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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, known for his fossil-finding and conservation work in his native Kenya, has died at 77, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced Sunday evening.
NEW YORK (AP) — Not all two-legged dinosaurs were like the lumbering Tyrannosaurus rex.
An analysis of dinosaur tracks from 120 million years ago unearthed in Spain adds to growing evidence that these meat-eating prehistoric beasts belonging to the same group as T.rex could be highly agile.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prehistoric footprints that have puzzled scientists since the 1970s are getting a second look: Were they left by extinct animals or by human ancestors?
When famed paleontologist Mary Leakey first uncovered the footprints in Tanzania 40 years ago, the evidence was ambiguous.
Fossils found in Chile are from a strange-looking dog-sized dinosaur species that had a unique slashing tail weapon, scientists reported Wednesday.
Some dinosaurs had spiked tails they could use as stabbing weapons and others had tails with clubs.
Finding the fossils of a large duck-billed dinosaur in southern Missouri is exciting enough, but a paleontologist who helped lead the dig believes there are many more in the same area.
The latest fossils are a specimen of Parrosaurus missouriensis, first discovered at the same site in Bollinger County nearly 80 years ago but not confirmed as a new species until the latest dig.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The fossil remains of an early hominid child have been discovered in a cave in South Africa by a team of international and South African researchers.
The team announced the discovery of a partial skull and teeth of a Homo naledi child who died almost 250,000 years ago when it was approximately four to six years old.
An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fossilized footprints discovered in New Mexico indicate that early humans were walking across North America around 23,000 years ago, researchers reported Thursday.
The first footprints were found in a dry lake bed in White Sands National Park in 2009.
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian scientists say the fossil of a four-legged prehistoric whale, unearthed over a decade ago in the country's Western Desert, is that of a previously unknown species. The creature, an ancestor of the modern-day whale, is believed to have lived 43 million years ago.
TUSCUMBIA, Ala. (AP) — Six smokestacks at a decommissioned power plant in Alabama crashed to the ground Wednesday in a controlled implosion that began with the boom of dynamite and ended with a huge cloud of dust.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Barclay opens a metal drawer in archives of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum containing fossils that are nearly 100 million years old. Despite their age, these rocks aren’t fragile.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
NATURAL TRAP CAVE, Wyo. (AP) — It’s time to praise pack rats.
The small rodents with big eyes are helping scientists decipher climate change deep inside a chilly Wyoming cave.
“Pack rats compulsively gather all kinds of stuff in their nests — bones, shiny stuff, owl pellets, scat — and they bring it to their nest,” said Jenny McGuire, an assistant professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech University.
WASHINGTON (AP) — What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bones found in an Israeli quarry are from a branch of the human evolutionary tree and are 120,000 to 140,000 years old, scientists reported Thursday.
A team of anthropologists spent years analyzing the fragments of a skull, lower jaw bone and tooth that were uncovered in Nesher Ramla in 2010, comparing them to hundreds of fossils around the world from different eras.
ROME (AP) — Italian archaeologists have uncovered the fossilized remains of nine Neanderthals in a cave near Rome, shedding new light on how the Italian peninsula was populated and under what environmental conditions...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Ferocious tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned, but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research unveiled Monday found...
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The 300-million-year-old shark’s teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A giant rock jammed full of dinosaur bones continues to amaze Utah scientists as they slowly pick away at it to reveal its secrets, unscrambling what may be Utah’s biggest single discovery of dinosaurs...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The fossil skeletons of two dinosaurs intertwined in what looks like a final death match have been donated to a North Carolina museum...
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority is considering moving toxin-laden coal ash from a retired plant in Memphis to one of two off-site landfills as it begins preparing for the $500 million removal project, the federal utility said Monday...
The new film “ Ammonite ” unearths the stories of two women buried by history: paleontologist Mary Anning, who in the 19th century made significant prehistoric fossil discoveries along the coast in Southwest England, and geologist Charlotte Murchison, who worked in the area briefly alongside her geologist husband...
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — Britain's young Prince George can keep his giant shark tooth fossil.
Culture Minister Jose Herrera reversed himself after facing a backlash for announcing his intention to reclaim the shark tooth fossil that had been a gift to 7-year-old prince from British naturalist and TV presenter David Attenborough...
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — Malta says it will seek to retrieve a shark tooth that was presented to Britain’s Prince George by veteran broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough, who found the fossil during a holiday on the Mediterranean island in the 1960s...
LONDON (AP) — Veteran broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough has given Britain’s Prince George a giant shark tooth fossil after a private viewing of his new documentary at Kensington Palace...
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — It's something like a modern-day chuckwalla, strolling in sand dunes on an island in what now is the Grand Canyon region...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Dinosaur fossils worth millions of dollars unearthed on a Montana ranch belong to the owners of the land’s surface rights, not the owners of the mineral rights, a U...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Dinosaur fossils aren't minerals under state law, a divided Montana Supreme Court said in a ruling Wednesday that has implications in an ongoing legal battle over the ownership of millions of dollars of fossils unearthed on an eastern Montana ranch...
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to move toxin-laden coal ash from a retired plant in Memphis to an off-site landfill, at the cost of roughly $300 million, the federal utility said Friday...