Skeptophilia

One of the most intriguing sets of life forms I've ever heard of is the Ediacaran Assemblage . It dates from the late Precambrian Era --...

In H. P. Lovecraft's wildly creepy story "The Shadow Out of Time," we meet a superintelligent alien race called the Yith who h...

Although you don't tend to hear much about it, the Ordovician Period was a very peculiar time in Earth's history. From beginning (4...

I'm currently reading Michael Novacek's fascinating book Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs , which is about the expeditions led by Nov...

One of the more puzzling aspects of evolutionary theory is the phenomenon of peripheral isolates . This term refers to widely-separated popu...

The difficulty with paleontology is its inherent limitations. There are, of course, things it's very good at.  In the hands of a skilled...

The environmentalists tell us "extinction is forever," and that certainly seems unarguable.  Once a species is lost, evolution wil...

I recently read paleontologist Riley Black's lovely book When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance...