Riley Black
Scientific American
Contact Brian
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Brian:
Five-Eyed, Nozzle-Nosed Oddity Lingered Far beyond the Cambrian Period
This ancient creature swam in surprisingly modern seas → Read More
Tiny Tyrannosaurs Used the Buddy System
Fossil trackways may show tyrannosaur tykes teaming up → Read More
Ancient Panda ‘Thumb’ Matches Modern Version
Walking on all fours helped shape the panda's “thumb” → Read More
New Dinosaur Species Is Oldest Ever Found in Africa
A small, speedy, omnivorous dinosaur was a forerunner of Brachiosaurus and other giant plant-eaters → Read More
Little Pterosaur Could Have ‘Pole-Vaulted’ into Flight from the Water
New fossil analysis offers the first physical evidence of this launch strategy → Read More
New Evidence Emerges in Mystery of When Mammals Became Warm-Blooded
Fossil animals’ inner ear structures offer clues on when endothermy, or warm-bloodedness, evolved → Read More
Dinosaur Diets May Help Explain Dramatic Diversity
Some species were constrained by their food sources, while others ranged widely → Read More
Pterosaurs May Have Had Brightly Colored Feathers, Exquisite Fossil Reveals
An amazingly well-preserved fossil suggests the common ancestor of dinosaurs and pterosaurs also had some type of feather or feather precursor → Read More
Snakes’ and Lizards’ Slow and Steady Evolution Won the Race
A related lineage’s explosive growth leaves just one descendant today → Read More
The Ten Best Science Books of 2021
From captivating memoirs by researchers to illuminating narratives by veteran science journalists, these works affected us the most this year → Read More
Footprint Discovery Hints at Humans in the Americas More Than 20,000 Years Ago
Seeds found in fossilized tracks fuel new speculation about when—and how—people arrived → Read More
New Process Helps Unscramble Dinosaur Boneyard Chaos
The Intermountain West is positively littered with dinosaur boneyards. In Late Jurassic rock layers from New Mexico to Montana, paleontologists have uncovered deposits that look like skeletal logjams. Whether connected or jumbled in a pile, the bones of prehistoric icons such as Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and more are often found in abundance—the result of Jurassic monsoon floods that… → Read More
Dinosaur skull scans reveal clues about flight—and communication
X-ray images are revealing how these ancient animals moved through the world, what they could hear and see, and even how their young likely chirped. → Read More
The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2020
Paleontologists uncovered a great deal about the “terrible lizards” this year → Read More
Pterosaur Origins Flap into Focus
Fossils of small, delicate animals may reveal the early history of gigantic flying reptiles → Read More
Why the World’s Biggest Dinosaurs Keep Getting Cut Down to Size
Debate erupts over how best to estimate the sizes of the largest creatures ever to have walked the earth → Read More
A 429-Million-Year-Old Trilobite Had Eyes like Those of Modern Bees
Rare, cracked fossil shows the world through ancient eyes → Read More
Bones Tell the Tale of a Maya Settlement
A new study tracks how the ancient civilization used animals for food, ritual purposes and even as curiosities → Read More
Emotional Safety Is Part of Sex, Too
With previous partners, I never felt emotionally safe to reveal my true self sexually -- so I never had emotionally safe sex. → Read More
Possible Dinosaur DNA Has Been Found
New discoveries have raised the possibility of exploring dino genetics, but controversy surrounds the results → Read More