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TOPIC: Ancient fossils
Blobrana


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Scientists from Oregon State University and the Natural History Museum in London have announced the discovery of the oldest known fossil of a gecko, with body parts that are forever preserved in life-like form after 100 million years of being entombed in amber.
Due to the remarkable preservative power of being embalmed in amber, the tiny foot of this ancient lizard still shows the tiny lamellae, or sticky toe hairs, that to this day give modern geckos their unusual ability to cling to surfaces or run across a ceiling. Research programs around the world have tried to mimic this bizarre adhesive capability, with limited success.

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Blobrana


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Venezuela fossils
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Ancient tar pits revealed during a Venezuelan oil pipeline operation hold many fossils, including a species of sabre-toothed cat that had never been found in South America. Researcher Ascanio Rincon said it's the most significant find in 60 years.
Rincon said the tar pits are like a window into what the world was like shortly after the continents of North and South America became connected. The tar pits, larger than two football fields in size, are in the eastern state of Monagas.

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Blobrana


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Palaeontologists in 2005 hailed research that apparently showed that soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, a major finding that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.
But new research challenges that finding and suggests that the supposed recovered dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm or slime.

"I believed that preserved soft tissues had been found, but I had to change my opinion. You have to go where the science leads, and the science leads me to believe that this is bacterial biofilm" - Thomas Kaye, an associate researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington.

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Blobrana


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A treasure trove of history preserved by nature for millions of years in eastern India is threatened with extinction.
Plant fossils, scattered all over the Rajmahal Hills in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand state, are fast finding their way into the hundreds of crusher machines that are reducing them into stone chips to be used in road construction.

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Blobrana


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Scientists in Panama have unearthed hundreds of animal fossils dating back 20 million years, which could shed more light on how and when the American continent became connected.
Geologists from the U.S. Smithsonian Institution, which has a permanent base in Panama, say engineers digging to widen the Panama Canal have uncovered more than 500 fossils including teeth and bones of rodents, horses, crocodiles and turtles that lived before a land bridge linked North and South America.

Source Reuters

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Blobrana


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Four tonnes of dinosaur bones and other fossils stolen from Argentina are back home after they were seized while being sold on the US black market.
They were welcomed in Buenos Aires at a formal ceremony attended by senior Argentine military officers, diplomats and the US ambassador to Argentina.

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Blobrana


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For the first time palaeontologists have found fossilised burrows of tetrapods -- any land vertebrates with four legs or leglike appendages -- in Antarctica dating from the Early Triassic epoch, about 245 million years ago.
The fossils were created when fine sand from an overflowing river poured into the animals' burrows and hardened into casts of the open spaces. The largest preserved piece is about 14 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 inches deep. No animal remains were found inside the burrow casts, but the hardened sediment in each burrow preserved a track made as the animals entered and exited.

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Blobrana


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China has given Australia six rare fossils as a thank you for authorities seizing stolen artefacts.
The six fossils were among 750 kilograms of artefacts - including dinosaur eggs, reptiles and crustaceans - that had been illegally imported from provinces across China

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Blobrana


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Palaeontologist Mark Webster has hunted a group of odd-looking fossilised creatures called trilobites from the northwest highlands of Scotland to the deserts of the American Southwest.

Theyre segmented little creatures, very beautiful to look at. They catch the eye of a lot of amateur collectors, and professionals tend to get hooked on them very easily - Mark Webster,  Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences and the College.

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Blobrana


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The skeleton of a Triceratops dinosaur that roamed the earth some 65 million years ago goes under the hammer in Paris on Wednesday as part of a collection of prehistoric bones and fossils...

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