Giant meat-eating dinosaur skulls reveal ‘bone-crushing’ bite

 

Illustration of Tyrannosaurus rex 

Image courtesy of Roger Harris/Getty Images/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

Differences in the skulls of carnivorous dinosaurs suggest some dinosaurs ripped flesh while others crushed bones.

A closer look at the skulls of gigantic dinosaurs reveals some preferred to shred their prey, while others attacked with bone-crushing.

Andre Rowe and Emily Rayfield at the University of Bristol in the UK looked at the skulls of 18 species of theropods from across the Mesozoic Era. This diverse group of dinosaurs, which includes T. Rex, Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, walked on their hind legs and had large heads and big, sharp teeth.

Source: 

Meagan Mulcair Giant meat-eating dinosaur skulls reveal ‘bone-crushing’ bite | New Scientist 4 August 

 

What would it feel like to be on a planet spinning out of control?

“The faster the planet, the fiercer the storms…”

elementix / Alamy Stock Photo

Joel Kontinen

Exoplanets are strange. They are not meant for life. But God has made the Earth in check so that life can continue on Earth.

"In the past month, Earth experienced some of its shortest days on record. The planet spun quickly enough to shave 1.4 milliseconds off of its usual 24-hour day. These natural accelerations in Earth’s spin are, of course, hard to notice. But if you’re anything like me, the feeling that our world is spinning out of control – metaphorically, at least – might not be unfamiliar.

The straightforward effects of the sun rising and setting ever-more frequently are easy to imagine. How many of us already feel as if there’s not enough time in the day? In Circular Motion, the characters are increasingly overworked, struggling to keep up with the demands of everyday life while their days keep shortening on them. Because their productivity relies on a high-speed global transport system that is itself the cause of the planet’s acceleration in the book, their rushing only makes the problem worse.”

By Alex Foster 2025 Alex Foster on his new novel, which imagines what it would feel like to be on a planet spinning out of control | New Scientist 1 August 

The secret to what makes colours pop on dazzling songbirds

 

Image courtesy of Daniel Field

Joel Kontinen

Why are songbirds so colorful?

Hidden layers of colour in the plumage of tanagers and some other songbirds explain what makes them so eye-catching.

Brightly coloured songbirds called tanagers are so eye-catching because they have a hidden layer of black or white beneath their dazzling plumage.

Painters often prime a canvas with a layer of white to enhance the colours they will eventually layer on, as well as to make it smoother and stronger. But it seems this is a mechanism that birds were using long before humans picked up paintbrushes.

Rosalyn Price-Waldman at Princeton University and her colleagues have found that when songbirds in the tanager genus Tangara have bright red or yellow plumage, they usually have white layers hidden underneath. When they have blue plumage, they have black layers beneath.

To investigate why, they removed 72 feathers from taxidermied tanager specimens in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s collection.

By taking pictures of the feathers on different backgrounds, the team measured how their reflectance or absorption of light changed, finding that the underlayers make the top layers look more colourful.

Source: 

Chris Simms 2025 The secret to what makes colours pop on dazzling songbirds | New Scientist 23 July

 

Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign

 

Vincent Lynch (left) and Nic Rawlence have been targeted by negative articles. Image courtesy of Berlin Communications/Ken Miller

Joel Kontinen

What do evolutionists say about their theory? Some think that it is not true.

"Several researchers who have been critical of Colossal Biosciences’ plans to revive extinct animals say they have been targeted by online articles trying to discredit them

Academics who have questioned the validity of efforts to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf have complained of an apparent campaign to discredit them. They believe the attacks are intended to deter criticism of de-extinction projects, a controversial research area attracting considerable attention from the media and investors.

Biotech company Colossal Biosciences has, over several years, announced efforts to recreate animals including the woolly mammoth, thylacine, dire wolf and giant moa bird. All these are extinct, but the company aims to modify the genomes of related creatures still living today to bring them back. Many scientists have said this can only lead to animals with partially modified genomes, not true recreations."

 But can they really recreate those animals?

Source:

Matthew Sparkes 2025 Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign | New Scientist 31 July

Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy?

