Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos since 2007, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Every body likes dinosaurs, right?
There’s quite a bit of new stuff on Phys.org in paleontology.
Investigating Dinosaur Behavior
How do scientists study the behavior of dinosaurs, who died 65 million years ago? After all, dinosaur fossils are rare enough as it is, and most are fragments and difficult to work with.
This is something that paleontologists have been working on since the earliest days of research on these incredible animals. Until recently, this was often only in vague terms of, for example, which animals were herbivores or carnivores.
But new opportunities are becoming available to us. Paleontologists have recently pieced together the colors and patterns of some feathered dinosaurs, using electron microscopes to see tiny preserved structures that used to contain the pigments of the animals in life. This is something that scientists used to think was probably impossible.
But right now it can only tell us so much—it just tells us the color of the individual animal at the time of its death.
Carnivorous Dinosaurs Roamed 120 Million Years Ago in Australia
Between 122 and 108 million years ago, the Australian landmass was much farther south than today. Victoria was positioned within the Antarctic Circle, separated from Tasmania by a vast rift valley rather than open sea.
This was the Early Cretaceous, and lush forests filled with dinosaurs dominated the landscape. We still find traces of these animals in Victoria's fossil record.
Most of the dinosaur fossils found in Victoria belong to small plant-eaters called ornithopods. But there are also a few theropod fossils—a diverse group that includes all known carnivorous dinosaurs, as well as modern birds.
More than 250 theropod bones have been found in the Victorian Cretaceous. In the paleontology collections of Museums Victoria, we have now identified five theropod fossils of particular importance. Our work on these bones has been published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
End Cretaceous Era Sauropod From Romania
The end of the Cretaceous Period, 66 million years ago, marked the dramatic extinction of the dinosaurs. Until now, our understanding of this mass extinction has been largely shaped by fossils from North America. However, a recent study led by Verónica Díez Díaz from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, identifying two new dinosaur species from Romania, highlights the crucial role of European fossil discoveries in providing a more comprehensive picture of this extinction episode.
The researchers report on two new sauropod species, Petrustitan hungaricus and Uriash kadici, found in the fossil-rich Hațeg Basin in western Romania. Their findings, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, reveal that the diversity of these long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs in Europe during the Late Cretaceous was far greater than previously thought.
Fifteen years ago, only five sauropod species were known from this time period. As of now, at least 11 have been identified—a stark contrast to North America, where only one sauropod species from the same epoch has been documented.
New Australian Dinosaurs, And Oldest Megaraptorids
Research published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology has unveiled a landmark discovery—fossils of the world's oldest known megaraptorid and the first evidence of carcharodontosaurs in Australia. These finds rewrite the evolutionary history of theropod dinosaurs, uncovering a predator hierarchy unique to Cretaceous Australia.
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These fossils offer new insights into Victoria's ancient ecosystem, which was dominated by large powerful megaraptorids (6–7 meters long) alongside smaller carcharodontosaurs (2–4 meters long) and agile, meter-long unenlagiines, or "southern raptors."
"The discovery of carcharodontosaurs in Australia is groundbreaking," says Kotevski. "It's fascinating to see how Victoria's predator hierarchy diverged from South America, where carcharodontosaurs reached Tyrannosaurus rex-like sizes up to 13 meters, towering over megaraptorids. Here, the roles were reversed, highlighting the uniqueness of Australia's Cretaceous ecosystem."
New Ornithimimidae Genus Found in Mexico
A team of geologists, paleontologists, and climate scientists with members from institutions in Mexico, the U.S., and Spain has identified a new genus and species within the Ornithomimidae family. In their paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research, the group describes their study of the ancient ostrich-like dinosaur, and where it fits in with its family tree.
Ornithomimidae is a family of theropod dinosaurs, all of which bore some resemblance to the modern ostrich. Prior research has suggested that most were fast runners, were either herbivorous or omnivores, and existed during the Late Cretaceous Period of Laurasia, though some have reportedly been identified as being from the Lower Cretaceous Wonthaggi Formation of Australia. The researchers note that most members of the family also had small heads and long necks, forelimbs, and hindlimbs.
