Category: Around the Web
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What Did Jurassic Forests Sound Like? Like This.
The New York Times has an interesting story about the sounds of Jurassic forests. Insect chirps, trills, and clicks make up a large part of the Earth’s modern soundscape. Recently, a group of researchers looked at fossilized insect wings from the Jurassic to determine the sounds they’d make 150 million years ago. The research paper…
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A Nearly 200-Year-Old Museum Known for Its T. Rex Faces Extinction
The New York Times has a piece about the plight of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The institution first opened its door in 1828… nearly 200 years ago. It is the oldest natural history museum in the US. Due to financial difficulties since the Covid-19 pandemic, it is being forced to close at the…
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PBS Eons: What Drove Life Into The Trees?
There’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the evolution of arboreal living. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. How and when did tetrapods move into the trees?…
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Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Only a few days left … Ends September 7th, 2026
Only a few days left!!!! Step inside the world of sauropods in “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.” Stand beneath a towering, life-sized 60-foot Mamenchisaurus and discover the amazing biology behind the largest animals to ever live.
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Would VELOCIRAPTOR make a good pet? | Cromo Paleo Show
The Cromo Paleo Show has an entertaining video on Youtube. Somehow, I don’t think a pet dinosaur will turn out well… Would Velociraptor make a good pet? 🦖 In this episode of the “Would It Make a Good Pet?” series, we dive deep into the REAL science behind owning one of the most famous dinosaurs…
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Paleontology rocked by organic molecules found in 66-million-year-old dinosaur bones
Science Daily has a story about another discovery of organic molecules in dinosaur bones. Since the early 2000’s, paleontologists have been finding organic material in dinosaur bones. The discoveries have been met with skepticism by paleontologists. Now a study in the journal Analytical Chemistry adds new evidence. Professor Steve Taylor, chair of the Mass Spectrometry…
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RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours…
RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours, yet researchers have now read it from a mammoth frozen in Siberian permafrost 39,000 years ago — and the transcripts caught his muscle tissue in the middle of a stress response
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PBS Eons: When Earth Was a Toxic Wasteland
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Permian Mass Extinction, the Earth’s worst mass extinction. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. For 3 million years, microbes ruled…
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Lost ‘mega-escarpment’ across ancient USA may explain Grand Canyon’s missing billion years
Phys.org has an interesting story about the Grand Canyon. The geologic record of the Grand Canyon spans about 2 billion years, but more than half of it is missing! This gap is known as the Great Unconformity. Now, a new study, published in the journal Geology, may have found evidence of what happened those missing…
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Field Faire: A Knight at the Museum
The Field Museum is holding another special Museum After Hours event. This one is Thursday, August 20th, 2026. Hear ye, seekers of wonder, scholars of the arts, and revelers of science and sorcery— For one enchanted evening, the hallowed halls of the Field Museum will transform into a realm of myth, merriment, and discovery for…
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Field Museum in the News! Paul Mayer on the Morgan Shoal
Paul Mayer, Fossil Invertebrate Collection Manager at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL was on “Chicago Live” recently. He was answering questions about the Silurian Rocks exposed in Lake Michigan at Morgan Shoal along the southern shoreline.
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Behold, The World’s Oldest Amber – a Record of a World 385 Million Years Ago
Science Alert has a story about the discovery of the oldest known amber. The amber dates to the Middle Devonian Period, some 385 mullion years ago and about 65 million years older than the previous record holder. Amber is fossilized tree resin, so land plants needed to evolve before amber was possible. This particular amber…
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Rock River Valley Gem and Mineral Society Rock Swap – Saturday, September 12th, 2026
Rock River Valley Gem and Mineral Society Rock Swap – Saturday September 12, 2026
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Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil site
The Conversation has an interesting post about an important fossil site in northeastern Italy. The Villaggio del Pescatore site dates to 80 million years ago, which was near the end of the Cretaceous Period. Fossil animals found in the locality were swept in to the area by monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, and…
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PBS Eons: How Pangea Upended Life on Earth
PBS Eons has released their TV series about Pangea! Check out Episode 2 on pbs.org. In the Late Carboniferous Period, predatory amphibians and giant arthropods ruled the swamps. But ancient seed plants and amniotes were evolving adaptations to drier climates. These will help them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period to come. This is…
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Field Museum – Legendary Late Hours – August 11th, 2026 – Riot Fest Takeover!