 

Image courtesy of Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

Joel Kontnen

Some scientist say that a new type of force comes from cosmic entropy. But it isn’t true. The thought is based on the Big Bang.

“Decades ago, a renegade physicist suggested that gravity isn't so much a force as just a byproduct of the universe's tendency to get more disordered. Now this idea might finally be testable

There are some things in life that just sort of happen. Desks get covered in dust and scraps of paper. Clothes get dirty and the laundry basket fills up. Weeds slowly creep across an untended flowerbed. Things, in other words, tend to get messier unless we step in and tidy up.

Now here’s an idea: what if gravity itself works like that? It would certainly be a different way of looking at the force that keeps our feet on the ground and conducts the twirling dance of the planets. Most physicists see it as one of the four forces of nature, about as fundamental as you can get. But back in 2010, physicist Erik Verlinde suggested that it wasn’t a force at all, but simply a byproduct of the universe’s natural inclination to become more disordered. “For me, gravity doesn’t exist,” he told reporters at the time.”

Source:

Jon Cartwright 2025 Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy? | New Scientist 29 July 

Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars

Abell 2744, the galaxy cluster where AMORE6 was spotted. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, Jennifer Lotz, Matt Mountain, Anton M. Koekemoer, HFF Team (STScI)

Joel Kontinen

Can galaxies form in a beginning?

Stars uncontaminated by heavier elements are thought to have formed very early in the universe, but a galaxy much later in cosmic history might let us see them for the first time.

A galaxy marooned in an empty region of the universe appears to be unexpectedly full of primordial stars. This could give astronomers their first glimpse of a kind of stellar object thought to have formed shortly after the universe’s first moments and which has never been directly observed.

Despite being able to peer back to near the beginning of the universe with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have struggled to definitively find evidence of the first stars. Known as population III stars, these are giant balls of mostly hydrogen that would have formed in the early universe. Being the first stars, they would have almost none of the heavier elements that are produced when stars die and explode.

By Alex Wilkins 2025 Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars | New Scientist 25 July 

Interstellar invader Comet is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth

 

Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Joel Kontinen 

Can the comet 3I/ATLAS be older than earth? It is packed with water that could be older than Earth some scientists say. The comet about 7 billion years old, which would make it older than the solar system itself.

"It could represent some of the oldest and most pristine water ever observed, formed in another planetary system and preserved throughout its interstellar journey.

Some scientists estimate there could be as many as 1 million interstellar visitors in the solar system at any one time. It's thought that many of these could lurk in the Oort cloud, a shell of comets located at the very edge of the solar system. The study of 3I/ATLAS and other interstellar interlopers could reveal what conditions are like in other planetary systems.”

The timing of the solar system is false.

Source:

Robert Lea 2025 Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth | Space  23 July

Tiny elusive gecko rediscovered on one of the Galapagos islands

 

Image courtesy of Rory Stansbury/Island Conservation

Joel Kontinen

Leaf-toed geckos were thought to be locally extinct on Rabida Island, but the diminutive reptiles have re-emerged after a campaign to eliminate invasive rats.

Can geckos grow small? Researchers have found a gecko that is only 8 centimetres long on the Galapagos islands, They though that rats have eaten them.

Tiny gecko has been rediscovered on Rábida Island in the Galápagos, where it was believed to have been wiped out by invasive rats.

The leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi), whose adults are just 8 centimetres long, was previously only known to have existed on Rábida from 5000-year-old fossil records. But teams collected live specimens during expeditions in 2019 and 2021, which have now been officially confirmed as this species.

Source: 

Graeme Green 2025 Tiny elusive gecko rediscovered on one of the Galapagos islands | New Scientist 22 July

Immortal stars could live forever by 'eating' dark matter

 

At the centre of the Milky Way, stars look younger than they should. Image courtesy of NASA, Caltech, Susan Stolovy (SSC, Caltech)

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionists say that immortal stars eat up dark matter to go on living forever, but dark matter is never found. 'Impossible' particle that hit Earth according to some evolutionists may have been dark matter.

“Stars close to the centre of our galaxy may be nearly immortal because they gobble up dark matter for energy.

