A wave of new research is forcing paleontologists to reconsider a basic question about life on Earth: when did the first mass ...

Ancient rocks in Sweden are acting like a “rock clock,” helping scientists finally pin down when major Cambrian climate ...

How can we measure time more than 500 million years into the past? A study recently published in Nature Communications by ...

Just over half a billion years ago, Earth was rocked by a global mass extinction event, a dramatic interruption of the Cambrian explosion of life on Earth. What happened next, in the direct aftermath ...

New research provides the clearest evidence yet that the Cambrian explosion—a rapid burst of evolution 540 million years ago, could have been triggered by only a small increase in oxygen levels in ...

Russell has a PhD in the history of medicine, violence, and colonialism. His research has explored topics including ethics, science governance, and medical involvement in violent contexts. Russell has ...

Let’s go back 541 million years. Earth was about to throw the most spectacular evolutionary party in history. For billions of years, life had been playing it safe with single-celled minimalism. Then ...

The Cambrian explosion was an extraordinary phenomenon in the evolution of life on the planet that led to the emergence of many animal phyla and the diversification of species. During this period, ...

Now imagine opening it and finding that more than a billion years of pages are missing. That mystery is called the Great ...