The Field Museum is holding a “Riot Fest Takeover” on August 11th, 2026 from 5-9 PM. Enjoy extended museum hours from 9am to 9pm, last entry at 8pm. The Field Museum and Riot Fest are partnering up for a righteous Museum takeover from 5pm-9pm on August 11th, complete with music and some seriously sick specimens,…
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PBS Eons: How the Tibetan Plateau Created the Ultimate Cat
PBS Eons has a new video. This one is about the evolution and migration of Homotherium, a large saber-tooted cat that lived on the Tibetan Plateau. How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful, and so different from basically all other cats, living and extinct? Well the answer may lie in a huge geological event:…
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Rare Pompeii Ceiling Is Restored From Fragments, Depicting Scene From Myth
The New York Times has an interesting article about the restoration of a fresco at Pompeii. The fresco was restored from hundreds of plaster fragments recovered from the ruins of a house. The house, now called the “House with the Bakery”, was discovered by researchers in 2023. The fragments of plaster were like a “magnificent”…
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PBS Eons: We Made a TV Show!
PBS Eons has some exciting news… they made a TV show. It’s a two episode show called “Live and Death on Pangea”. It becomes available on July 29th, 2026 at the PBS app, website, and other places (Youtube?). Hey Eons fans, after 8 seasons of exploring deep time we have some very important news to…
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Dinosaur-loving schoolboy opens natural history museum with astonishing fossil collection
The Guinness World Records website has a story about a natural history museum in Cambridge, IL. This museum in a small Illinois town is significant becase when it opened in August 2024, the curator and sole owner was just 9 years old! It all started in 2022 after a family trip to Scotland. “When I…
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Meteorite That Crashed Into New Jersey Home Contains Rare Ingredients of Life
Gizmodo has news of a meteorite that crashed into a Hillsborough, New Jersey home in July 2024. A recent paper in the journal Science Advances details research into both the makeup and the potential origin of the meteorite.
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NPR: Mystery bidder buys T. rex nicknamed ‘Gus’ for a record $50 million
NPR has a story about the recent auction of “Gus” the Tyrannosaurus rex at Sotheby’s in New York. The winning bid of 50.1 million represents the highest price ever paid for a dinosaur. “Gus” was found by the late Gary “Gus” Licking, a cattle rancher in Harding County, South Dakota. The same county that has…
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PBS Eons: We found the head of the biggest bug ever
PBS Eons has a new short. This one is about Arthropleura, the giant millipede… or is it?
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Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in Uruguay
SciNews has a post about a new species of titanosaur from Uruguay. Mesetasaurus protector lived between 86 and 72 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. The paper describing this species was published in the journal Ameghiniana. The new species was a member of a group of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs known as Aeolosaurini, a lineage that…
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The 250-million year rise and fall of the dinosaurs | Steve Brusatte
Big Think has a video with Steve Brusatte, an American paleontologist, a professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh, and author of a few pop-science books. Steve grew up in Ottawa, IL. He’s spoken to ESCONI in the past. In this video, Steve discusses the origin and the evolution of dinosaurs, mammals, and…
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Archaeologists in France Dig Up a Jar Packed With Tens of Thousands of 1,800-Year-Old Roman Coins
ZME Science has an interesting piece about the discovery of three large jugs containing roman coins. The jug was found during an archaeological dig in the town of Senon in northeastern France. There were more than 25,000 bronze and copper coins dating to the 3rd-century CE in the jugs.
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PBS Eons: The potato’s origin was a mystery…until now
PBS Eons has a new Youtube Short. This one is about the evolutionary origin of the potato.
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‘Gus’ the T. rex presented in New York ahead of auction
Phys.org has an article about “Gus” the Tyrannosaurus rex. “Gus” lived during the late Cretaceous Period, about 67 million years ago. The fossil is about 61% complete by bone count and 75-80% by bone mass. It was discovered in Harding County, South Dakota in 2021. “Gus” is named after the late rancher Gary “Gus” Licking,…
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Scientists Discover the First-Ever Molecules Preserved Inside a 113-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil
SciTechDaily has a story about an exceptionally preserved pterosaur wing from Brazil. The animal lived about 113 million years ago, during the middle Cretaceous Period, in what is now northeastern Brazil. Its wing phalanx, which refers to the individual bone segments which make up the finger skeleton supporting the wing, was preserved in 3 dimensions…
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Inside the making of the world’s most modern natural history museum
National Geographic has an interesting story about the making of the new Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. The museum opened in late 2025, with beautiful modern exhibits. This is the story of its making…