More than two decades ago, astronomers noticed something odd about the stars near the centre of the Milky Way. First, the light they emit suggests they are younger than expected based on their mass, a problem dubbed the “paradox of youth”. Second, older stars are unusually scarce in this region, an issue called the “conundrum of old age”.”

Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan  2025 Immortal stars could live forever by 'eating' dark matter | New Scientist 21 July 

 

Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours

 

Image courtesy of Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Instead of the Big Bang, some physicists have suggested tha t our universe may have come from a big bounce following another universe contracting – but quantum theory could rule this out.

Did our solar system had a beginning that was before  God created it at the beginning, Some evolutionists think so, but others are not so sure.

Could our universe be expanding and shrinking back into a tiny point, reliving a kind of big bang over and over again? Probably not, according to a mathematical analysis that argues that the laws of physic forbid such a cyclic universe.

A key moment in the life of a cyclic universe is the big bounce, an alternative to the big bang as the beginning of the known universe. The big bang starts with a singularity – matter and energy packed into a point so dense that gravity becomes strong enough to elude the laws of physics as we understand them – followed by an endless outwards expansion. But if the universe began with a big bounce, we could look beyond what we think of as the beginning and see another universe contracting to form an incredibly dense point, but not necessarily a singularity, before bouncing back out into the expanding universe we live in today.

Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 2025 Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours | New Scientist 18 July   

Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture

 

An illustration of a Neanderthals, they group preparing food Image courtesy of Luis Montanya/Marta Montanya/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

A comparison of cut marks on bones reveals that Neanderthal groups living fairly close to each other had their own distinct ways of butchering animals

What did Neanderthals eat? They were not to only called species that cooked their food, long before Homo Sapiens were active, they cooked their food using spices.

Neanderthals may have had traditional ways of preparing food that were particular to each group. Discoveries from two caves in what is now northern Israel suggest that the residents there butchered the same kinds of prey in their own distinctive ways.

Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, weren’t the first hominins to prepare and cook food. There is evidence that Neanderthals, for example, which inhabited Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago, used flint knives to butcher what they caught, cooked a wide range of animals and spiced up their menu with wild herbs.

Source:

By Chris Simms 2025 Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture | New Scientist 17 July 

 

Interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS could be the oldest comet ever seen — and could grow a spectacular tail later this year

 

Image courtesy of ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA

Joel Kontinen

According to evolutionists, one of the comets is now in our system. It could grow a spectacular tail soon. It is 3 billions years older than the solar system. 3I/ATLAS is one of the distant comets seen by man.

“The object was already exciting to astronomers as only the third space object seen entering the solar system from beyond its limits, the other two being Oumuamua seen in 2017 and 2I/Borisov detected in 2019.

However, new research has shown this potentially "water ice-rich" visitor could be even more extraordinary than initially believed. 3I/ATLAS could be around 3 billion years older than our 4.5 billion-year-old solar system and thus any comet ever before observed.”

Source:

Harry Baker 2025 3I/ATLAS: Everything you need to know about the new 'interstellar visitor' shooting through the solar system | Live Science July 10

 

Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought

 

Image courtesy of PandorumBS/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Without enough liquid water on the surface, a planet's atmosphere can become choked with carbon dioxide, raising temperatures to a level beyond what is survivable for all known life

Is water important for life on exoplanets? According to Genesis, it is important also in space in which God created the planets.

Alien worlds found in the “habitable zone” of their star may still not be right for life

PandorumBS/Alamy

The number of planets capable of hosting alien life may be smaller than we thought, thanks to a new understanding of how water levels drive a planet’s climate. Below a certain level, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can grow too much and make a planet unbearably hot, which could also explain why Venus is as inhospitable as it appears today.

All life that we know of needs liquid water, which is why astronomers are keen to find planets in the “habitable zone” around their star region where temperatures are conducive for liquid water to exist. But now Haskelle White-Gianella at the University of Washington and her colleagues have found that source;

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought | New Scientist 15 July

James Webb telescope reveals dizzying galaxies in the Bullet Cluster

 

Image courtesy of A. Smith, N. Madhusudhan (University of Cambridge

Joel Kontinen 

The universe is wonderful.  It speaks of the one who made it. The James Webb space telescope has just pictures a cluster that is some 3.7 million light years from us, in the constellation Carina.

