Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and FarWestGirl.
Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, JeremyBloom, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP), jlms qkw, and doomandgloom .
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos since 2007, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Archeology
Archaeologists discover solitary grave from ancient Kingdom of Kerma in remote Bayuda Desert.
Phys.org
Bayuda Desert and site BP937
The Bayuda Desert is located in the Great Bend of the Nile and covers approximately 140,000 square kilometers. With very few exceptions, the region has received limited scientific interest until the first decade of the 21st century.
Since around 2017, the "Prehistoric Communities of the Bayuda Desert in Sudan—New Boundaries of the Kingdom of Kerma" project has been undertaken by the University of Wrocław and the Archaeological Museum in Gdańsk. Various sites have been discovered, documented and analyzed, providing important insights into the influence of the kingdom of Kerma and the Kerma culture.
Rare stone tool cache found in Australian outback tells story of trade and ingenuity.
Phys.org
About 170 years ago, a large bundle of stone tools was deliberately buried close to a waterhole in the remote Australian outback. Who buried them and for what purpose? Why were they never retrieved?
Archaeologists from Griffith University, who discovered the hoard, believe they are evidence of planning and trade by those that stashed them. The research team spotted a handful of stones poking out of the soil in an area just north of the town of Boulia, Central West Queensland.
After investigating further, they discovered a pile of 60 large Aboriginal stone "tulas," special flaked stone tools that were hafted onto a handle and used for woodworking. They were important tools, used across most of the continent to make objects such as boomerangs, wooden coolamon dishes, shields and clapsticks.
Dr. Yinika Perston from the Griffith School of Social and Cultural Research, moved fast to complete the excavation.
"This region's climate is harsh," Dr. Perston said. "Even while we were excavating, bushfires raged to the north, preventing some of the team from joining us. Once we found the cache, we knew we were in a race against time to recover the tools before they were washed away in the next flood."
Fragments of Stone of Scone tracked down to reveal a hidden history.
Phys.org
The Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, is a treasured relic of history in Great Britain, used for centuries as an accompaniment to the coronation of kings. This 152 kg (335 lb) sandstone block has suffered through a series of thefts and journeys, one of which apparently resulted in a loss of 34 fragments.
Professor Sally Foster, from Stirling University, has spent the last several years tracking down these fragments and piecing together the complicated history of the Stone and its pieces. Recently, her work was published in The Antiquaries Journal, and lays out a complex history involving myth, national identity, and political controversy between Scotland and England.
A harried history
Researchers believe the Stone was quarried around Perth in Scotland, but are uncertain of the exact timing. Foster says it became the symbolic entity we know today sometime in the 13th century, when Scottish rulers began to use it in their coronation ceremonies. However, by the end of the 13th century, it was taken by Edward I of England and used for coronations at Westminster Abbey. This was largely seen as a symbol of Scottish subjugation.
An archaeologist is racing to preserve Sudan's heritage as war threatens to erase its cultural past.
Phys.org
In a dimly lit office in a corner of the French National Institute for Art History, Sudanese archaeologist Shadia Abdrabo studies a photograph of pottery made in her country around 7,000 B.C. She carefully types a description of the Neolithic artifact into a spreadsheet.
As the war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) rages on, the curator from Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) is on a yearlong research grant in France with one mission: to build an online database of the African nation's archaeological sites, museum collections and historical archives.
Soon after the war in Sudan started, in April 2023, museums were looted and destroyed. It's unclear what exactly went missing, but Abdrabo says her task is to find out—and time is of the essence.
"We have to work fast to secure our collections. We've already lost two museums and we don't want to lose more," Abdrabo told The Associated Press.
Ice age architecture: How mammoth bones reveal human ingenuity.
Phys.org
What do you build with when trees are scarce and winters are brutal? For hunter-gatherers living in current-day Ukraine some 18,000 years ago, the answer was simple: mammoth bones.
A recent research article, co-authored by Leiden archaeologist Wei Chu, and available on the Open Research Europe repository, revisits the famous Upper Paleolithic site of Mezhyrich, where archaeologists uncovered structures made almost entirely of mammoth bones.
These constructions have long sparked debate: were they homes, storage spaces, or ritual monuments? The new research offers fresh insights by applying advanced radiocarbon dating techniques to small mammal remains found in the same cultural layers.
