An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” offers a possible explanation for the Cambrian explosion, the greatest diversification event among living organisms ever seen in the history of life on Earth. A team led by Josh Williams, now a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, used sophisticated biogeochemical models to try to reproduce oxygen changes in the atmosphere just before that explosion concluding that it was the result of an out of the normal tectonic activity during the formation of the supercontinent Gondwana.

An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the identification of a new species of dinosaur that lived around 163 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic period, which had some characteristics similar to those of birds but with wings more similar to those of pterosaurs or bats. A team of researchers coordinated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences named it Ambopteryx longibrachium and classified it in the family of scansoriopterygid, which could be close relatives of birds. This little dinosaur could provide important information about the development of flight among dinosaurs and therefore in birds.

An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution” reports the identification of a new species of tyrannosauroid that lived about 92 million years ago, in the Mid-Cretaceous period. A team of researchers led by Sterling Nesbitt of Virginia Tech named this species Suskityrannus hazelae completing a work begun in 1997, when the first fossils were discovered but weren’t identified at the time. It was a carnivore but with its height of less than one meter it was much smaller than its far more famous distant cousin, the T.rex.