However, it does not mention how dark matter is distributed.

“Galaxy clusters act as a magnifying lens, shining light on the faintest and most distant objects — a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. On the rarest of occasions, galaxy clusters collide, creating an even more massive lens. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently provided extremely detailed observations of such a lens, the Bullet Cluster.

Located about 3.7 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Carina, the Bullet Cluster is the aftermath of the collision between two galaxy clusters that is estimated to have begun approximately 150 million years ago. Each of the two galaxy clusters can be distinguished within the blue regions, yet they are bound by gravity and together form a single entity — the Bullet Cluster.

While gravitational lensing brings distant, faint objects into light, the extent of lensing can reveal the mass distribution within the massive foreground galaxy cluster. Mysterious dark matter makes up a huge chunk of galaxy clusters, but is difficult to spot because it does not reflect, absorb or emit light. So, astronomers sometimes study light from stars that are within the galaxy cluster but are not part of any galaxies. These stars are called intracluster stars and are floating because they are stripped from their galaxies during collisions. By analyzing the light from these stars, researchers can trace the distribution of dark matter, as these stars are gravitationally bound to the cluster's dark matter.

The latest data from JWST, combined with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, allowed astronomers to create an accurate map of mass — both visible and dark matter — within the Bullet Cluster. The light from intracluster stars pinned down the location of invisible matter, and the X-rays confirmed the location of hot gas. Based on these observations, astronomers could "replay" the collision. This revealed that hot gas (in bright pink) was pulled out of the galaxy clusters and left behind in the central region, while the dark matter (in blue) associated with individual galaxy clusters stayed.”

Source:

Shreejaya Karantha 2025 Did the James Webb telescope really find evidence of alien life? Here's the truth about exoplanet K2-18b. | Live Science July 6

Bizarre 'failed star' the size of Jupiter is 2,000 degrees hotter than the sun

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Joel Kontinen

This Jupiter-size object is 80 times hotter than the sun

Our solar system is really special, compared to other systems. Take for instance the exoplanet that will give not life to the little green men.

“Some stars get hot, hotter than the sun. A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers describe how the system could help further our understanding of worlds beyond our solar system.

A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers describe how the system could help further our understanding of worlds beyond our solar system.”

 Source:

Joanna Thompson 2023 Bizarre 'failed star' the size of Jupiter is 2,000 degrees hotter than the sun | Live Science August 18

 

Evolution has made humans both humans Machiavellian and born socialists

 

Image courtesy of David Oliete

Joel Kontinen

Humanity’s innate treachery is behind social ills ranging from inequality to abuse of power. Lessons fit from our ancestors can help defeat the enemy within

Darwinian evolution has made humans Machiawellian and born socialists, this is what New Scientist says, but it is not true, we know that evolution does not happen. It is just  a fairy tale.  I think that this has not do with the present woke ideology,

“Nearly 2 million years ago, one of our hominin ancestors developed bone cancer in their foot. The fate of this individual is unknown, but their fossilised remains leave no doubt that cancer has been a part of our story for a very long time. It is also clear that, when threatened by our own normally cooperative cells turning against us, we evolved an immune system to help us identify and deal with the enemy within.”

The dates given are not accurate, humans  had cancer but so early.

“But treacherous cancer cells weren’t the only internal threat our ancestors faced. As hypersocial beings, their survival was also jeopardised by selfish individuals attempting to subvert the group – and capable of unravelling society, just as a cancer eventually kills its host. I am interested in understanding how we adapted to this threat. At the heart of the story is this question: is human nature selfish or altruistic, competitive or cooperative? Are we essentially cancers, tamed by culture, or more like healthy cells in the human body, working together for mutual success?”

Source: 

Jonathan R. Goodman 2025 Evolution has made humans both Machiavellian and born socialists | New Scientist 9 July

 

Ash-winged dawn goddess' is oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America

 

Image courtesy of Brian Engh

Joel Kontinen

We taught that Pterosaur were large, but now it seems that some weren’t so big. They have found a Pterosaurs that is small enough to sit on my shoulder. Yes, God created some animals large  and some small.  

