Bari Weiss’s CBS Adds a “Functional Medicine” Star, Sparking Pseudoscience Backlash: The once vaunted CBS News’ overhaul under Weiss drew criticism after the network added Dr Mark Hyman as a paid contributor. The Guardian reports that Hyman, a prominent “functional medicine” celebrity, has promoted claims such as reducing “biological age” through biohacking, reversing Alzheimer’s with supplements, and treating autism with cod liver oil that he also sells. The piece highlights his long alliance with Robert F Kennedy Jr, including support for removing thimerosal from vaccines and interest in unapproved peptides. Critics quoted argue CBS risks mainstreaming misinformation, describing functional medicine as a lucrative pipeline toward expansive testing and unnecessary supplements, and noting Hyman’s venture ties to Andreessen Horowitz and Function Health. (theguardian.com)
50,000-Fossil “Snapshot” From China Offers New Clues to an Ancient Mass Extinction: A newly described fossil trove from southern China is giving researchers an unusually detailed look at life just before (and around) a major crisis in Earth history. The deposit—described as containing roughly 50,000 fossils—preserves a rich marine community from the Ordovician period, about 435 million years ago. Scientists say the site’s diversity and preservation could help them test competing ideas about what drove the first of the “Big Five” mass extinctions, including how changing climate and ocean conditions reshaped ecosystems. By capturing many organisms in one place and time, the assemblage may let paleontologists track which groups were thriving, which were already stressed, and how food webs were wired when the catastrophe hit. (Reuters)
Dinosaur National Monument’s New Fossils Are Rewriting a Familiar Bonebed: A fresh wave of fieldwork at Dinosaur National Monument is yielding new fossils—and new questions—at one of North America’s most iconic Jurassic sites. Reports highlight recently collected bones and ongoing excavation that are expanding what researchers can say about the animals entombed there, how they died, and how water moved and sorted remains in the ancient river system. The work is also sharpening the picture of the Morrison Formation ecosystem, where multiple giant herbivores and formidable predators overlapped in space and time. Beyond headline-worthy specimens, the broader value is contextual: mapping bone layers carefully, documenting orientations, and teasing out whether the assemblage records a single catastrophic event or repeated deposits over time. (Smithsonian)
T. rex as a “Late Bloomer”: Evidence Points to a Longer, Slower Rise: New reporting on tyrannosaur biology argues that Tyrannosaurus rex may have taken longer to reach its fearsome peak than many people assume. The piece describes research suggesting a prolonged growth trajectory—one where T. rex spent more time in earlier life stages before hitting the rapid-growth surge associated with adulthood. That matters because it changes how we imagine predator pressure and ecological roles across the animal’s lifespan: juveniles and subadults likely weren’t simply “mini adults,” but different kinds of hunters with different prey options. A longer runway to maturity also affects population math—how many juveniles you’d need to sustain a smaller number of apex adults—and how tyrannosaurs fit into Late Cretaceous food webs. (Smithsonian)
The “Nanotyrannus” Fight May Finally Be Burning Out: One of paleontology’s loudest pop-culture debates—whether “Nanotyrannus” was a distinct small tyrannosaur or just a juvenile T. rex—gets a reality check in this National Geographic explainer. The story walks through why the argument became so entrenched (high-profile skulls, museum politics, and the challenge of telling species differences from growth-stage differences) and why new analyses have shifted many experts toward the juvenile T. rex interpretation. The key issue is how bones change as tyrannosaurs grow: features that look species-level at first glance can sometimes track with age, remodeling, and individual variation. The piece frames the larger lesson as well—classification in deep time is a moving target, not a scoreboard. (National Geographic)
Late Jurassic Predators Lived on a “Sauropod Buffet,” Study Suggests: A new reconstruction of a dinosaur food web argues that sauropods didn’t just dominate landscapes—they powered them. Using fossil records from the Morrison Formation’s Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry in southwestern Colorado, researchers rebuilt predator–prey dynamics across a span of several thousand years roughly 150 million years ago. The analysis paints sauropods as “ecosystem engineers,” shaping everything from vegetation pressure to carnivore lifestyles. A striking point: baby sauropods may have been frequent, high-value meals for big theropods such as Allosaurus and Torvosaurus, helping explain how large predators were sustained. Framing dinosaurs in food-web terms also makes it easier to compare ecosystems across time and test why certain lineages evolved the way they did. (Scientific Inquirer)
DinoTracker: An AI App Tries to Solve the “Whose Footprint Is This?” Problem: Interpreting fossil footprints is notoriously tricky: erosion, compression, and incomplete impressions can make a track look like multiple possible animals. A team linked to Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and the University of Edinburgh reports an AI approach that aims to cut through that ambiguity. Users can upload a photo or sketch to the DinoTracker app, which returns an automated classification based on a model trained on nearly 2,000 fossil footprints plus many simulated variations meant to mimic real distortion. The system focuses on eight track features (toe spread, heel position, contact area, weight distribution, and more) and reportedly reaches ~90% agreement with expert classifications—even for disputed cases. Intriguingly, it also flags birdlike traits in some very old tracks, sharpening debate about early bird origins versus convergent foot shapes. (EurekAlert!)
First Confirmed Lichen Fossils: How a 410-Million-Year-Old Symbiosis Helped Build Early Soils: A detailed new analysis argues that Spongiophyton—long controversial in the fossil record—represents the earliest known lichens, living around 410 million years ago. The study combines high-resolution imaging (including synchrotron-based work) with chemical signatures that the authors say fit a fungus–algae partnership rather than a plant. Reported markers include networks consistent with hyphae, apparent algal cells, and a strong nitrogen signal consistent with chitin (a lichen/fungal building block) rather than cellulose. The researchers also describe calcium microparticles comparable to mineral “sunscreens” seen in some modern lichens. Beyond taxonomy, the broader claim is ecological: lichens that dissolve rock could have helped generate the first soils and “structured” early terrestrial ecosystems, possibly across wide regions of ancient Gondwana.(EurekAlert!)
Apex Predator “Spit-Up” From 290 Million Years Ago Becomes the Oldest Known Terrestrial Regurgitalite: Open-access work in Scientific Reports describes fossilized regurgitated stomach contents from the early Permian Bromacker locality (Thuringia, Germany), analyzed with micro-CT plus osteological, chemical, and taphonomic methods. The regurgitalite is a dense cluster of 41 bones, including elements attributed to Thuringothyris mahlendorffae, Eudibamus cursoris, and an unidentified diadectid—evidence, the authors argue, for opportunistic feeding. Its size and composition point to an apex predator as the producer, with candidates including Dimetrodon teutonis or Tambacarnifex unguifalcatus. The paper emphasizes diagnostic contrasts with coprolites (shape, packing, and chemistry), and frames the specimen as the geologically oldest terrestrial regurgitalite known—useful for reconstructing Paleozoic trophic networks on land. (Nature)
Phys.org Breakdown: What a Permian Predator Ejected Tells Us About Early Land Food Chains: A new write-up spotlights the same Bromacker regurgitalite find as a rare behavioral fossil: instead of bones in place inside a skeleton, these are prey remains expelled, preserved, and later discovered as a single clustered “event.” The report highlights the study’s main conclusion—opportunistic feeding by a strictly terrestrial apex predator—and why that matters for reconstructing a Paleozoic ecosystem that’s otherwise dominated by body fossils. Because regurgitalites form earlier in digestion than feces, they can preserve different signals (what was eaten, how thoroughly it was processed, and sometimes which body parts were avoided). Publication details point to a Scientific Reports paper and emphasize this specimen’s special status as the oldest known terrestrial regurgitalite, offering a direct window into who was eating whom on land nearly 300 million years ago. (Phys.org)
Technofossils: The Future Fossil Record We’re Building Out of Plastic, Concrete, and Silicon: What will paleontologists (or archaeologists) infer about our species when our cities are gone? This National Geographic feature treats modern waste as “technofossils,” arguing that plastics, concrete, and electronics are already forming a distinctive geological signature. It describes plastics filtering into deep water and turning into “plastiglomerate,” while landfills—dry, compressed, layered—can preserve textiles and single-use debris far longer than expected. Concrete, despite crumbling in decades at the surface, may still persist in enormous volume as a recognizable aggregate layer. The piece also calls out the oddity of “pure silicon” artifacts: rare in nature but globally scattered via chips and devices, feeding a growing e-waste stratum. The result is a thought experiment grounded in materials science: we’re manufacturing a stratigraphic calling card that could outlast us. (National Geographic)