news 2024

Modern humans, Neanderthals, and other recent relatives on our human family tree evolved bigger brains much more rapidly than earlier species, a new study of human brain evolution has found. The study, published in the journal PNAS , overturns long-standing ideas about human brain evolution. The researchers found that brain size increased gradually within each ancient human species rather than through sudden leaps between species.

Writing in The Conversation, Research Fellow Dr Sandra Álvarez-Carretero (UCL Biosciences) explains how her research offers new insights into the origin of life on Earth. Understanding how life began and evolved on Earth is a question that has fascinated humans for a long time, and modern scientists have  made great advances  when it comes to finding some answers.

The discovery, published in Nature, opens a new window on early animal evolution. At first glance, the simple, spikey sea sponge is no creature of mystery. No brain. No gut. No problem dating them back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, leaving a 160-million-year gap in the fossil record.

The ability to regulate body temperature, a trait all mammals and birds have today, may have evolved among some dinosaurs early in the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago, suggests a new study led by UCL and University of Vigo researchers. In the early 20 century, dinosaurs were considered slow-moving, "cold-blooded" animals like modern-day reptiles, relying on heat from the sun to regulate their temperature.

Scientists have discovered remnants of the Earth's oldest fossil forest on the north coast of Devon and Somerset in the UK. The trees, which are around 390 million years old, are thought to have grown as part of an extensive forest covering the east coast of the Old Red Sandstone continent - part of Europe at that time.

Restudy of fossils collected in New Mexico digs up key clues about T. rex's origins in North America. Published on Thursday 11 January 2024 Last updated on Thursday 11 January 2024 A new study published in Scientific Reports reshapes our understanding of how the most famous dinosaur to ever walk the earth - Tyrannosaurus rex - first arrived in North America by introducing its earliest known relative on the continent.

Nanotyrannus was a smaller, longer-armed relative of T. rex, with a narrower snout. Published on Wednesday 3 January 2024 Last updated on Wednesday 3 January 2024 A new analysis of fossils believed to be juveniles of T. rex now shows they were adults of a small tyrannosaur, with narrower jaws, longer legs, and bigger arms than T. rex .