The results are striking. The largest structure at Mezhyrich dates to 18,248–17,764 years ago, during the harshest phase of the last Ice Age. Even more intriguing, the occupation span was short; possibly a single or few visits over centuries. This suggests that these bone-built shelters were practical solutions for survival rather than permanent settlements.
Secret behind Temple of Venus's resilient construction uncovered.
Phys.org
The material used to build the Temple of Venus in Naples has remarkably endured even as Earth's surface around it sank from volcanic activity, and researchers were curious to know how.
Researchers from the Universities of Naples and Chieti-Pescara collected nine samples from the Temple of Venus, including mortar, building stone, lava, and even the white wall coating called efflorescence, which forms when salts move inside to the surface of a porous material. They examined the material under powerful microscopes and X-rays to identify the specific chemical ingredients and how they performed when the Roman builders chose them to construct the temple almost 2,000 years ago.
The results showed that the engineers were quite knowledgeable about the geology beneath their structures and deliberately chose materials that could help withstand the land's geological activity.
Dating a North American rock art tradition that lasted 175 generations.
Phys.org
The Pecos River murals are a stunning collection of monumental, multicolored rock paintings in limestone rock shelters across southwest Texas and northern Mexico. They depict human-like figures that reach up to eight meters tall, animals such as deer and snakes, and complex abstract symbols. For years, no one really knew how old these rock art masterpieces were or how long this artistic tradition lasted.
Now, scientists have used radiocarbon dating on the ancient paint and found that the murals were painted nearly 6,000 years ago and continued for four millennia, making it one of the longest-lasting artistic traditions in the Americas.
Rock art is difficult to date for a number of reasons, not least because radiocarbon dating typically requires a rich source of organic material, like bone or wood. The paint pigments used in the Pecos River murals are inorganic mineral compounds such as iron oxides for red and yellow. So the scientists developed an approach that combined two advanced techniques.
Life in balance: Ancient Andean scales illuminated by new research.
Phys.org
New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered how Incas used Andean balance scales and ancient string knot writing known as "khipus," in association with sacred, animate landscapes.
Published in the journal Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, this new research found that both balance scales and khipus (a method of writing using small knots used by the Inca and pre-Inca societies) were tied to Andean notions of well-being that prioritize achieving a state of balance and harmony in social, economic and moral affairs.
Achieving balance was a constant preoccupation in people's lives.
How balance scales and khipus were used
Research suggests that certain kinds of balance scales (wooden unequal-arm balances known as "wipis") were used in the precolonial Andes to support the exchange of highly prized goods between different ethnic groups: highland herder communities who produced raw wool and yarn, and lowland cultivators of coca leaf.
Astronomy/Space
Asteroid loaded with amino acids offers new clues about the origin of life on Earth.
One of the most elegant theories about the origins of life on our planet is that it was kick-started by a delivery from outer space. This idea suggests that prebiotic molecules—the building blocks of life—were transported here by asteroids or other celestial bodies. While these molecules have been found in meteorite samples that have crash-landed on Earth, the findings have been complicated by the possibility of contamination from our environment.
But now these building blocks have been found on an ancient asteroid untouched by Earth's environment. That asteroid is called Bennu, a primitive object that hasn't changed much since the birth of our solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. It last swung by our neighborhood in 2020, when a NASA spacecraft landed on its surface, scooped up some samples, and brought them back home.
Bennu sample analysis
In a new analysis of Bennu rock and dust, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers confirmed the presence of 14 amino acids, previously found in analyses of Bennu samples, and also tentatively detected traces of tryptophan. This amino acid has never been definitively found in extraterrestrial material. The team also detected five nucleobases, the components that make up RNA and DNA. This means that both the building blocks of proteins (amino acids) and the genetic blueprint (nucleobases) were found in the same place.
What seven decades of hunting for aliens tells us.
