The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project has put a stark number on one of Earth science’s biggest blind spots: only 28% of the ocean floor has been mapped with acoustic precision. That leaves most of the planet’s seabed described through broader satellite-based estimates, even as detailed maps of Mars and the Moon can show features…
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A study in Nature led by researchers at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, describes a tiny fossil fish from South China that preserves the oldest articulated bony fish skeleton yet found. The animal, named Eosteus chongqingensis, lived about 436 million years ago and measured only around 3 centimeters long.…
A study in Nature Communications reports that human groups in South Africa were making repeated trips to obtain toolmaking stone as early as about 220,000 years ago. Led by researchers associated with the University of Tübingen, the work centers on Jojosi, an open-air site where ancient people appear to have visited again and again for…
A study in Nature found that tropical rainforest biodiversity in Ecuador’s Chocó region can return faster than many people might expect after farmland is left to regrow. The research, led by Timo Metz and a large international team, tracked life across abandoned agricultural land, recovering forest and old-growth rainforest. The results point to a powerful…
