ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

Scientists analyzing one of the largest genomic datasets of plants have discovered how the first plants on Earth evolved the mechanisms used to control water and 'breathe' on land hundreds of millions of years ago. The study has important implications in understanding how plant water transport systems have evolved and how these might adapt in future in response to climate change.

How did Baroque period artists/sculputors go about their craft? For the first time, researchers have performed a forensic anthropological analysis of a marble skull carved by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The analysis of this re-discovered sculpture in Dresden, Germany, may help capture details of the working methods of great artists of the past, including details not recorded about their artistic approaches.

Researchers have discovered that the ancestors of legionella bacteria infected eukaryotic cells as early as two billion years ago. It happened soon after eukaryotes began to feed on bacteria. These results are also relevant to the chicken-or-egg debate about whether mitochondria or phagocytosis came first.