Nice Comment

Comment by Doone on Friday

Human evolution in action

The Bajau are traditionally nomadic and seafaring, and survive by collecting shellfish from the sea floor.

Scientists studying the effect of this lifestyle on their biology found their spleens were larger than those of related people from the region.

The bigger spleen makes more oxygen available in their blood for diving.

The researchers have published their results in the academic journal Cell.

Located close to the stomach, the fist-sized spleen removes old cells from the blood and acts as a biological "scuba tank" during long dives.

The Bajau people live across the southern Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia and, according to rough estimates, number about one million people.

"For possibly thousands of years, [they] have been living on house boats, travelling from place to place in the waters of South-East Asia and visiting land only occasionally. So everything they need, they get from the sea," first author Melissa Ilardo, from the University of Copenhagen, told the BBC's Inside Science programme.

Comment by Stephen on Tuesday

Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles
The breakthrough, spurred by the discovery of plastic-eating bugs at a Japanese dump, could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis

The enzymes could enable plastic bottles to be fully recycled for the first time. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientists-acci...

Comment by Stephen on March 28, 2018 at 9:49pm

Decade of fossil collecting gives a new perspective on Triassic period, the emergence of dinosaurs 

IMAGE: The skull of a gorgonopsian, a distant mammal relative and top predator during its pre-dinosaur era about 255 million years ago. This fossil was collected in 2009 in Zambia

After a great mass extinction shook the world about 252 million years ago, animal life outside of the ocean began to take hold. The earliest mammals entered the scene, and reptiles -- including early dinosaurs -- lived on Pangea, the name given to the giant landmass in which all of the world's continents were joined as one.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-03/uow-dof032718.php

Comment by Mrs.B on March 25, 2018 at 2:29pm

Amazing.

Comment by Stephen on March 25, 2018 at 1:43pm

Long-Lost Horse Toes Found

A new study reveals modern horses retain vestiges of all five ancestral toes

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/long-lost-horse-toes-f...

Comment by Mrs.B on March 5, 2018 at 3:36pm

Great visual!

Comment by Stephen on March 5, 2018 at 3:32pm

Baby bird fossil is 'rarest of the rare'

The baby bird may have had feathered plumage

Scientists have unveiled one of the smallest bird fossils ever discovered.
The chick lived 127 million years ago and belonged to a group of primitive birds that shared the planet with the dinosaurs.
Fossils of birds from this time period are rare, with baby fossils seen as "the rarest of the rare".
Scientists say the discovery gives a peek into the lives of the ancient, long-extinct birds that lived between 250 and 66 million years ago.
The bird belonged to the enantiornithine family, most of which had teeth and clawed fingers on each wing, but otherwise looked much like modern birds.
"It's amazing to realise that many of the features we see among living birds had already been developed more than 100 million years ago," said Luis Chiappe, from the LA Museum of Natural History.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43249509

Comment by Mrs.B on February 3, 2018 at 9:50pm

Wow!

Comment by Stephen on February 3, 2018 at 9:20pm

Dinosaur Age Meets the Space Age at NASA Goddard

A slab of sandstone discovered at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center contains at least 70 mammal and dinosaur tracks from more than 100 million years ago, according to a new paper published Jan. 31 in the journal Scientific Reports. The find provides a rare glimpse of mammals and dinosaurs interacting.

In 2012, local dinosaur track expert Ray Stanford discovered a nodosaur track from the Cretaceous era on the campus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. After the slab on which Stanford found the track was excavated, Stanford, paleontologist Martin Lockley, of University of Colorado at Denver, and others documented more than 70 dinosaur and mammal tracks imprinted in the sandstone. Their paper documenting the discovery was published Jan. 31, 2018, in the journal Scientific Reports. The 8-foot by 3-foot slab contains at least 26 mammal tracks .
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Swarupa Nune

For the full article read more= https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/dinosaur-age-meets-the-sp...

Comment by Stephen on February 2, 2018 at 7:11pm

Sir David Attenborough describes Darwin

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