A cache of Triassic fossils in Arizona has revealed Eotephradactylus mcintireae, or "ash-winged dawn goddess," the oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America.

Eotephradactylus mcintireae lived alongside fellow evolutionary newcomers, including turtles, as well as more ancient animal lineages, such as giant amphibians and armored crocodile relatives. 

Researchers have unearthed the oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America and named it the "ash-winged dawn goddess."

The 209 million-year-old pterosaur was among a cache of more than 1,000 Triassic fossils extracted from rocks in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Eotephradactylus mcintireae is partly named after volcanic ash found in the fossil bed and Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, because it evolved near the beginning, or dawn, of pterosaurs' evolutionary history.

Pterosaurs, informally called "pterodactyls," were flying reptiles that dominated the skies during the age of dinosaurs. The group produced many giants, some with wingspans stretching to around 36 feet (11 meters), but E. mcintireae and the other early members were tiny by comparison.

Eotephradactylus mcintireae lived alongside fellow evolutionary newcomers, including turtles, as well as more ancient animal lineages, such as giant amphibians and armored crocodile relatives. (Image credit: Illustration by Brian Engh.)

Kligman began working on the fossils in 2018, after the jaw had been discovered, and said he doubted the fossil was a pterosaur at first — at the time, researchers had only found one early pterosaur in North America, and none had ever been found in sediment deposited in a river.

"When I finally examined the jaw my doubts were put to rest — the distinctive teeth and jaw anatomy was unmistakably from a pterosaur," Kligman said. "I was most surprised by the fact that a delicate, tiny jaw like this one had not been destroyed by the movement of river gravel prior to it being fossilized, suggesting that the bonebed was preserving a unique fossilization setting."

The bonebed revealed a community of evolutionary newcomers, such as pterosaurs and turtles, sharing the landscape with each other and more ancient animals, such as giant amphibians, before the latter went extinct at the end of the Triassic.

"The presence of the pterosaur Eotephradactylus living and interacting in a community alongside groups like frogs, lizard relatives, and turtles is the first occurrence of this community type in the fossil record — these groups are commonly found living together in post-Triassic communities from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, however they had never been found together preceding the end-Triassic extinction event 201 million years ago," Kligman said.

Source: 

Patrick Pester 2025 'Ash-winged dawn goddess' is oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America — and it was small enough to sit 'on your sh8oulder' | Live Science  July 

 

You’ve been sold a giant myth when it comes to improving your health

 

Image courtesy of Becki Gill

Joel Kontinen

Could we make people live longer as they do now, without suffering from illnesses? Answer my friend, is not blowing in the wind, it seems to be yes.

“Diet and exercise will only get you so far, but there is a magic bullet that could make us all live longer, says professor of global public health Devi Sridhar.

According to Devi Sridhar, we have our health priorities all wrong. In fact, we’ve been sold a giant myth. We are unhealthily obsessed with what we can do personally – diet, exercise and the rest – and largely ignore the most important determinant of our health. This magic bullet: government.

Public health measures like universal healthcare, drinkable water, clean air and safe roads have a much bigger impact on our chances of making it to 100 than any number of gym sessions or kale smoothies. Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, UK, has a new book out called How Not to Die (Too Soon), which makes a robust case that public health, not just individual striving, is not key to living a long and healthy life. “

Source:

Graham Lawton  2025 You’ve been sold a giant myth when it comes to improving your health | New Scientist 2 July

 

Astronomers spot potential 'interstellar visitor' shooting through the solar system toward Earth

 

Image credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey

Joel Kontinen 

An intruder from the reaches of time has appeared on Earth. Scientist said that the intruder comes from outside the solar system. This would be the third such incident, but it may not be inhabited:

“A newly discovered object, dubbed A11pl3Z, appears to be moving too fast and straight to have originated in the solar system. If confirmed, it will be the third interstellar visitor ever spotted

A11pl3Z is most likely a large asteroid, or maybe a comet, potentially spanning up to 12 miles (20 kilometres). It is traveling toward the inner solar system at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h) and is approaching us from the part of the night sky where the bar of the Milky Way is located.”

