Scientists have been using ancient DNA to investigate questions about extinct animals since 1984, when researchers recovered two pieces of DNA from a museum specimen of a quagga, a zebra-like species that went extinct in the 19th century. Over the past 40 years, advancements in technology have allowed scientists to sequence older and older DNA … Read more
By disrupting a key gene, scientists made chicken feathers more dinosaur-like — but the results didn’t last. In a new study, researchers inhibited a gene during embryonic development to make chicken feathers more primitive, like the kind of simple tube-shaped proto-feathers that likely first emerged in the ancestors of dinosaurs in the Early Triassic 250 … Read more
The space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was a rare strike from an asteroid beyond Jupiter, a new study details. The finding pins down the nature of the fateful space rock and its origin within our solar system, and may benefit technology that forecasts asteroid strikes on our planet. Most … Read more
