A fossil found by a teenager on the beach reveals a huge marine reptile

Editor's Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN's science newsletter Wonder Theory. To get it in your inbox, Sign up for free here.

CNN
—

As Earth Day approaches and the Wonder Theory newsletter celebrates three years in your inboxes, I look to the future with hope.

We all start somewhere. Encouragement and the pursuit of knowledge help us grow. When Jane Goodall was a little girl, her mother Foster the famous primatologist's love for the living world.

Now 90, Goodall is equally recognized through her Roots & Shoots program, which empowers young people to create change within their communities around the world.

Even as the world shifts in response to the climate crisis, Goodall remains optimistic that humanity can save the planet.

“Don't forget that you as an individual impact the environment every day,” Goodall recently told CNN. “It's up to you to choose what kind of impact you have.”

In May 2020, Ruby Reynolds, then 11, and her father, Justin, were searching for fossils on Somerset Beach along the English coast when she discovered something unusual.

Now, reassembled with the help of experts, Ruby's fossils have revealed the jawbone of a giant ichthyosaur that roamed the seas 202 million years ago. When it comes to sheer size,… The marine reptile probably rivals the blue whalecurrently the largest living animal.

“It was amazing to discover part of this giant ichthyosaur. I am so proud to have played a role in a scientific discovery like this,” she said.

Meanwhile in India, paleontologists at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee have discovered evidence of various huge reptiles: Prehistoric snake was longer than a school bus.

Archaeologists have solved the mystery of the dramatic collapse of the Maya dynasty after finding burnt remains inside an ancient Maya pyramid in Guatemala.

The research team discovered the burned bones of four adults, in addition to… Luxury decorations and weaponsin a room below the temple, which led them to believe that the people were of royal lineage.

The team said it was likely that a new type of leader emerged during a period of Maya political and societal change, and the bones were burned as a sign of deliberate desecration.

Separately, two 5,500-year-old skeletons were found at an archaeological site in southwestern France, belonging to women who were likely buried alive in ritual sacrifice. Using Italian Mafia style torture.

For the first time, astronomers have discovered a rainbow-like effect called glory on a planet outside our solar system.

Scientists using the Cheops Space Telescope noticed Unexpected glow inside the atmosphere On WASP-76b. The artist's illustration depicts this phenomenon, which appears as colorful, concentric rings of light and has only been observed on Earth and Venus.

This extremely hot exoplanet, located 637 light-years away, is also interesting because it has one side that always faces a sun-like star, causing rain of molten iron from its clouds.

In a different study, scientists found that it was an ancient catastrophic collision with another planet that gave rise to this story A bright white heart sparkles on the surface of Pluto.

The star's unusual oscillation led astronomers to what they called a cosmic “sleeping giant” in the Milky Way.

The Gaia space telescope has Discovery of the largest known stellar black holeOr a black hole formed as a result of the collapse of a giant star in our galaxy.

This planet is called Gaia BH3, and it is a heavy celestial body with a mass of about 33 times the mass of our Sun, and is only 1,926 light-years away from us.

When scientists accidentally submerged a certain species of hibernating bumblebee in water, they made a remarkable discovery: the queen of the common eastern bumblebee can… Survive underwater for up to a week.

Queens, which hibernate during the cold season on their own after the death of male bees and workers, may enter a state of suspended growth called diapause, which helps them survive.

Meanwhile, with billions of cicadas expected to emerge this spring after spending more than a decade underground, scientists expect some of these insects to be manipulated by zombie fungi.

Pathogen Turns cicadas into 'salt of death' As described by Dr. Matt Casson, Associate Professor at West Virginia University.

Take a closer look at these amazing stories:

– Budget cuts threaten a program that can retrieve rare samples from Mars collected by the Perseverance rover. now, NASA seeks creative approaches To bring them back to Earth.

— Excavations in South Australia have uncovered three new species of giant kangaroos that lived millions of years ago, and one of them was about to… Twice the size of the largest kangaroos existing today.

– NASA expected that the waste it ejected from the International Space Station would burn up in Earth's atmosphere, but a piece of space junk survived the fiery return process and Crashed into a house in Naples, Florida.

– Camels used to roam what is now Canada, but they crossed the Bering Land Bridge 17,000 years ago. They are fully adapted to life in the desert -And humans can learn from their transformation.

Like what I read? Oh, but there's more. Register here To receive in your inbox the next issue of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland And Katie Hunt. They find wonder at planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.