Christie ’s cancels T rex skeleton auction after doubts raised
Sale of 1,400kg skeleton withdrawn after New York Times reported claims of similarities to T rex sold in 2020Christie ’s has called off the auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton days before it was due to go under the hammer in Hong Kong after a US fossil company raised doubts about parts of the skeleton named “Shen”.Christie ’s said in a statement that Shen – a 1,400kg (3,100lb) skeleton – had been withdrawn from its autumn auctions week, which starts in Hong Kong on Friday.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - November 21, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Agence France-Presse in Hong Kong Tags: Dinosaurs Fossils Science World news Hong Kong Archaeology US news Palaeontology Asia Pacific Zoology Source Type: news
Tyrannosaurus rex skull expected to fetch £13m at US auction
Fossil named Maximus unearthed in South Dakota rated one of most complete T rex skulls ever foundA Tyrannosaurus rex skull discovered in South Dakota is expected to sell for between $15 and $20m ( £13m-£17m) when it is auctioned next month in New York, Sotheby’s has said.The 76m-year-old skull, nicknamed Maximus, is being sold by an anonymous seller at a live auction on 9 December.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - November 8, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Rupert Neate Tags: Dinosaurs Fossils Science US news Zoology World news Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the rainbow fish that ’s born female and becomes male
Scientists in the Maldives were only able to reach the rose-veiled fairy wrasse by using specialised diving gearAround the Maldives, between 40 and 70 metres (130-230ft) beneath the Indian Ocean, there are flickering shoals of brightly coloured, finger-length fish that never venture up to the coral reefs at the surface.The rose-veiled fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa) is one of many species that deep-diving scientists have found in the mesophotic (or twilight) zone, which lies between the sunlit shallows and the dark, deep ocean. It extends about 150 metres down and contains its own distinct mix of species.“The meso...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 19, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Fish Maldives Zoology World news Science Wildlife Oceans Environment Marine life Biology Coral Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the magnificent alien in the ‘forest of the weird’
More than a mile beneath the Pacific Ocean, is a seascape of oddly shaped corals and a glass sponge named after ETIn 2017, on a submerged volcano a mile and a half underwater in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a team of scientists were left gasping in wonder at a scene they called the “forest of the weird”.Instead of trees, the forest was made up of oddly shaped corals, including some that resembled frizzy bottlebrushes (Rhodaniridogorgia) and others that were flattened and harp-shaped (Narella) with leggy, pink brittlestars, relatives of starfish, wrapped around their branches.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 11, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Marine life Oceans Wildlife Environment Biology Science Zoology Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the ‘forest of the weird’
More than a mile beneath the Pacific Ocean, is a seascape of oddly shaped corals and a glass sponge named after ETIn 2017, on a submerged volcano a mile and a half underwater in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a team of scientists were left gasping in wonder at a scene they called the “forest of the weird”.Instead of trees, the forest was made up of oddly shaped corals, including some that resembled frizzy bottlebrushes (Rhodaniridogorgia) and others that were flattened and harp-shaped (Narella) with leggy, pink brittlestars, relatives of starfish, wrapped around their branches.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 11, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Marine life Oceans Wildlife Environment Biology Science Zoology Source Type: news
Who IS Peter Daszak? The zoologist at the centre of debate surrounding Covid's murky origins
US-based EcoHealth Alliance gained $650,000 (£580,000) to trawl caves in Asia looking for bats carrying coronaviruses, despite fears similar work sparked the pandemic. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - October 4, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the sea cucumber that lives a jellyfish life
The Pelagothuria natatrixis an extremely rare species of sea cucumber – with a gelatinous body, it spends most of its time swimmingDiscovered in the deep: the incredible fish with a transparent headWafting through the deep sea is a diaphanous creature that resembles a jellyfish, but is in fact something else entirely.Pelagothuria natatrix, meaning swimming sea cucumber, belongs to a group of animals better known for lying around on the seabed like giant, rubbery worms.This sea cucumber was first named in the late 19th century, but for a long time it was only known from a few battered specimens brought up in scientific tr...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 3, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Marine life Oceans Wildlife Zoology Biology Science Source Type: news
No one in physics dares say so, but the race to invent new particles is pointless | Sabine Hossenfelder
