A new fossil discovery was made in Tanzania of a dinosaur-like creature that lived about 10 million years before the first dinosaur. Characteristics of this animal suggest that the first dinosaur might have lived earlier than previously believed.
The Petra Cullinan Heritage diamond sold at auction for $35.3 million, which is the top price paid for an uncut stone to date. The 507-carat gem will be analyzed extensively – perhaps for months! – before a cut is chosen.
Heavy rains caused numerous landslides near the border between Kenya and Uganda. Flooding has ruined roads, bridges, schools and thousands of buildings.
Scientists have been able to successfully modify Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to produce flightless female offspring. This research could be useful for stopping the spread of dengue fever, the West Nile virus, and malaria, without the use of pesticides.
DNA testing and CT scans have been performed on 16 mummies, and have shown that King Tutankhamun had some physical ailments due to genes from his sibling parents. The tests have also confirmed some of the family lineage.
This is a photo slideshow featuring some of the planet’s endangered primates. See pictures of a Siau Island tarsier; the silky sifaka, greater bamboo lemur, gray-headed lemur, northern sportive lemur, and Sclater’s lemurs from Madagascar; a cottontop tamarin from Colombia; a Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey; a western hoolock gibbon; the pig-tailed langur of Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands; and a pair of variegated spider monkeys.
There has long been speculation that King Tut was murdered. However, new evidence suggests that malaria and a leg injury are more probable causes of his death.
Around 600 feline sculptures were discovered in an underground Egyptian temple, located beneath the city of Alexandria. The temple was built to honor Bastet, the cat goddess, in the third century B.C.
After Mount Nyamulagira erupted on January 2, 2010, people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been concerned that the neighboring Nyiragongo volcano might erupt as well. Satellites have been monitoring the volcanoes, and have provided valuable information about lava flows, ground deformation and activity levels.
Madagascar separated from the African mainland about 120 MYA, yet some of the island’s mammal species have only been residing there for 60 million years or less. How can this be? One theory is that they were taken across the Mozambique Channel with storm debris.
In the Namib Sand Sea, the Tsauchab River Valley cuts across the desert and terminates in a collection of mud holes at Sossus Vlei, a dry lake bed just 55 km from the Atlantic. In this photograph from the ISS Expedition 22 crew, high, red star dunes are seen edging the Tsauchab River bed.
After weeks of rain, the Morogoro and Dodoma regions of Tanzania are inundated, with thousands of homes underwater. Millions of dollars of damage has already been done to buildings, roads, and railroads, but the rainy season, which lasts through May, has only begun.
An annular solar eclipse was visible over Asia and Africa on January 15, 2010. National Geographic has compiled some nice photos of the eclipse, taken from Jiangsu Province, China; Bangkok, Thailand; Fujian Province, China; Rameswaram, India; Poseidon’s temple in Cape Sounion, Greece; and a map of the eclipse’s path from the Central African Republic to China.
An article in a recent issue of Explore, the newsletter of The Association of Applied Geochemists, explains the role of geochemistry in locating diamond-bearing kimberlite deposits in Botswana.
One of the most significant fossil discoveries of the year was Ardipithecus ramidus, or the “Ardi” skeleton. In this article, two paleontologists talk about the discovery, fieldwork, and their careers.
A Middle Stone Age food cache has been preserved in the Ngalue cave of Mozambique. Some kitchen tools found there are the earliest evidence of humans including grain in their diet.
This photo shows the Ounianga Lakes, a collection of freshwater lakes in the Sahara Desert. Once a sizeable lake thousands of years ago, the Ounianga has shrunken over time and become sectioned off by sand dunes.
“In 2005, a 35-mile-long rift broke open in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial. Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans.” From the University of Rochester press release.
The world’s largest meteorite was discovered by a Namibian farmer plowing his field in 1920. It is known as the “Hoba” meteorite and weighs about 66 tons.
Most ants find their way around by following a “scent trail”. However, ants in some parts of the Sahara Desert may be able to count. Video by Odd Todd.
For the past 10 years, satellite images have been used to study active magma systems in the East African Rift. Activity has been recorded at 4 Kenyan volcanoes: Paka, Longonot, Menengai, and Suswa.
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