The earlier incident features Comet 2I/Borisov, which was system and Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017.

Source:

Harry Baker 2025 Astronomers spot potential 'interstellar visitor' A11pl3Z shooting through the solar system toward Earth | Live Science July 3

 

James Webb telescope discovers frozen water around a distant, sunlike star

 

Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Joel Kontinen

Could there be water around a distant star? This is what scientist have found out recently.  This brings to live the saying that where there is water, there might be live.

But if all planets had water or ice, it was the way God created the universe.

“The new discovery centres on a star called HD 181327, located about 155 light-years away, in the constellation Telescopium. At just 23 million years old, HD 181327 is a cosmic infant compared with our 4.6 billion-year-old sun, and it's encircled by a broad, dusty debris disk that is rich in small, early building blocks of planets.”

The millions of years in this study are fake, as God did not take so long to form the universe.

Source:

Sharmila Kuthunur 2025 Milestone discovery: James Webb telescope discovers frozen water around a distant, sunlike star | Live Science May 24

Some evolutionists think they know what the face of a Denisovan looked like

 

Image courtesy of Hebei GEO University

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionists think that they have figured out how the Denisovans looked like. However, the book of Genesis says that we are all children of one mother, and she was not a Denisovan.

This is what New Scientist writes:

The Denisovans, a mysterious group of ancient humans originally identified purely from DNA, finally have a face.

Using molecular evidence, Qiaomei Fu at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and her colleagues have confirmed what many researchers suspected: that a skull from China known as “dragon man” belonged to a Denisovan.

This fits with other evidence suggesting that the Denisovans were large and stocky. “I think we’re looking at individuals that are all [around] 100 kilos [of] lean body mass: enormous, enormous individuals,” says Bence Viola at the University of Toronto in Canada, who was not involved in the study.

Source:

Michael Marshall 2025 We finally know what the face of a Denisovan looked like | New Scientist 18 June 

Small and speedy dinosaur recognised as a new species

 

Image courtesy of © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionists believe that the dinosaurs are divided into too many clans but now it seem that they have overrated it and that there are not so much different dinosaurs at all.

Enigmacursor darted around North America in the Late Jurassic 145-150 million years ago and its skeleton now be on display in London’s Natural History Museum

A newly discovered species of dinosaur is going on display in London’s Natural History Museum.

Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae was a speedy, two-legged herbivore, 64 centimetres tall and 180 cm long that lived about 145 million to 150 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic Period.

Its reconstructed skeleton will be on display in the museum’s Earth Hall from 26 June, alongside its contemporary, Sophie the Stegosaurus.

Susannah Maidment and Paul Barrett, both palaeontologists at the Natural History Museum, have analysed the Enigmacursor specimen, which was uncovered from the Morrison Formation in the western US in 2021-22.

Back then, it was thought to be a Nanosaurus – a poorly known species of small herbivorous dinosaur. The Enigmacursor fossil isn’t complete, but using the few teeth – which reveal it ate plants – and portions of the neck, backbone, tail, pelvis, limbs and feet, Maidment and Barrett have defined this fossil as a new species, placed it in an evolutionary tree and reconstructed it for display.

They have based the structure of missing elements, like the skull, on similar small dinosaurs like Yandusaurus and Hexinlusaurus. Generally, we know little about smaller dinosaurs, both because they are less likely to fossilise than bigger animals and because fossil hunters tend to seek larger, more valuable examples.

“This is a two-legged dinosaur and it’s got very small forearms that it probably would have used to grasp food to bring it to its mouth,” says Maidment. “And it’s got incredibly large feet and very long limbs. So, it was probably quite fast by dinosaur standards.”

That is where the “cursor” part of its name comes from: it means “runner”. Maidment says it was probably charging around in the shadows of behemoths like Diplodocus and Stegosaurus.

The specimen’s vertebrae weren’t fused, which implies it wasn’t fully mature when it died. “I think this animal was probably a teenager, but it may well have been sexually mature, so it might not have got that much bigger,” says Maidment.

