These science claims from 2019 could be big deals — if true
Discoveries about dinosaurs’ death knell, a watery exoplanet, a new hominid species and more are keeping us on the edge of our seats. But these reports require more proof before they can earn a spot on our list of top stories of the year. Dino doomsday When an asteroid smashed into Earth about 66 million years ago, it triggered an immense earthquake. A fossil site in North Dakota records the mayhem in the hours after impact, scientists reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But what’s more tantalizing is what the researchers may have left out of their scientific paper. Robert DePalma, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and an author on the paper, told the New Yorker that the team found fossilized dinosaurs, pterosaurs and even feathers at the site (SN: 4/27/19, p. 10). Because so few dinosaur fossils from just before the impact have...