Sunday, 24 May 2026
Saturday, 23 May 2026
There's a new T. rex from the dinosaur age — and it ruled the seas with a skull-crushing bite
An artist's reconstruction of Tylosaurus rex swimming in the Cretaceous seas of North America. Image courtesy of Alderon Games/Path of Titans.
Joel Kontinen
There's a
new T. rex in town. However, this one didn't hunt on land. It ruled the
ancient seas.
Scientists
have described a new species of mosasaur, a member of a marine reptile group
that lived at the same time as dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). The newly named species fits into an already known
genus: Tylosaurus. But its new species name, Tylosaurus
rex — T. rex, for short — sets it apart from the other mosasaur
species in the group.
The species
name means "king of the tylosaurs," according to a new study
published May 21 in the journal Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural
History. According
to evolution, the fossils are about 80 million years old and were discovered
mostly in northern Texas decades ago.
The
mosasaur T. rex measured up to 13 meters) long, or about the length of a tour bus. It had finely serrated teeth,
unusually powerful jaws, and evidence on its fossils of violent combat with its
own species.
While
examining a fossil in the American Museum of Natural History's collection,
Zietlow noticed that a specimen labeled as Tylosaurus
proriger — a
well-known mosasaur species first described in 1869 — didn't quite match others
of its kind. The unusual fossil was discovered in 1979 near an artificial
reservoir outside Dallas.
After
comparing the specimen with the original name-bearing fossil of T.
proriger held at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, Zietlow and her
colleagues found that it belonged to a newfound species
Compared
with T. proriger, the newly described T. rex was 4 metres longer, had finely serrated teeth
(which T. proriger lacked) and lived several million years later.
Most T. proriger fossils were discovered in what is now Kansas and
are roughly 84 million years old, while the fossils now identified as T.
rex are mostly from Texas and date to about 80 million years ago. At that
time, the Western Interior Seaway stretched from the Gulf of Mexico up to the
Arctic and was home to many sea creatures, including mosasaurs.
But the dates
in the millions of years are inflated.
Source:
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry 2026
Thursday, 21 May 2026
The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away
Image courtesy of Chang W. Lee/New York Times/ Redux/eyevine
Joel Kontinen
The
floating ice shelf of world’s widest glacier – Thwaites glacier in Antarctica –
is detaching, with worrying implications for global sea-level rise.
Can global warming
spell doom for in Antarctica? Some say that the climate was established by God
at the end pf the global flood in Noah's time but others are more sceptical. They say that men can destroy
the planet.
Antarctica’s most threatened glacier is about be further destabilised, as the floating ice shelf in front of Thwaites glacier is set to break away.
“Its final
demise could happen suddenly, and to avoid being caught on the hop, we have
already prepared an ‘obituary’ press release,” says Rob Larter at
the British Antarctic Survey.
Dubbed the
“doomsday glacier”, Thwaites is about the size of Britain, but it is shrinking
rapidly and is already responsible for 4 per cent of all global sea-level rise. Worse still, its collapse is
expected to set off a domino effect in the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, ultimately
resulting in a calamitous sea-level rise of 3.3 metres and changing the
coastline of the entire planet.
Source:
Alison George 2026
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
Natural sunscreen found in fish eggs can be made by E. coli factories
Image courtesy of WILDLIFE GmbH / Alamy
Joel Kontinen
Intelligent design has provided zebrafish eggs to produce
a chemical that keeps the suns rays from
harming people. The chemical is known as gadusol.
A team led
by Ping Zhang at Jiangnan University, China,
inserted genes from zebrafish into the bacterium Escherichia coli to
give it the enzymes needed to synthesise gadusol. Then, by using small RNA
molecules to dial up gadusol production in the bacteria and tweaking their
growing conditions, they increased the yield by nearly 93 times, from 45.2
milligrams per litre of liquid growth medium to 4.2 grams per litre.
In
experiments, gadusol displayed antioxidant properties comparable to vitamin C,
suggesting it may help neutralise free radicals that cause damage in cells.