“Enigmacursor represents one of the rarities from further down the food chain of the dinosaur era,” says David Norman at the University of Cambridge. “This newly described animal was clearly a small, wallaby-sized herbivore that scampered around the Late Jurassic countryside.”

The discovery sheds light on the early evolutionary stages of the herbivorous dinosaurs that would go on to dominate Cretaceous ecosystems in North America, says Maidment, and helps us build a more realistic ecological picture of the life and times of dinosaurs.

Source:

Chris Simms 2025 Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae: Small and speedy dinosaur recognised as a new species | New Scientist 25 June 

Stellar flares may hamper search for life in promising star system

 

Image courtesy of Mark Garlick/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Some planets are formed that they have life. But only exoplanets tend not to have it. The latest case is the Trappist 1 saga which probably has none.

Astronomers have been trying to detect atmospheres on planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, but bursts of radiation from the star make this challenging.

The search for atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 star system, one of the most promising locations for life elsewhere in the galaxy, might be even more difficult than astronomers first thought because of short-lived radiation blasts from the star.

TRAPPIST-1, first discovered in 2016, is a small red dwarf star about 40 light years from Earth with at least seven planets orbiting it. It is a prime target for astronomers hoping to detect extraterrestrial life because several of its planets appear to sit in a habitable zone where temperatures are just right for liquid water.

Source: 

Alex Wilkins 2025 Stellar flares may hamper search for life in promising star system | New Scientist 23 June

Enigmatic lizards somehow survived near Chicxulub asteroid impact

 

A yellow-spotted tropical night lizard (Lepidophyma flavimaculatum)

Image courtesy of Dante Fenolio/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

Lizards are not dinosaurs. but somehow the dinosaur eating catastrophe that happened some 66 million years old did not affect these lizards. They may have been present some 66 million years ago.

The night lizards may have been the only terrestrial vertebrates that survived in the region of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs

A small, secretive group of lizards that still exists today may have been the only terrestrial vertebrates that survived in the vicinity of the Chicxulub asteroid collision, which led to the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs.

It has long been known that xantusiid night lizards are an ancient lineage that have persisted for tens of millions of years. But Chase Brownstein at Yale University and his colleagues suspected that the group may have actually arisen earlier than previously thought: in the Cretaceous Period, which ended around 66 million years ago.

The end of the Cretaceous was marked by a giant asteroid strike in the vicinity of Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, which left a crater over 150 kilometres wide and caused the extinction of most of the animal and plant species across the world.

Brownstein and his team used previously published DNA sequence data for xantusiids to create an evolutionary tree for the group. They combined this with skeletal anatomy across living and fossil night lizards, allowing the team to determine how old their lineages are and estimate how many offspring the ancestral night lizards would have produced.

They found that the most recent common ancestor of living xantusiids emerged deep within the Cretaceous, over 93 million years ago, and they probably only had clutches of one or two offspring.

“I think it is very possible that these ancient populations were as close or closer to the impact site than those today,” says Brownstein. “It’s almost as if xantusiid distribution sketches a circle around the impact site.”

Based on fossil evidence, it is unlikely that the ancient night lizards simply recolonised the region later on, says Brownstein.

“We know from our reconstructions that the common ancestor of living species was almost certainly living in North America, where the fossil record of xantusiids is pretty much fairly continuous on either side of the boundary layer marking the impact,” he says.

Many night lizard species live in rock crevices and their slow metabolisms are comparable to those of other survivors of the mass extinction, such as turtles and crocodiles. “This, perhaps, would have allowed them to take shelter during the impact and its immediate aftermath,” says Brownstein.

Nathan Lo at the University of Sydney says the lizards are remarkable. “They lived in the region around the asteroid’s point of impact, [yet] they managed to survive, even though the asteroid would have wiped out organisms that were within hundreds of kilometres of the impact point.”

They managed this despite not having many of the usual traits that we would expect to see in survivors of mass extinctions. “The species that tend to survive through these extinction events are those that are small in size, reproduce quickly and that have large geographic ranges,” says Lo. “But these lizards generally reproduce slowly and seem to have quite small ranges.”

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James Woodford 2025 Enigmatic lizards somehow survived near Chicxulub asteroid impact | New Scientist 25 June