In 2014, a team of archaeologists and paleontologists were working at a dig site in Coahuila when they discovered the fossilized remains of a dinosaur that they were not able to identify. The remains were sent to Benemérita Escuela Normal de Coahuila, where they remained until the group on this new effort began a fresh examination.
Getting Closer to Bird Origins in China
A research team led by Professor Wang Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered two bird fossils in Jurassic-era rocks from Fujian Province in southeast China.
These rocks date back approximately 149 million years. The fossils fill a spatiotemporal gap in the early evolutionary history of birds and provide the best evidence yet that birds were diversified by the end of the Jurassic period.
This study is published in Nature.
Birds are the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates. Certain macroevolutionary studies suggest that their earliest diversification dates back to the Jurassic period (approximately 145 million years ago). However, the earliest evolutionary history of birds has long been obscured by a highly fragmentary fossil record, with Archaeopteryx being the only widely accepted Jurassic bird.
Still Seeking The Origins of Feathers
Birds are inextricably linked to feathers, which allow them to fly, keep warm and put on dramatic displays. Feathers, however, predate birds—having first belonged to extinct dinosaurs. Finding out exactly when feathers evolved, and which animals had them, could offer important new insights into the distant past.
In the 1990s, the first fossilized feathers were found in extinct dinosaurs. But, almost 30 years later, many questions remain about these distinctive features.
Did all dinosaurs inherit feathers from a common ancestor, or did feathers evolve multiple times in the group? Are they exclusive to birds and their closest relatives, or are they more widespread across the reptile family tree? At the moment, the jury's still out.
Dinosaur Extinctions Opened The Way For Fruit-eating Primates
The extinction of the largest dinosaurs to walk the Earth may have played a critical role in creating an environment that helped fruits evolve, thereby indirectly shaping the evolution of our own fruit-eating ancestors, according to new research.
Researchers led by Northern Arizona University ecoinformatics professor Christopher Doughty found evidence for a long-considered theory about the critical role of dinosaur extinctions in the evolution of fruit.
Sauropods, the largest terrestrial animals to have walked on Earth, were ecosystems engineers, profoundly changing their environments by knocking down trees and eating high volumes of vegetation. Following the extinction of dinosaurs, the forests grew back thicker, blocking the sun from reaching the ground layer, which, many generations later, led to the growth of large seeds and fruit. In time, these fruits became a primary food source for many animal species, including our primate ancestors.
30 Million Year Old Top Predator uncovered in Egypt
A rare discovery of a nearly complete skull in the Egyptian desert has led scientists to the "dream" revelation of a new 30-million-year-old species of the ancient apex predatory carnivore, Hyaenodonta.
Bearing sharp teeth and powerful jaw muscles, suggesting a strong bite, the newly-identified "Bastetodon" was a leopard-sized "fearsome" mammal. It would have been at the top of all carnivores and the food chain when our own monkey-like ancestors were evolving.
Findings, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, detail how this ferocious creature would have likely preyed on primates, early hippos, early elephants, and hyraxes in the lush forest of Fayum, Egypt, which is now home to a desert.
Ok, it lived after the dinosaurs died out, but 30 million years old is still an ancient fossil. ;-)
A little closer to home. And in time.
Underwater Fossil Bed in Florida
About half a million years ago, several horses, sloths and armadillos fell into a sinkhole in Florida's Big Bend region and died. The sinkhole filled in with sediment over time, preserving the animals where they lay until fossil collectors Robert Sinibaldi and Joseph Branin discovered them in 2022. The pair had been diving for years near Sinibaldi's property on the Steinhatchee River. Combing the riverbed for fossils isn't easy; the water is full of tannins, which significantly reduces visibility. "It's like diving in coffee," Sinibaldi said.