Gadusol is
transparent, unlike melanin, and yet is perfectly tuned to block out harmful UV
rays from the sun, which makes it ideal for organisms hiding from prey. “I
think we haven’t necessarily given it the praise that it deserves,” says James Gagnon at the University of Utah, who was part
of a team that discovered gadusol’s role as a sunscreen in fish embryos. “This
is a great molecule.”
Gadusol is
found in the eggs of zebrafish, salmon and sturgeon, as well as coral, where
it protects organisms from ultraviolet
damage. But
it’s only found in small quantities so extracting it from organisms for use as
a sunscreen is impractical
Gagnon says
further testing is needed, but the compound is likely to be safe for humans and
the environment because so many animals already use it. Thanks to its
transparency, it might also avoid the milky residue that some current
sunscreens leave on the skin.
“Everyone
wants to hint that this is going to be a great sunscreen for humans,” says
Gagnon.
Source:
Matthew Sparkes 2026 Natural sunscreen found in fish eggs can be made by E. coli factories | New Scientist 13 May
Friday, 15 May 2026
Asteroid to miss Earth by a quarter of the length from us to the moon
Image courtesy of buradaki/Shutterstock
Joel Kontinen
An asteroid that missed the Earth by some 90, 000 kilometers was very real, It was not the object
can was mentioned in the book of Revelation that was called bitterness as it caused
the seas to become bitter.
Asteroid 2026JH2 will zoom past Earth at a distance of only 90,000 kilometers next week.
It has enough mass to wipe out a city, but simulations suggest there is no
chance of an impact for at least the next century.
An asteroid
with the potential to ruin a city will pass Earth next week. 2026JH2, as it has been labelled by the astronomy
community, is predicted to zoom by our planet at an estimated distance of
90,917 kilometers – only a quarter of the distance between us and the moon.
“In
astronomical terms, it’s as close as you can get without hitting,” says Mark Norris at the University of Lancashire, UK.
Matthew Sparkes 2026
Wednesday, 13 May 2026
Ancient teeth hint at links between Denisovans and Homo erectus
Tooth found in Sunjiadong, China, thought to belong to Homo erectus. Image courtesy of Qiaomei Fu, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Joel Kontinen
Six teeth roughly 400,000 years old have yielded some of the first ancient proteins thought to belong to Homo erectus, providing molecular clues to their relationships with other hominins.
Some
evolutionists said that Denisovans and Homo erectus were relatives, as their
teeth are similar. Homo erectus is thought to be fully human, just as the Denisovans,
And the dates of the fossilized teeth are not correct. The date is described in
the book of Genesis.
For the
first time, researchers have obtained substantial amounts of preserved protein
from fossils believed to belong Homo erectus.
While
proteins have been recovered from H. erectus fossils before, this is
the first time they have revealed meaningful information about the species. The
proteins suggest that H. erectus interbred with another group of
hominins in Asia, the Denisovans.
Michael Marshall 2026 Ancient teeth hint at links between Denisovans and Homo erectus | New Scientist 13 May
Tuesday, 12 May 2026
A combination of amazement and horror: Hitchhiker fish hide in manta ray buttholes
Image courtesy of Bryant Turffs, Marine Megafauna Foundation
Joel Kontinen
Hitchhiking fish that are famous for suctioning themselves to other marine animals have a very unexpected hiding place: the rear ends of manta rays, a new study finds.
These fish,
known as remoras (family Echeneidae), frequently get free rides when they use
their suction discs — modified backs, or dorsal fins — to latch onto marine animals like sharks, whales and sea turtles. It has generally been thought that
remoras provide a cleaning service to the animal they are traveling with,
picking parasites off their skin.
It is an intelligent design element that keeps these marine
animals clean.
But this
new discovery shows that this relationship might not always be beneficial to
the manta rays.
The
suckerfish's behaviour is "pretty weird," study first author Emily Yeager, a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the University of Miami, said.
Source:
Bethany Augliere 2026 'A combination of amazement and horror': Hitchhiker fish hide in manta ray buttholes | Live Science 12 May