Since the 1950s, humanity has been searching for extraterrestrial life with increasingly sophisticated tools. But after decades of space probes, meteorite analysis, radio telescopes, and UFO investigations, what have we actually found? A new piece of analysis by a team led by Seyed Sina Seyedpour Layalestani from the Islamic Azad University in Iran has looked at the most compelling evidence to date; from ancient space rocks that fell to Earth carrying the building blocks of life itself. The paper is published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
The Murchison meteorite, which crashed into Australia in 1969, is older than our solar system at 7 billion years. Recent analysis revealed something extraordinary, that all five nucleobases that form DNA and RNA (adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, and uracil) were present in this ancient stone. These molecules, confirmed as extraterrestrial in origin, fundamentally challenge the assumption that life's ingredients formed exclusively on Earth.
Russia’s dropped out of the manned space business for at least a couple of years. But the mission was completed safely.
Russian cosmodrome damaged after joint launch with US.
Russia's space launch site in Kazakhstan was damaged on Thursday after a Soyuz mission took off with Russian cosmonauts and US astronauts onboard, Moscow's space agency Roscosmos said.
Russia's space program, which for decades has been a source of national pride, has been suffering for years from a chronic lack of funding and corruption scandals.
"Damage to a number of elements of the launch pad was identified," Roscosmos said on social media, after inspecting the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan—Russia's only launch site for manned missions.
While the agency was assessing the condition of the launch pad, it said "all necessary spare parts for repair are available and the damage will be eliminated in the near future."
According to Russian space bloggers, Roscosmos will be unable to conduct space launches for some time due to the accident, alleging that the site in Kazakhstan was seriously damaged
Finding 40,000 asteroids before they find us.
The number 40,000 might not sound particularly dramatic, but it represents humanity's growing catalog of near-Earth asteroids, rocky remnants from the solar system's violent birth that cross paths with our planet's orbit. We've come a long way since 1898, when astronomers discovered the first of these wanderers, an asteroid called Eros.
For most of the twentieth century, discoveries came slowly, with astronomers spotting perhaps a handful of new asteroids each year. Then dedicated survey telescopes arrived in the 1990s and 2000s, purpose built to scan the sky methodically, and the numbers began climbing exponentially.
The count reached 1,000 at the turn of the century, 15,000 by 2016, and 30,000 in 2022. This November, the 40,000 target was crossed, with roughly 10,000 of those discoveries made in just the past three years.
The acceleration shows no signs of slowing yet. New facilities like Chile's Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which opened in 2025, will discover tens of thousands more asteroids despite not being exclusively dedicated to asteroid hunting. Meanwhile, ESA's Flyeye telescopes use wide, almost insect-like views of the sky to catch objects that slip past current surveys.
Local space weather impacts on technology and safety vary more than expected.
A strong geomagnetic storm in spring 2024 brought the northern lights unusually far south, as the auroral oval expanded well beyond its typical position. "I am surprised at how sparse the measurement network is, even though we know that the impacts of space weather can vary greatly from one area to another," says Doctoral Researcher Otto Kärhä from the University of Oulu, Finland.
"For safety reasons, it is important to expand measurement instrumentation also in southern Finland and across Arctic sea regions—areas where the network is currently sparse or non-existent—in order to better understand how disturbances are distributed," Kärhä continues. He will defend his doctoral thesis on 28 November 2025.
Space weather refers to the interaction between the solar wind and various solar eruptions with Earth's magnetic field. The most intense space weather events can generate large-scale disturbances in the geomagnetic field, known as magnetic storms. These disturbances may interfere with power transmission, communication systems, and navigation. "The regional nature of space weather can be compared to ordinary weather—such as differences in temperature or cloud cover," Kärhä explains.
Climate Change/Adaptation
Africa's forests have switched from absorbing to emitting carbon, new study finds.
New research warns that Africa's forests, once vital allies in the fight against climate change, have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source.
A new international study published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the National Center for Earth Observation at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh reveals that Africa's forests, which have long absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are now releasing more carbon than they remove.
This alarming shift, which happened after 2010, underscores the urgent need for stronger global action to protect forests, a major focus of the COP30 Climate Summit that concluded last week in Brazil.
How researchers measured forest changes
Using advanced satellite data and machine learning, the researchers tracked more than a decade of changes in aboveground forest biomass, the amount of carbon stored in trees and woody vegetation. They found that while Africa gained carbon between 2007 and 2010, widespread forest loss in tropical rainforests has since tipped the balance.
Six strategies identified to help households cut down on food waste.
