All articles tagged with #fossil study
A new study of 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus fossils suggests early human ancestors were capable of both tree-climbing and upright walking, challenging previous ideas that they were solely tree-dwellers and indicating a more complex, gradual evolution from ape-like ancestors to humans.
A new study using 3D reconstructions of ancient and modern human ribcages reveals that ribcage shape and size are linked to climate, with colder environments associated with larger, broader ribcages, challenging previous beliefs about human body morphology and highlighting the influence of climate on human evolution.
A new study published in PNAS reveals that the evolution of larger brains in modern humans, Neanderthals, and their relatives occurred gradually over millions of years, rather than through sudden leaps between species. Researchers from the University of Reading, Oxford, and Durham used a comprehensive fossil dataset and advanced methods to demonstrate steady brain size growth driven by gradual adaptation within species. This challenges previous theories of dramatic evolutionary changes and highlights the complexity of brain evolution.
A 407-million-year-old plant fossil has challenged the long-held theory that Fibonacci spirals were common in the most ancient land plants. The fossil, Asteroxylon mackiei, was found to have non-Fibonacci spirals, indicating that the evolution of leaf spirals diverged into two separate paths. The discovery was made by an international team led by the University of Edinburgh, using digital reconstruction techniques to produce the first 3D models of leafy shoots in the fossil clubmoss. The findings transform scientists' understanding of Fibonacci spirals in land plants and suggest that ancient clubmosses had an entirely distinct evolutionary history to other major groups of plants today.