ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News


Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium

Posted: 25 Feb 2021 08:33 AM PST

Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. Researchers compiled proxy data, reaching back hundreds of years to reconstruct the AMOC flow history. They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium.

Ancient skeletal hand could reveal evolutionary secrets

Posted: 25 Feb 2021 05:25 AM PST

Evolutionary expert Charles Darwin and others recognized a close evolutionary relationship between humans, chimps and gorillas based on their shared anatomies, raising some big questions: how are humans related to other primates, and exactly how did early humans move around?

Sulfur metabolism may have paved the way for evolution of multicellularity

Posted: 24 Feb 2021 11:35 AM PST

When the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum runs out of food, sulfur limitation drives its development from a unicellular to a multicellular organism. Researchers now present the nutrient signaling pathways in this early eukaryote in great detail. Their results show how metabolism may have played a crucial role in the origins of multicellularity. Moreover, the findings also have therapeutic implications for more complex organisms such as humans. Targeting sulfur metabolism in cancer cells may enhance anti-tumor immunity.

Asteroid dust found in crater closes case of dinosaur extinction

Posted: 24 Feb 2021 11:35 AM PST

Researchers believe they have closed the case of what killed the dinosaurs, definitively linking their extinction with an asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago by finding a key piece of evidence: asteroid dust inside the impact crater.