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To unlock the mysteries of our planet’s past, scientists usually examine rocks and fossilized bones.
An often-overlooked but extremely rich source of information, eggs have been laid on land by birds, reptiles, dinosaurs, and some strange mammals for more than 200 million years.
Rare fossilized eggshells can shed light on the behavior and diet of ancient creatures, reveal climate changes, and shed light on how our prehistoric relatives lived and communicated.
And now an “eggciting” discovery in India, announced this week, has revealed intimate details about the lives of some of the largest dinosaurs to walk the earth.
Paleontologists in central India have unearthed a fossilized dinosaur hatchery containing 92 nests and 256 eggs belonging to colonies of giant herbivorous titanosaurs.
Judging by the proximity of the nests, the researchers concluded that the dinosaurs pooled their eggs in colonies, or colonies, as many birds do today.
However, unlike most bird species, titanosaurs were not doting parents. Researchers believe these creatures likely laid their eggs and then left their offspring to fend for themselves.
“Because titanosaurs were huge, closely spaced nests would not have allowed them to visit the nests to maneuver and incubate the eggs or to feed the hatchlings…since the parents would step on the eggs and trample them,” he said The study’s lead author, Guntupalli Prasad, a paleontologist at the University of Delhi.
Planting a tree is a fitting keepsake of a loved one, but what about becoming a tree after death?
Transcend, a New York-based green burial start-up, is a company that offers people a way to make a positive impact on the environment when they shed this mortal coil.
Clients select a tree species to be planted over the body, which is prepped with biodegradable flax linen and buried with wood shavings, local soil and mushrooms to facilitate composting. The spot is marked and the tree can grow.
Proponents hope green burials can help slow the climate crisis, but the industry is new — Transcend hasn’t planted humans yet — and there’s little research on how much better for the environment human composting is compared to traditional burials.
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Australia’s echidna, like the platypus, belongs to a strange group of egg-laying mammals known as monotremes. But the spiny creature’s ability to lay eggs isn’t its only unusual trait.
Although echidnas are one of the oldest surviving species on earth, they are also considered sensitive to heat. However, researchers have discovered that the echidna uses a unique method to cool down and remain active at much higher temperatures than previously known.
Infrared images of 124 echidnas taken over a year showed how they braved the heat of global warming: the creature blows slime bubbles that burst over the tip of its nose, wetting it. As the moisture evaporates, it cools the echidna’s blood, using the tip of the nose to act as an “evaporation window.”
When the Artemis I mission lifted off in November, NASA’s Space Launch System worked as advertised. The most powerful rocket ever flown provided the necessary propulsion to send the Orion spacecraft on a journey around the moon and back.
But SLS has long been considered controversial, and NASA and Boeing, who were responsible for the rocket’s core stage, have both been criticized for delays and whopping prices.
SLS’s complicated history has left some industry insiders with conflicting feelings about the rocket and its place in the Artemis program, which is designed to land humans on the moon and eventually reach Mars.
Meanwhile, astronomers have now documented the Milky Way’s cosmic drama in unprecedented detail during the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey – producing a stunning image in the process.
Runes are the oldest known script in Scandinavia and are closely linked to the Viking Age between 793 and 1066 — a period from which thousands of stones with runic inscriptions have been found.
Elder Runestones are much rarer, and archaeologists in Norway recently discovered the oldest known specimen – thought to be around 2,000 years old.
Researchers from the University of Oslo’s Cultural History Museum discovered the stone in 2021 while examining a burial site in the municipality of Hole in eastern Norway.
Eight runes on the front of the red-brown sandstone boulder translated into Roman letters mean “idiberug”. According to one of the archaeologists, it could be a woman’s name.
Dive into these captivating stories:
— Scientists have discovered a foot-long snake in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It shares a key trait with its much larger cousin – the boa constrictor.
— NASA and Boeing are collaborating to develop a new type of emission-reducing single-aisle aircraft. Air travelers could benefit from this in the 2030s.
— Analysis of DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of more than 100 people has revealed that in ancient Greece, marrying your cousin was not only allowed, but encouraged.