University of Leicester scientists have identified two extraordinary new fossils - tiny prehistoric flying reptiles, pterosaurs, with broken wings. Smashed from the sky 150 million years ago by tropical storms, these hatchlings were rapidly buried at the bottom of a lagoon in fine muds whipped up by the same storm that killed them. This pair of ‘tragedies’ solves an age-old mystery – why are small, young pterosaurs so beautifully preserved in the Solnhofen Limestones, while larger older individuals are known only from fragments. 

Tracking human behavioral patterns in cities can be used to determine urban delineations and urban land use, which has the potential to improve urban planning.

A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford, University of Leeds, and University College London has identified a new constraint on the chemistry of Earth’s core, by showing how it was able to crystallise millions of years ago. The study has been published today (Sept. 4) in Nature Communications.

Research led by University of Utah and Stanford analyzed thallium isotopes to show oxygen was slow to reach Earth’s ocean depths during the Paleozoic. O2 levels rose and fell at the ocean floor long after marine animals appeared and diversified half billion years ago, according to study of ancient marine sediments exposed by river cuts in Canada's Yukon.