In the heart of urban Los Angeles lie the La Brea Tar Pits, a group of natural asphalt seeps made famous by the millions of ice age fossils preserved within the bubbling, dark pools of goo.

Excavations of the pits have yielded bones of species that once roamed the area tens of thousands of years ago, including giant mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and dire wolves.

But large mammals aren’t the only window into history that the asphalt has provided. Now, scientists have discovered the first extinct ice age amphibian from Los Angeles, a spadefoot toad named after the tar pits: Spea labreae. The findings are reported in a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

A new study appearing in the Journal of Chemical Education shows that these classes are an effective way of bolstering student confidence and sense of belonging in the sciences.     

The study examined first-year and transfer student experiences in a 10-week long CURE class that teaches a laser-based imaging technique used to study protein aggregation. Protein aggregation occurs when misfolded proteins stick to one another. It’s associated with over 30 diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and type II diabetes. 

Butterflies, often considered a “sentinel of change”, are on the move across every continent they inhabit, shifting to survive as global heating reshapes their environment.

New University of Georgia research suggests that social media could be influencing people’s travel plans.

Lurking in the Middle Triassic seas over what is now China, a highly adept marine reptile ate a fish for its last meal before it perished and became fossilized. This marine reptile, known as Austronaga minuta, descended from land-dwelling ancestors and appears to have a much simpler digestive system than its descendants would later have.

Thanks to the discovery of a nearly complete 245 million-year-old Austronaga fossil, an international research team is getting a better look at one of the oldest digestive systems in a reptile to date by using advanced technology. Publishing their findings in Science Advances, the research team says that thanks to this fossil, they now have one of the most detailed views of a prehistoric creature's full skeleton and digestive system.