study birds had to relearn flight after meteor wiped out dinosaurs

North Dakota fossil site may be ‘most sensational’ glimpse of final minutes of dinosaur reign

Riley Black | 
Sixty-six million years ago, an immense asteroid smacked into what is now the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, triggering global devastation ...
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Hues of the past: How we determine the colors of prehistoric animals

Maria McNamara, Rachael Lallensack | 
[Paleontologist Maria McNamara] studies tissues from insects and vertebrates in order to envision what these critters looked like and how ...
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‘Super smeller’ woman boosts effort to create early diagnosis tool for Parkinson’s disease

Meilan Solly | 
Long before Les Milne began exhibiting the telltale signs of Parkinson’s disease, his wife Joy—a so-called “super smeller” capable of detecting ...
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Making the case for early human migration into rain forests

Lorraine Boissoneault | 
In the past, researchers believed humans were almost exclusively adapted to savanna environments. Previous hypotheses suggested Homo sapiens ... spread ...
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DNA as a crime fighting tool: Why we may be in danger of putting too much faith in it

Clive Thompson | 
What happens to a society when there’s suddenly a new way to identify people—to track them as they move around ...
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Dozens of new species found in Chinese fossil site provide window into ancient life

Brian Switek | 
Fossil-packed sites like the Burgess Shale in Canada have revealed the unique nature of early animals around 508 million years ...
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DNA from museum artifacts could help solve ancient mysteries—but there’s a risk

Jess Romeo | 
To fill some of the gaps in our understanding of aurochs evolution, [paleogenomics researcher Mikkel] Sinding looks for genetic clues ...
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Gut bacteria could play key role in patient response to new cancer treatments

Sarah Richards | 
Does the quality and diversity of human gut bacteria determine whether people will successfully respond to cancer treatment? “When we ...
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Is depression affected by bacteria in the gut?

Jane Recker | 
The human microbiome—a collection of bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses commingling in the gut and intestines—has been linked to a ...
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Regenerating tissues and limbs: What we can learn from the the amazing axolotl salamander’s genome

Joshua Learn | 
Saving the salamander that Nature called “biology’s beloved amphibian” takes on a special significance given the animal’s remarkable traits. Axolotls are neotenic, ...
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Meet Alice Lee, the woman who disproved myths about skull size, sex, intelligence

Leila McNeill | 
On the morning of June 10, 1898, Alice Lee marched into the all-male Anatomical Society meeting at Trinity College in ...
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Why don’t humans have fur? We have theories, but no answers

Jason Daley | 
Evolutionary theorists have put forth numerous hypotheses for why humans became the naked mole rats of the primate world. Did we adapt ...
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‘Interesting puzzle’ created by hand tools found near long-vanished Arabian rivers

Brian Handwerk | 
Nearly 200,000 years ago, at the confluence of two long-vanished river systems in the heart of Arabia, people climbed a ...
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You sound down: Using AI to spot depression in a person’s voice

Randy Rieland | 
[T]he notion that artificial intelligence could help predict if a person is suffering from depression is potentially a big step ...
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450,000-year-old teeth help piece together human family tree

Brian Handwerk | 
Crime-drama fans know that forensic scientists can ID the remains of long-missing persons by examining their teeth. To solve even ...
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Before T. rex, 30-foot-long Dynamoterror and Lythronax ruled the American southwest

Brian Switek | 
Tyrannosaurs often bear fierce names. Aside from the “tyrant lizard” Tyrannosaurus itself, there’s the “monstrous murderer” Teratophoneus, the “frightful lizard” Daspletosaurus, and the “gore ...
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Biological clock blood test can predict disease risk

Randy Rieland | 
[G]enes tied to our body clocks play a critical role in everything from our hormone levels and body temperature to ...
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‘Bravery cells’: Courage, risky behavior, stress linked to hippocampus

Sam Schipani | 
According to new research, your reaction may have less to do with logically analyzing the situation and more to do ...
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Deep dive for aliens: We’ve only examined a ‘hot tub’ worth of cosmic ocean

Jason Daley | 
[A] new study suggests we haven’t exactly taken a deep dive when it comes to hunting for other-worldly life forms ...
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This ‘hot mess’ bird links dinosaur and avian evolution

Katherine Wu | 
Yes, birds are technically modern dinosaurs. But sometimes it’s tough to tell where the non-avian dino ends and the bird begins ...
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Documenting the rise and fall of populations through human poop

Lorraine Boissoneault | 
The city that vanished about 700 years ago presents a captivating question for archaeologists: What happened to the Mississippian people who built ...
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Improving the sports concussion ‘tool kit’: Virtual reality goggles promise speedier diagnosis

Matthew Berger | 
As the 2018 [football] season gets into full swing, some college teams are keeping a new gadget on the sidelines: ...
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Why probiotics may or may not help you—and could even harm you

Brian Handwerk | 
From pickles and candy bars to pills and protein powders, probiotics are touted as a health boon in all flavors ...
Confusion over the origins of smallpox vaccine could leave us ‘vulnerable to a future outbreak’

Confusion over the origins of smallpox vaccine could leave us ‘vulnerable to a future outbreak’

Katherine Wu | 
Not only is there the potential for smallpox (or at the very least, something very similar) to resurge, but unbeknownst ...
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Family ties: Searching for autism origins in the genes of unaffected siblings

Sarah Richards | 
Scientists have historically focused on studying a “quartet” of two biological parents and two autistic children. Yet more recent research ...
Were Neanderthals wiped out by icy climate change?

Were Neanderthals wiped out by icy climate change?

Jason Daley | 
About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals began disappearing from Europe, but exactly why they died out is a mystery. … Researchers propose ...
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Gut microbes could be the key to universal blood

Katherine Wu | 
Blood transfusions must match the blood type of a donor to that of the recipient; otherwise, the recipient’s immune system ...
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