Researchers from the Center for Food Policy at City St George's, University of London and Scotland's Rural College have set out six key areas for action that could help households cut down on food waste in a new comment article published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
Ranging from increasing the visibility of what we're throwing away to gaining a better understanding of targets for reducing household food waste, the article provides some important behavioral and systems science insights that could provide potential solutions.
"We waste huge amounts of food at a household level, leading to significant financial costs for individuals, and substantial contributions to CO2 emissions. But this is a complex problem to address," says Professor Katy Tapper, lead author of the article and Professor in Psychology at City St George's.
"We've set out six areas that could help reduce food waste, but we also feel it is necessary for governments to measure and prioritize more than just economic growth. When it comes to food, this could be a double win for both health and the planet."
Caribbean rainfall driven by shifting long-term patterns in the Atlantic high-pressure system, study finds.
A new study published in Science Advances overturns a long-standing paradigm in climate science that stronger Northern Hemisphere summer insolation produces stronger tropical rainfall. Instead, a precisely dated 129,000-year rainfall reconstruction from a Cuban cave shows that the Caribbean often did the opposite, drying during intervals of intensified summer insolation.
Discovery of a new climate driver
The research reveals a new unrecognized primary driver: the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), a powerful and ever-present high-pressure system that surprisingly has been the dominant force shaping the region's hydroclimate on millennial to orbital timescales.
When NASH strengthens and expands westward, it suppresses convection and reduces rainfall across the Atlantic Warm Pool, a region that includes the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and parts of Central America.
Soft hybrid material turns motion into power—without toxic lead.
Scientists have developed a new material that converts motion into electricity (piezoelectricity) with greater efficiency and without using toxic lead—paving the way for a new generation of devices that we use in everyday life.
Publishing their discovery in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, and University of Bristol describe a material that is both durable and sensitive to movement—opening possibilities for a wide range of innovative devices such as sensors, wearable electronics, and self-powered devices.
Based on bismuth iodide, an inorganic salt with low toxicity, the new soft, hybrid material rivals the performance of traditional lead-based ceramics but with lower toxicity and easier processing. It contains no lead compared to existing high-performance alternatives such as PZT (lead zirconate titanate), which is 60% lead, and can be produced at room temperature rather than 1,000°C.
Fish-friendly innovation could turn river barriers into green power stations.
Researchers from Trinity and UCD have designed and road- or "river"-tested a new barrier modification system that enables fish to travel up and downstream while simultaneously generating green energy for local consumption.
Their new prototype, put through its paces at a fish farm in Ireland with both artificial and live fish, suggests it could offer a cost-effective alternative to full barrier removal—potentially offsetting costs by 50%–85% while contributing to both EU restoration targets and national renewable energy goals.
The researchers, led by Prof. Aonghus McNabola (who commenced the work while in Trinity's School of Engineering before moving to RMIT University in Australia), have just published their work in Energies.
Addressing ecological and financial challenges
Prof. McNabola said, "The recently adopted EU Nature Restoration law emphasizes the urgent need to address the ecological impacts of river barriers, which fragment habitats and disrupt natural flows. However, efforts to remove barriers are often constrained by prohibitive costs, regulatory hurdles, and public opposition."
Evolution
Kind of puts a different spin on the inclination to risky behavior in our young males, doesn’t it?
It’s been shown that the flashiest males of some species also carry the highest parasite loads. Different sort of fitness.
Love hurts: Flashy feathers may put some male pheasant species' lives at risk.
Phys.org
The male Lady Amherst's pheasant knows how to put on a show when it comes to attracting mates. As well as elaborate courtship displays, they will unfurl their golden feathers to form a cape around their neck, which can prove irresistible to some females of the species.
However, according to new research published in the journal Biology Letters, this spectacular ornamentation comes at a potentially life-threatening cost. It can severely restrict their field of vision, making them more vulnerable to predators.
As with most animals, vision is critical for birds, helping them forage for food, spot lurking predators, and keep an eye on rivals. For years, scientists understood that a bird's vision was largely shaped by its ecology (where it lives, what it eats, and how it forages) rather than its gender. But this research is the first to show that male and female birds see the world differently.
Brain's GPS hasn't changed in millions of years: Specialized neurons may be vital to evolutionary survival.
