At http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/07/giant-claw-in-desert-... ... An Aboriginal stockman found crocodile teeth and shards of bone in the desert, 160km north of Alice Springs, some years ago. For several years it has become an annual event for scientists to converge on the site and dig out further bones. They seem to date to a catastrophic event of some kind, conventionally dated around 8 million years ago. All the animals in the huge deposit seem to have perished at the same time - including the strange beast with a giant claw.
Biology news
Green duffers, animal capers
At http://phys.org/print262262347.html ... how much did humans impact on the landscape - or for how much are they responsible for the destruction of eco systems, especially in the tropics. A paper in PNAS shows that even in pre-human environments natural events have caused near extintions of wildlife - taking as the perfect field of study the island of Madagascar, uninhabited until a few thousand years ago. Pre human Madagascar was affected by a series of Holocene droughts, or natural disasters that involved the removal of large sections of tropical forest cover, up till 2000BC.
Shadow Biosphere, plasma, water and the magnetic monster
Some interesting speculative biology going on - and NASA forced to retreat. The idea of a shadow biosphere, or a biosphere that has been crowded out by the current one, appealed to some people, including a group at NASA, as it mikght have helped them in their search for life on other planets. It seems a couple of papers and studies have put the idea to bed - see http://phys.org/print261680276.html.
Rhythm of Life
At http://rhythmsoflife.ca/ ... there is a web site to publicise a new book on evolution, by Susan Crockford, Rhythms of Life. How did wolves become dogs - a new theory involving thyroid hormones driving evolutionary change (including domestication) and taken further, controlling 'your' health. The argument is that variable thyroid function is the biological mechanism that makes evolutionary change possible.
Poley Bears
There are some interesting facts about polar bears and brown bears on the sceptic blog http://notrickszone.com/2012/07/07/arthur-c-smith-iii-polar-bear-extinct... ... and really, it is all about the Ice Ages, ice advances and retreats, and the changing habitat of the polar bear - their remains have even been found in Ireland. It also stresses the differences between polar bears and brown bears - although hybrids are known.
Lactose intolerance in Africa
Chemical analysis has shown that humans in the Sahara were milking cows some 7000 years ago - see www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5708/early-saharan-africans-used-milk-7000-y... ... according to research done at the University of Bristol. This affects the origins of lactose tolerance - as animal milk causes people to have a queasy stomach, or a more serious reaction, until genetic change has taken place.
Richard Dawkins
At http://helian.net/blog/2012/04/human-nature/e-o-wilsons-group-selection-... apparently, some proponents of 'evolutionary psychology' are opposed to the idea of the Selfish Gene and the God Delusion. Group selection is back in fashion. A similar theme appears at http://helian.net/blog/2012/03/13/human-nature/david-sloan-wilson-richar... ... make of this what you will
Evidence for YD impact in Cornwall?
At http://cosmictusk.com/elevated-iridium-at-younger-dryas-in-england/ is from a paper delivered at the iNQUA congress at Bern in June 2011 and concerns a geological layer from Bodmin Moor in Cornwall (Hawks Tor, peat sediments). The authors are William Marshall, Katie Head, Robert Clough and Andrew Fisher. It may be that other sites will now be explored for a similar anomaly as geologists notoriously find new things on each visit to quarries and cuttings - missed by others on earlier visits.
The Sun and life on Earth
At Pierre Gosselin's blog http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/29/coral-reef-growth-found-to-be-in-sync... ... scientists from Japan's Okayama Univerity claim the Sun influences coral reefs while at http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012.03/29/the-gulf-stream-today/ ... claims that low activity on the Sun in recent years has shifted the Gulf Stream.
Fish, using tools to ... fish
At www.physorg.com/print241950691.html ... rather, a fish using a tool to smash open a shell - various species of wrasse do this and there is photographic evidence of a tusk fish doing the same thing. This is distinctly disturbing as we have always been informed that just we humans are that clever. It was bad enough when primates were found to use tools to poke things out of tight places or crack nuts open but then it was found that crafty crows and various other birds, such as the thrush cracking open snails, also used tools in their everyday sort of chore ...