing evolution as an event, not a process happening slowly over time, but there are a few rare examples where they are right - right by accident because few of them will have the courage to study evolutionary biology or even find out what it is and what processes cause it. In the plant world, though not exclusively ..read more

Saber-toothed cat. Smilodon fatalis Massimo Molinero Smilodon fatalis skull The double-fanged adolescence of saber-toothed cats | Berkeley As an example of daft, Heath-Robinson design, the teeth of the North American sabre-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis is a good as it gets. Obviously, having huge canine teeth with which to rip the throat out of large prey and so subdue it quickly, has some advantages, but the trouble is that the longer they are, the more likely they are to break, and broken teeth for a Smilodon could well have meant starvation and death. There needs to be a trade-off be ..read more

Arrest for witchcraft (1866) by John Pettie. NGV CC BY-NC ‘Witches’ are still killed all over the world. Pardoning past victims could end the practice A promotional poster for Liberty Gospel Church with Helen Ukpabio, a modern 'witchfinder'(Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio/Facebook) You might think that enlightened Humanism had sufficiently civilised Christianity to put a stop to the Medieval sport of burning old ladies alive because someone had accused them of witchcraft and 'God sez' they should be killed, but think again. According to a UN report, the practice is still widespread in sub-Sa ..read more