ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

Researchers describe the unusually large optical features of Callichimaera perplexa, a 95-million-year-old crab fossil discovered in Colombia. The findings suggest Callichimaera perplexa was a highly visual, swimming predator.

Researchers experimentally evolved rod-shaped E. coli in conditions that mimic the primordial environment, by providing oleic-acid vesicles as a nutrient source rather than glucose. As the cells adapted to the new conditions and increased their growth rate, they became smaller and spherical. Each of the experimental lineages adapted in diverse ways. This study supports theories that the origin of life on Earth was spherical cells.

The age of the oldest fossils in eastern Africa widely recognized as representing our species, Homo sapiens, has long been uncertain. Now, dating of a massive volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reveals they are much older than previously thought.

When an individual suffers from cancer, the process of programmed cell death called apoptosis does not occur normally, permitting abnormal cells to thrive.

Researchers have discovered the first in-situ evidence of chlorophyll remnants in a billion-year-old multicellular algal microfossil preserved in shales from the Congo Basin. This discovery has made it possible to unambiguously identify one of the first phototrophic eukaryotic organisms in the fossil record. This research opens up new perspectives in the study of the diversification of eukaryotes within the first ecosystems.

Writing evolves to become simpler and more efficient, according to a new study based on the analysis of an isolated West African writing system.