Phys.org
The same brain cells linked to disorientation in Alzheimer's disease have been preserved—and even slightly increased—across millions of years of evolution.
A new University of Michigan study suggests these neurons are vital to evolutionary survival. Nature has guarded and amplified them through countless generations, helping mammals instinctively know where they are in their environments. The research is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
How the brain navigates environments
Charles Darwin first described the remarkable ability of most species to know where they are even without external cues and figure out a direct path to their destination. He called this "dead reckoning." But this ability to seamlessly navigate between familiar locations is impaired in people who suffer damage to a brain region called the retrosplenial cortex.
The surprising world of animal penises and what they reveal about humans.
Phys.org
In the animal kingdom, penises can be spiked, split, corkscrewed—even detachable. They're one of the most diverse structures in biology. The human penis is so uniform, it's an anatomical outlier. Understanding why penises evolved, and why they differ so widely, also helps explain why humans have one at all.
Penises first evolved as a solution to one simple problem: how to achieve internal fertilization.
The first animals lived in the sea before our ancestors started living on land half a billion years ago. Today, many aquatic animals still simply release sperm and eggs into the water. However, as organisms moved to land, a new mechanism was needed to transfer sperm into the female body—enter the penis.
But here's the twist: not all land animals use one. Around 97% of bird species have no penis at all. Instead, they reproduce with a "cloacal kiss." This is a brief contact between a single opening that serves the digestive, urinary and reproductive systems and through which sperm is transferred.
Why are shiny colors rare in nature? Artificial flower experiment suggests a visual trade-off.
Phys.org
Nature is brimming with color in almost every season. While the majority of colors are matte, some are shiny. Evolutionary biologist Casper van der Kooi wondered why shiny colors are so rare. He researched how bees perceive glossy colors by using artificial flowers. The experiment showed that shiny objects can be easily seen from afar, but are more difficult to discern up close. "It's a visual trade-off."
Biologists do not merely admire the colors in nature, they also develop theories to explain them. Most colors, such as the feathers of a great tit, the petals of a daisy, or the skin of a frog, are matte. These colors look the same from every angle. "Many colors serve as signals, for example, to attract pollinators or a mate," explains Van der Kooi. "These signals are most effective when they remain consistent in both time and space."
Better traps for pest insects
However, there are also examples of shiny colors throughout nature, such as the glossy petals of a buttercup, or the metallic blue hue of certain butterflies. Van der Kooi states, "These shiny colors have a dynamic quality: how you perceive them depends on the angle of observation, the level of illumination, and the time of day."
Paleontology
Rich dinosaur site discovered in Transylvania.
Phys.org
The Hațeg Basin in Transylvania is world-famous for its dinosaur remains, which have been unearthed from dozens of sites over the past century. Despite the high number of fossil localities, dinosaur finds are generally considered rare in the area. An exception is the newly discovered site, where researchers found more than a hundred vertebrate fossils per square meter—with the large dinosaur bones lying almost on top of each other.
The Valiora Dinosaur Research Group, consisting of Hungarian and Romanian paleontologists, has been conducting research for more than five years in the western part of the Hațeg Basin, an area famous for its dinosaur fossils. The Upper Cretaceous continental deposits studied here provide a glimpse into the final few million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs.
During the excavations, the team collected assemblages containing thousands of vertebrate remains, including fossils of amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and mammals. Among these, the K2 site stands out as the richest locality, yielding more than 800 vertebrate fossils from an area of less than five square meters. The detailed paleontological results of the site have recently been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Back to the beach: Why did evolution return some animals to the water?
Phys.org
In most narratives, the story of evolution is the story of organisms emerging from the ocean and eventually populating the land. But for some species, that evolution also involved a return trip. Dozens of major mammal and reptile groups ultimately made their way back to the beach and into the water. A new Yale study has undertaken the task of explaining when and how this happened—and which species fully re-committed to the life aquatic. The study is published in the journal Current Biology.
"These secondarily aquatic groups adapted in strikingly similar ways to their new aquatic home—evolving flippers and a suite of other features that made them better swimmers," said lead author Caleb Gordon, who earned his doctorate as a student in Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) earlier this year and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
"As a result, they've become textbook examples of convergent evolution, which can tell us a lot about the processes driving and constraining adaptive change in response to similar environmental cues."
