Dinosaurs and Fossils News Headlines

There is absolutely no chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 will hit Earth when it makes its closest approach on Friday (Feb. 15), but many other asteroids like it have made a crash landing on the planet in the past.

Pregnant turtles hit the pause button on their eggs' development until the time is just right to lay them in a nest, researchers say. The careful moms do this by producing a gooey substance in their reproductive tracts that cuts oxygen to the embryos, a study shows.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Dinosaurs died off about 33,000 years after an asteroid hit the Earth, much sooner than scientists had believed, and the asteroid may not have been the sole cause of extinction, according to a study released Thursday. Earth's climate may have been at a tipping point when a massive asteroid …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A 150-foot-wide asteroid will come remarkably close to Earth next week, even closer than high-flying communication and weather satellites. It will be the nearest known flyby for an object of this size.

WASHINGTON (AP) — New research pinpoints how the torch passed from one dominant creature on Earth to another, from the brutish dinosaur to the crafty mammal.

The idea that a cosmic impact ended the age of dinosaurs in what is now Mexico now has fresh new support, researchers say.

A tiny, furry-tailed creature is the most complete picture yet as to what the ancestor of mice, elephants, lions, tigers, bears, whales, bats and humans once looked like, researchers say.

The main culprit behind the end of the dinosaurs is now widely accepted to be an extraterrestrial collision of epic proportions, one that left behind the gargantuan crater of Chicxulub at Mexico. Evidence for this theory grows more ironclad over time –  yet only 30 years ago it was often thought to be nonsense.

Scientists have unearthed a jawbone from an ancient human ancestor in a cave in Serbia.

What strange creatures dwell in the rainforests, at the bottom of the ocean or even in plain sight in our cities? If we don't look, we'll never know, one group of researchers says.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Big changes are in store for the nation's forests as global warming increases wildfires and insect infestations, and generates more frequent floods and droughts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture warns in a report released Tuesday.

Scientists say they've discovered the fossilized bones of a new type of pterosaur, a flying dinosaur-age reptile, which lived about 68 million years ago and had a wingspan of nearly 10 feet (3-meters).

BERLIN (AP) — Theories about when the last Neanderthals walked the Earth may have to be revised, according to a study that suggests they became extinct in their last refuge in Spain much earlier than previously thought.

The remains of eight new species of crustaceans, including the oldest known spider crabs that lived 100 million years ago, have been uncovered in a fossil reef in northern Spain, scientists report.

Neanderthals may have died out earlier than before thought, researchers say.

A chunk of stone bearing dinosaur footprints has been carefully lifted from the grounds of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., scientists report.

Ancient tapeworm eggs found in 270-million-year-old shark poop suggests these parasites may have plagued animals for much longer than previously known, researchers say.

You’d never describe your USB Flash drive as a floppy disk, even though it serves the same purpose. You wouldn’t think of referring to the network admin who runs your servers as a "keypunch operator." So why did you tell your daughter that you are "filming" her dance recital on a digital camera?

Long-forgotten remains of a giant dolphin-shaped crocodilian "super-predator" that could devour ancient beasts its size and larger have now been discovered in a museum drawer in Scotland, researchers say.

With the tires of a monster truck and guts that pound the ground like a dinosaur, the T-Rex is not just the ultimate Tonka toy.

Scientists have unearthed and dated some of the oldest stone hand axes on Earth. The ancient tools, unearthed in Ethiopia in the last two decades, date to 1.75 million years ago.

As a sterilized video camera dropped through a borehole in the ice, U.S. scientists camped at Lake Whillans in Antarctica became the first to see the bottom of a lake trapped underneath the glacial ice for thousands of years.

A British newspaper claims to have discovered the convoluted way oil billionaires in the United States can funnel huge amounts of cash toward climate change-denial campaigns, while reaping tremendous tax advantages in the process.