New York Times looks at the hidden cost of amber paleontology
This week, scientists announced a study of one of the most significant Cretaceous fossil discoveries within a chunk of amber from Myanmar, the tiny skull of ...
All posts tagged with paleonews
Dinosaur property war
Phillip Pantuso of the Guardian reports on the legal battle over the ownership of significant dinosaur fossils: “Perhaps the best dinosaur fossil ever discov...
A Denisovan news article
A nice article by Ewen Callaway has just come out in Nature looking at the current scientific scene regarding the mysterious Denisovans: “Siberia’s ancient g...
Dmanisi and dispersal of Homo from Africa
Discover last April ran a feature article about the finds from Dmanisi. They have made this available online: “The First Humans to Know Winter”. Dmanisi is i...
Link: Discover magazine on South African hominin sites
Discover magazine did its March, 2016 cover story on the recent hominin discoveries of South Africa, including Rising Star and Malapa, and other important fi...
Lee Berger named to Time 100
Lee Berger had been named one of the “Pioneers” in the Time 100 Most Influential People. It’s quite an accomplishment for any anthropologist to make such a l...
Link: Pääbo wins award
Some nice coverage of Svante Pääbo in the Washington Post on the occasion of him winning one of the 3-million dollar “Breakthrough Awards” last week: “3 scie...
Link: ‘Naledi farewell concert’ at Maropeng
The public exhibition of the Homo naledi fossils at Maropeng is going to close soon, and they are planning a “Naledi Farewell Concert” for next Sunday!
Link: The futility of science communication conferences
Rich Borschelt is the communication director for science at the Department of Energy, and recently attended a science communication workshop. He describes at...
Link: Extinction of other human species
Melissa Hogenboom of BBC Earth asks, “Why are we the only human species still alive?” The article features Jean-Jacques Hublin, John Shea and Nicholas Conard...
Lazaret frontal
Julien Riel-Salvatore points to news from Lazaret Cave, France: “170,000 year-old human skull fragment found at Lazaret”. There’s a new 170,000-year-old fron...
Field notes
The NY Times’ “Notes from the field” feature is following paleobotanist Bonnie Jacobs, working a fossil field locality in the Mush Valley of Ethiopia:
Drilling down career choices
Gretchen sends this link: “Seven rock-solid careers from the Stone Age. A little slide show with some recent anthro-stories, including:
Tim Time
Time magazine has named paleoanthropologist Tim White as one of its 2010 top 100 influential people. Sean B. Carroll provides a short profile of White’s rece...
Malapa news
A story about Malapa in the Times of South Africa gives just a few more details about the discovery of the infant remains near the two reported skeletons: “B...
Malapa embargo story
Ivan Oransky writes “Embargo Watch”, which reports on issues related to journal embargoes and science reporting. His story about the Malapa embargo “break” l...
Krapina Neandertal museum
Reuters correspondent Zoran Radosavljevic reports on the recent opening of the new museum at Krapina, Croatia. The museum is devoted to Neandertals, and repr...
Neandertal metrosexuals
By popular request from scads of readers:
Tetratracks
Matthew Cobb writes about the Devonian tetrapod trackway story, including:
Archaeology of bling
This is sort of sad: National Geographic News’ “Top Ten Archaeology” stories of 2009. The top four all involve buried treasure of some kind.
The year's big paleoanthropology stories
Last year, I complained that paleoanthropology had been exceptionally boring. One piece of evidence was the year-end retrospective in Discover about the top ...
Sterkfontein news
My Google alerts have been going off the last couple of days about Sterkfontein. I know nothing about any new discoveries, but the Times (South Africa) has r...
Headlines…
“Necklaces reveal early man’s intelligence”– Norman Hammond of the Times (UK) reports on possible Acheulean drilled fossil sponges.
New pre-Neandertal from Serbia
Reuters is reporting on a Middle Pleistocene find from Serbia:
Ancient Earth rocks may be on Moon
Simulations have shown that ejecta from ancient impacts on Earth may have landed safely on the Moon, allowing future astronauts to search for ancient traces ...
Evolution focus in Science Times
This week's NY Times Science section is devoted to evolution, with articles by:
Snapshots of the science
The new Human Origins hall at the American Museum is the occasion for a big Newsweek story, with the tagline, "The New Science of Human Evolution". Author S...
New carnivore found on Borneo
This news story in the Sydney Morning Herald describes it, and has a secret-nighttime-flash picture.
Leakey interview in Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is running an interview with Richard Leakey, noted paleoanthropologist and conservationist. The interview covers the Kenya elephant population, ...
Neanderthal animated movie in works
From HollywoodReporter.com:
Sasquatchiana
The AP reports on the Texas Bigfoot Conference:
News trickling about Liang Bua
I am seeing news reports this morning about this week's upcoming paper in Nature about the Homo floresiensis bones.
Tobias memoir published
Speaking of Phillip Tobias, The Sunday Independent is carrying a long interview of Tobias discussing his autobiography. Google says the site is subscription...
New Sterkfontein visitors' center opening
Several articles in the South African press have covered the opening of the new visitors' center at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. The one wit...
Diagnosing science reporting
The Guardian is running a great editorial about why (and how) science reporting is bad: OK, here's something weird. Every week in Bad Science we either v...
Frontiers of human origins
This month's Discover came in the mail today. In celebration of their 25th anniversary, their issue is devoted to "Frontiers of Science", with articles cove...
The Peking Man Skulls Searching Committee
AFP is reporting possible progress in the hunt for the missing Zhoukoudian bones (via Palanthsci):
New Dmanisi skull – the news catches up
The story of the new Dmanisi skull hit the American news today. Nothing new compared to my post of two weeks ago, based on reports in the Georgian press.
Carnival of the Future
The current "Carnival of the Future" is featuring this post from a few days ago, as a lead-off to the topic of future evolution in humans. Check it out for ...
The World Summit on Evolution
On the Scientific American website, there is a long article by Michael Shermer (editor of Skeptic magazine), describing his trip to the World Summit of Evol...
A new Tangled Bank
If you haven't seen it before, the Tangled Bank is a science carnival -- a compilation of weblog posts on science and medicine from some of the best online ...
Protsched!
The Guardian has this story on the ouster of Prof. Dr. Reiner Protsch von Zeiten from the University of Frankfort. In another opportunity for creationists t...