Scientists uncover surprising link between koala and Ice Age 'marsupial lion'.
Phys.org
A sleepy koala may seem worlds apart from a giant Ice Age predator, but scientists have uncovered the first molecular evidence linking the two.
The discovery, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, provides the first biomolecular data linking several extinct Australian megafauna species to their living relatives.
Unlocking ancient relationships with collagen
Led by Dr. Michael Buckley at The University of Manchester, an international team analyzed 51 fossilized marsupial bones collected from caves and swamps across Tasmania—one of the last refuges of these giant animals. Using an innovative technique called zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS), or collagen fingerprinting, the team was able to analyze fossils more than 100,000 years old—far beyond the age limit for traditional DNA analysis.
Dr. Buckley said, "Until now, we've struggled to determine exactly how many of these extinct species were related because Australia's hot climate destroys DNA over time. However, collagen proteins survive in much older and even extremely fragmented bones, allowing us to identify species and reconstruct the evolutionary relationships between extinct and living marsupials that could not be achieved through traditional methods."
Ancient hominin fossils reveal two human ancestors lived side by side.
Phys.org
With the help of newly identified bones, an enigmatic 3.4-million-year-old hominin foot found in 2009, is assigned to a species different from that of the famous fossil Lucy providing further proof that two ancient species of hominins coexisted at the same time and in the same region.
The paper, "New finds shed light on diet and locomotion in Australopithecus deyiremeda," is published in the journal Nature.
In 2009, scientists led by Arizona State University paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie, found eight bones from the foot of an ancient human ancestor within layers of 3.4-million-year-old sediments in the Afar Rift in Ethiopia. The fossil, called the Burtele Foot, was found at the Woranso-Mille paleontological site and was announced in a 2012 article.
"When we found the foot in 2009 and announced it in 2012, we knew that it was different from Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, which is widely known from that time," said Haile-Selassie, director of the Institute of Human Origins (IHO) and a professor in the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
Newly identified fossil fish from England's Jurassic Coast reveals insights into an extinct group.
Phys.org
In a study by Dr. Martin Ebert and Dr. Steve Etches published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, the osteology and systematic position of a new species of fossil fish, Brachyichthys manselii comb. nov. was analyzed with the help of the first complete specimen, preserved in the Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay, located in southern England.
History of B. manselii
Despite the original holotype of the species having been purchased at Wareham by Lord Enniskillen and described by Lord Egerton prior to 1870, and now being located in the Natural History Museum, London, the individuals consisted of only three fragmentary remains and were thus mistakenly described as Seminotus manselii.
"Collections worldwide possess numerous exciting fossils. Some even represent thus far unknown species. Others are superbly preserved specimens of species that have been described a long time ago using fragmentary and less well-preserved individuals," explains Dr. Martin Ebert of Ludwig Maximilian University Munich.
It is thus important to revisit these collections and compare older specimens with newly discovered, sometimes better-preserved individuals. Dr. Ebert explains the significance, stating that, "When doing taxonomic work, i.e., identifying fossils and describing them in great detail, it is important to carefully examine previously described type specimens to determine whether the fossil in question represents a new species or one that has already been described.
A foot-tall elephant? 'Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age' on Apple TV reveals surprising creatures.
Phys.org
If you've seen any of the "Ice Age" animated Disney movies, we have some bad news: You don't know the real ice age.
It was an incredible time when the Earth was going through immense systemic changes and was filled with often nightmarish creatures—carnivorous kangaroos, 14-foot-tall bears and armadillos bigger than cars. Sid the sloth's eyes would bulge even more.
A hyper-realistic picture of life during that Pleistocene era emerges with Apple TV's five-part, computer-driven "Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age," which takes place millions of years after the dinosaurs' extinction.
"Nobody's made a natural history representation of these creatures behaving and interacting in the way that we have in this series," says Mike Gunton, co-executive producer and senior executive at the storied BBC Natural History Unit.
This is the third chapter in the "Prehistoric Planet" series, blending cinematic storytelling with photorealistic visual effects and the latest scientific knowledge to give viewers a treat: Nostrils flare, fur is rustled by howling winds and eyelashes twitch.
Hope everyone has a happy, warm & safe weekend to peruse the cornucopia. :-)
