'Wonderfully-shaped feces' found inside ancient fish skull. What left the pretty poops?

'Wonderfully-shaped feces' found inside ancient fish skull. What left the pretty poops? | Do other viruses have as many variants as SARS-CoV-2? | Do we live in a simulation? Here's why we may never know. Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( January 31, 2022 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Top Science News [] ['Wonderfully-shaped feces' found inside ancient fish skull. What left the pretty poops?]( ['Wonderfully-shaped feces' found inside ancient fish skull. What left the pretty poops?]( (Photo courtesy of the Calvert Marine Museum) In a first for paleontology, scientists have found hundreds of tiny, fossilized fecal pellets crammed inside a fish braincase dating to about 9 million years ago. The wee fossil poops, also known as coprolites, were deposited by scavengers — probably worms — that devoured the fish's decaying head, including its brain. As they munched the flesh from the skull, the worms pooped out chains and clusters of oval coprolite beads, each measuring about 0.1 inches (2.5 millimeters) long. Small as they were, those pellets added up over time. When the hungry scavengers were done, they had left behind hundreds of pellets — enough poop to fill the fish's braincase entirely. Full Story: [Live Science]( (1/31) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] COVID-19 [] [Do other viruses have as many variants as SARS-CoV-2?]( [Do other viruses have as many variants as SARS-CoV-2?]( (peterschreiber.media via Getty Images) SARS-CoV-2 seems to be constantly changing. In the span of just two years, alpha, beta, delta, lambda, mu and omicron have all made headlines. And that list doesn't include dozens of other variants that were detected but not considered high priority by the World Health Organization. Is this coronavirus's rapid evolution unusual, or do other viruses have just as many variants? We asked the experts to find out. Full Story: [Live Science]( (1/31) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Math & Physics [] [Do we live in a simulation? Here's why we may never know.]( [Do we live in a simulation? Here's why we may never know.]( (MR.Cole_Photographer/Getty Images) Is everything we know and experience, up to and including reality itself, a simulation created by some unseen and unknowable entity? This idea, known as the simulation hypothesis, was first posed by University of Oxford professor Nick Bostrom in 2003. But does the simulation hypothesis offer a compelling argument, or is it just interesting food for thought? Let's find out. Full Story: [Live Science]( (1/30) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( Featured Content Sponsored Content from Gigabyte [Unleash your gaming potential with Gigabyte Aero laptops]( When it comes to editing and rendering, performance is all that matters to content creators. Inspired by the "performance-above- all" mentality, Gigabyte delivers to the market a solution that satisfies the most fastidious content creators, the Aero laptop series. [Read More]( [] Curious Creatures [] [Oklahoma wildlife dept. says mountain lions don't make good pets. The internet disagrees.]( [Oklahoma wildlife dept. says mountain lions don't make good pets. The internet disagrees.]( (Shutterstock) Pet mountain lions sound like an oxymoron, but after some funny tweeting by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, the state, it seems, is asking whether such ownership is really a bad idea. On Jan. 20, the government department tweeted a photo of a mountain lion lying in the snow with the caption "YOU are cold. They have fur. Do not let inside." The tweet was shared more than 22,000 times as Twitter users defied the advice and expressed an interest in petting or owning a mountain lion. "My messaging is always 'Do not pet mountain lions,' and I was so scared that I was going to wake up in the morning and people, the whole Internet, had just decided that they were going to do it anyway," Sarah Southerland, the wildlife department's social media coordinator, told Live Science. Full Story: [Live Science]( (1/29) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] That’s Strange! [] [Frogs regrow amputated legs in breakthrough experiment]( [Frogs regrow amputated legs in breakthrough experiment]( (Holly Mahaffey Photography via Getty Images) Scientists have regrown frogs' amputated legs after giving them a "cocktail" of drugs encased in a silicon stump. African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) are like humans in that they can't naturally regrow lost limbs. In the new study, researchers successfully coaxed the frogs to grow replacement limbs in 18 months following a treatment that lasted just 24 hours. While there's a massive difference between frogs and humans, the finding raises the possibility that in the future, humans could also regrow limbs. Full Story: [Live Science]( (1/29) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Could humans someday regrow lost limbs, with the help of medical treatments? (Learn the answer [here]() [Vote]( [Animal studies hint yes!]( [Vote]( [No, it's probably not possible](   [Sign Up]( | [Update Profile]( | [Unsubscribe]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Cookies Policy]( | [Terms and Conditions]( CONTACT US: [FEEDBACK](mailto:livescience@smartbrief.com) | [ADVERTISE]( Future US LLC © 1100 13th St. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005