An article published in the magazine “Trends in Ecology & Evolution” describes a research on the origins of modern humans. A scientific consortium led by Dr. Eleanor Scerri, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, collected what’s believed to be evidence that modern humans’ ancestors were scattered across Africa, remained separate for millennia diversifying and then remixing to form the current Homo sapiens.

An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution” describes the discovery of a sauropod dinosaur, a herbivore of the long-necked type dating back to the Late Triassic period. Named Ingentia prima by the team led by Dr. Cecilia Apaldetti of the Instituto y Museo de Ciencias Naturales in San Juan, Argentina, it was a giant herbivore that lived in today’s South America about 205 million years ago, 25 million earlier than thought.

An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes a research on the consequences of the evolution of the first animals on the Earth’s climate over 500 million years ago. A team of researchers investigated the consequences of the process called bioturbation, the reworking of soil and sediment by animals or plants, the cycles of phosphorus, oxygen and sulfur concluding that it led to a drop in oxygen in the seas and a global warming with various mass extinctions over the next 100 million years.

An article published in the journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences” describes the discovery of an organism that shows similarities with sponges dating back to more than half a billion years ago which was named Allonnia nuda. A team of researchers examined the fossils discovered in China and classified it within the chancelloriid family, whose relationship with other animals is controversial.