They were on their usual fossil hunting trip in June of 2022 and weren't having much luck. They were preparing to move on when Branin looked down and happened to see horse teeth. As they continued looking, they uncovered a hoof core, and then a tapir skull.
Their good feeling swelled to disbelief as the finds continue to rack up—many in pristine condition. "It wasn't just quantity, it was quality," Sinibaldi said. "We knew we had an important site, but we didn't know how important."
The Inner Ear Helps With Neandertal Origins
New research on the inner ear morphology of Neanderthals and their ancestors challenges the widely accepted theory that Neanderthals originated after an evolutionary event that implied the loss of part of their genetic diversity. The findings, based on fossil samples from Atapuerca (Spain) and Krapina (Croatia), as well as from various European and Western Asian sites have been published in Nature Communications.
Neanderthals emerged about 250,000 years ago from European populations—referred to as "pre-Neanderthals"—that inhabited the Eurasian continent between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago. It was long believed that no significant changes occurred throughout the evolution of Neanderthals, yet recent paleogenetic research based on DNA samples extracted from fossils revealed the existence of a drastic genetic diversity loss event between early Neanderthals (or ancient Neanderthals) and later ones (also referred to as "classic" Neanderthals).
Technically known as a "bottleneck," this genetic loss is frequently the consequence of a reduction in the number of individuals in a population. Paleogenetic data indicate that the decline in genetic variation took place approximately 110,000 years ago.
And Lucy will be touring for the first time in Europe
The bone fragments of Lucy, a 3.18 million year-old human ancestor which rarely leave Ethiopia, will go on display in Europe for the first time in Prague this year, the Czech premier said Tuesday.
The ancient remains of the Australopithecus afarensis were discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. The find was, at the time, the most complete ever found, and revolutionized the understanding of humanity's ancestors.
"Lucy's skeletal remains will be displayed in Europe for the first time ever," Prime Minister Petr Fiala told reporters as he announced the rare loan by Ethiopia's National Museum. The fragments will be shown at Prague's National Museum as part of a "Human Origins and Fossils" exhibition for two months from August 25.
Ukraine Coverage & links
Russian Stuff Blowing Up
Ukraine has recaptured the village of Kotlyne southwest of Pokrovsk. There are no details yet -- that I have seen — about how this was accomplished.
Zelenskyy's Mineral Deal
I’ve never been so excited to see so little out of an agreement. The Kyiv Independent has the full text here and this is one of those times it’s really important to see what it actually says versus what is reported about it. It’s not that long so I encourage you to go read it. But when you’re back, let’s get into it starting with the money quote:
The Government of Ukraine will contribute to the Fund 50 percent of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government), defined as deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets (such as liquified natural gas terminals and port infrastructure) as agreed by both Participants, as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. For the avoidance of doubt, such future sources of revenues do not include the current sources of revenues which are already part of the general budget revenues of Ukraine. Timeline, scope and sustainability of contributions will be further defined in the Fund Agreement.
Did you focus on the “50 percent of all revenues” or did you catch the important part?
Day 1,100: Ukraine Invasion
A Finnish investigation uncovers an extensive Dubai-based network managing Russian shadow fleet oil and LNG tankers. A single UAE firm owns 24 sanctioned ships.
Russian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of on January 12 to 13.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 110 Shahed and other strike and decoy drones from Millerovo, Rostov Oblast; Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai; and Oryol and Bryansk oblasts.[64] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian forces downed 78 drones over Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Donetsk oblasts; that 31 decoy drones were ”lost,” likely due to Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) interference; and that debris from downed drones damaged enterprises, homes, and state buildings in Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Zaporizhia oblasts. Ukrainian officials reported that debris from downed Russian drones also damaged a children’s health center in Sumy City, a critical infrastructure facility in Putyvlskyi Hromada, Sumy Oblast, and a medical facility in Kyiv Oblast.[65]
www.understandingwar.org/…
MSN with non-paywalled links.
Hope everyone has a great evening. :-)
