BiotechMashup

(University of Georgia) A new study published in the journal Nature may eventually help scientists predict when species are about to become extinct.

The discovery of two new extinct camel species sheds new light on the history of the tropics, a region containing more than half the world's biodiversity and some of its most important ecosystems.

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed the nuclear genome of an extinct human being. The innovative technique can help reconstruct human phenotypic traits of extinct cultures. It also allows for finding those contemporary populations most closely related to extinct cultures revealing ancient human expansions and migrations. Finally, the discovery improves our understanding of heredity and the disease risk passed down from our ancestors. The spectacular findings are being published in Nature.

People could help to prevent species of birds from becoming extinct by recording sightings of all kinds of birds online, including common species, according to a new study.

Scientists have completed the genome sequence of a Denisovan, a representative of an Asian group of extinct humans related to Neanderthals.

Large-scale DNA sequencing data have been used to investigate a long-standing evolutionary assumption -- that DNA mutation rates are influenced by such life-history traits as the time between an individual's birth and the birth of its offspring. One of the implications of this research is that life-history traits of extinct species now could be discoverable.

(FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) An international team of scientists has discovered an extinct rodent species, based on fossil tooth remains found in Alborache, Valencia. Eomyops noeliae, from the Eomyidae family, represents the oldest find within this genus in the world

Dozens of giant tortoises of a species believed extinct for 150 years may still be living at a remote location in the Galápagos Islands, a genetic analysis conducted by Yale University researchers reveals.

Scientists have described a new type of fossil scops owl, the first extinct bird on the archipelago of Madeira (Portugal). Otus mauli, which was also the first nocturnal bird of prey described in the area, lived on land and became extinct as a result of humans arriving on the island. Twenty years ago, the German researcher Harald Pieper discovered fossil remains of a small nocturnal bird of prey in Madeira, which, until now, had not been studied in depth.