In private, many physicists admit they do not believe the particles they are paid to search for exist – they do it because their colleagues are doing itImagine you go to a zoology conference. The first speaker talks about her 3D model of a 12-legged purple spider that lives in the Arctic. There ’s no evidence it exists, she admits, but it’s a testable hypothesis, and she argues that a mission should be sent off to search the Arctic for spiders.The second speaker has a model for a flying earthworm, but it flies only in caves. There ’s no evidence for that either, but he petitions to search the world’s caves. The t...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - September 26, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Sabine Hossenfelder Tags: Particle physics Science UK news World news Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the crustacean with eyes for a head
Shrimp-like Cystisoma are protected from predators by being virtually invisible – thanks to unique retina and a body that casts almost no shadowThe inky depths of the ocean ’s twilight zone are home to fist-sized shrimp-like crustaceans with ridiculously big eyes. Most ofCystisoma’s head is taken up by its eyes – all the better for seeing in the dark. “The bigger you make your eye, the more likely you are to catch any photons that are out there,” says Karen Osborn, research scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.A big challenge for animals living in deep midwater, inCystisoma’s case between...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - September 14, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Marine life Oceans Environment Wildlife Zoology Science Biology Source Type: news
Discovered in the deep: the ‘Elvis worms’ that sparkle in the darkness
In 2020, scientists found sparklingPeinaleopolynoe on hydothermal vents in the eastern Pacific – and were irresistibly reminded of the king of rock’n’rollNearly 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) underwater in the Pescadero basin in the Gulf of California lie some of the Pacific ’s deepest hydrothermal vents – and they’re covered in small iridescent worms. “You’ll see little pink sparkly worms, blue ones, red ones, black ones and white ones,” says Avery Hiley, a graduate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.These are hungry scale-worms, orPeinaleopolynoe–peinal éos meaning “hung...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - September 7, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Helen Scales Tags: Oceans Marine life Wildlife Environment Zoology Science Biology Source Type: news
Male dolphins form lifelong bonds that help them find mates, research finds
In behaviour only previously seen in humans, ‘social brain’ helps dolphins form complex alliances to see off their rivals for femalesDolphins form decade-long social bonds, and cooperate among and between cliques, to help one another find mates and fight off competitors, new research has found – behaviour not previously confirmed among animals.“These dolphins have long-term stable alliances, and they have intergroup alliances. Alliances of alliances of alliances, really,” saidDr Richard Connor, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and one of the lead authors of the paper. “But be...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 29, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Sofia Quaglia Tags: Dolphins Cetaceans Marine life Wildlife Environment Biology Science Zoology Source Type: news
NHSE director to run London Zoo
A senior NHS England director has taken a new job heading up The Zoological Society of London, which runs London Zoo, it has been reported. (Source: HSJ)
Source: HSJ - August 23, 2022 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
How did mammals come to rule the world? – podcast
About 325 million years ago, when Britain sat near the equator as part of the supercontinent Pangaea, two populations of a small, scaly, swamp-dwelling creature separated from each other. One of these lineages, over millions and millions of years, evolved into mammals. Our ancestors shared the planet with dinosaurs, survived an asteroid and made it through an ice age. This fascinating history is documented in The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, a new book by the palaeontologist Prof Steve Brusatte. The Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis talks to Madeleine Finlay about her visit with Brusatte and what she learned ab...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 23, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Nicola Davis, sound design by Rudi Zygadlo, and the executive producer was Isabelle Roughol Tags: Science Mammals Dinosaurs Fossils Evolution Zoology Biology Source Type: news
‘The whole embryo was there’: expert makes rare find on Sheffield museum opening day
Dean Lomax identifies probably oldest known vertebrate embryo from UK at Yorkshire Natural History MuseumA 180m-year-old fossil has quickly become one of the star exhibits at the UK ’s newest museum, after it was identified as probably the oldest known example of a vertebrate embryo found in Britain.TheYorkshire Natural History Museum in Sheffield opened on Saturday, the ribbon cut by the palaeontologist and ichthyosaur expertDean Lomax using abaryonyx claw.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 15, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Mark Brown North of England correspondent Tags: Dinosaurs Fossils Science Sheffield UK news Zoology Museums Source Type: news
T rex ’s keyhole eye sockets helped its bite, research suggests
Specialised shape thought to have evolved to let dinosaur spread stress across skull as it chewed preyWith a huge body, sharp claws, and dagger-like teeth, Tyrannosaurus rexwould not have relied on looks to kill. But research suggests its eyes may have contributed to its bone-crushing bite.A study has proposed the keyhole-shaped eye sockets of T rex may have helped to disperse stress across the skull of the fearsome predator as it chomped on its prey.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 11, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Nicola Davis Science correspondent Tags: Dinosaurs Evolution Zoology Science UK news Source Type: news
