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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod—long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land. The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods—an extremely rare find, scientists said.

The water-dwelling ancestors of modern-day mammals, reptiles and birds emerged onto land millions of years earlier than previously believed, researchers report. A set of fossilized footprints show that the first tetrapods — a term applied to any four-footed animal with a spine — were treading open ground 397 million years ago, well before scientists thought they existed. An expert unconnected with the research said the find would force experts to reconsider a critical period in evolution when sea-based vertebrates took their first steps toward becoming dinosaurs, mammals and — eventually — human beings. "It blows the whole story out of the water, so to speak," said Jenny...

The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by two scientists at Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins in the Dec. 28 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). From the smallest South American monkeys to the largest African apes, the timing of molar development and eruption is closely attuned to many fundamental aspects of a primate's biology, according to Gary Schwartz, a researcher at the Institute of Human Origins and an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in...

Millions of high school and college biology textbooks teach that research scientist Stanley Miller, in the 1950’s, showed how life could have arisen by chance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Miller, in his famous experiment in 1953, showed that individual amino acids (the building blocks of life) could come into existence by chance. But, it’s not enough just to have amino acids. The various amino acids that make-up life must link together in a precise sequence, just like the letters in a sentence, to form functioning protein molecules. If they’re not in the right sequence the protein molecules...

“Darwin’s finches” are a variety of small black birds that were observed and collected by British naturalist Charles Darwin during his famous voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle in the early 1800s. Years later, Darwin argued that subtle variations in their beak sizes supported his concept that all organisms share a common ancestor (a theory known as macroevolution). The finches, whose technical name is Geospiza, have since become classic evolutionary icons...