If you ask paleontologist Jorn Hurum, the answer to the question, "has the missing link been found" would be yes. "Ida," pictured above, is one of a set of new fossils found in Germany, and Hurum's new book and promotional website suggest she is the missing link long sought.

University of Alaska Museum of the North earth sciences curator Patrick Druckenmiller is among a team of researchers who have excavated the fossil of what may be the largest Jurrasic marine reptile ever found.

Ancient Greenland was green. New Danish research has shown that it was covered in conifer forest and, like southern Sweden today, had a relatively mild climate. Eske Willerslev, a professor at Copenhagen University, has analysed the world’s oldest DNA, preserved under the kilometre-thick icecap.