
-
PSG eye becoming France's first 'Invincibles'
-
Late birdie burst lifts Ryder to Texas Open lead
-
Five potential Grand National fairytale endings
-
Trump purges national security team after meeting conspiracist
-
More work for McIlroy even with two wins before Masters
-
Trump hopeful of 'great' PGA-LIV golf merger
-
No.1 Scheffler goes for third Masters crown in four years
-
Where Trump's tariffs could hurt Americans' wallets
-
Trump says 'very close to a deal' on TikTok
-
Trump tariffs on Mexico: the good, the bad, the unknown
-
Postecoglou denies taunting Spurs fans in Chelsea defeat
-
Oscar-winning Palestinian director speaks at UN on Israeli settlements
-
With tariff war, Trump also reshapes how US treats allies
-
Fernandez fires Chelsea into fourth as pressure mounts on Postecoglou
-
South Korea court to decide impeached president's fate
-
Penguin memes take flight after Trump tariffs remote island
-
E.T., no home: Original model of movie alien doesn't sell at auction
-
Italy's Brignone has surgery on broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Trump defiant as tariffs send world markets into panic
-
City officials vote to repair roof on home of MLB Rays
-
Rockets forward Brooks gets one-game NBA ban for technicals
-
Pentagon watchdog to probe defense chief over Signal chat row
-
US tariffs could push up inflation, slow growth: Fed official
-
New Bruce Springsteen music set for June 27 release
-
Tom Cruise pays tribute to Val Kilmer
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's tariffs list
-
Zuckerberg repeats Trump visits in bid to settle antitrust case
-
US fencer disqualified for not facing transgender rival
-
'Everyone worried' by Trump tariffs in France's champagne region
-
Italy's Brignone suffers broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Iyer blitz powers Kolkata to big IPL win over Hyderabad
-
Russian soprano Netrebko to return to London's Royal Opera House
-
French creche worker gets 25 years for killing baby with drain cleaner
-
UK avoids worst US tariffs post-Brexit, but no celebrations
-
Canada imposing 25% tariff on some US auto imports
-
Ruud wants 'fair share' of Grand Slam revenue for players
-
Lesotho, Africa's 'kingdom in the sky' jolted by Trump
-
Trump's trade math baffles economists
-
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
-
'Unprecedented crisis' in Africa healthcare: report
-
Pogacar gunning for blood and thunder in Tour of Flanders
-
Macron calls for suspension of investment in US until tariffs clarified
-
Wall St leads rout as world reels from Trump tariffs
-
Mullins gets perfect National boost with remarkable four-timer
-
Trump tariffs hammer global stocks, dollar and oil
-
Authors hold London protest against Meta for 'stealing' work to train AI
-
Tate Modern gifted 'extraordinary' work by US artist Joan Mitchell
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's new tariffs list
-
Tonali eager to lead Newcastle back into Champions League
-
Lesotho hardest hit as new US tariffs rattle Africa

Heaviest animal ever? Scientists discover massive ancient whale
Look out, blue whale -- there's a new contender for your heavyweight title.
A newly discovered whale that lived nearly 40 million years ago could be the heaviest animal to have ever lived, based on a partial skeleton found in Peru, scientists said on Wednesday.
The modern blue whale has long been considered the largest and heaviest animal ever, beating out all the giant dinosaurs of the distant past.
But Perucetus colossus -- the colossal whale from Peru -- may have been even heavier, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
Extrapolating from some massive bones found in the Peruvian desert, an international team of researchers estimated that the animal had an average body mass of 180 tonnes.
That would not take the heavyweight title by itself. The biggest blue whale ever recorded weighed 190 tonnes, according to Guinness World Records.
But the researchers estimated the ancient whale's weight range was between 85 and 340 tonnes, meaning it could have been significantly larger.
The researchers were careful not to declare the ancient whale had broken the record.
But there was also "no reason to think that this specimen was the largest of its kind," study co-author Eli Amson told AFP.
"I think there's a good chance that some of the individuals broke the record -- but the take-home message is that we are in the ballpark of the blue whale," said Amson, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany.
- Rewriting cetacean history -
The first fossil of the ancient whale was discovered back in 2010 by Mario Urbina, a palaeontologist who has spent decades searching the desert on the southern coast of Peru.
But what he found "looked more like a boulder" than a fossil, Amson said.
A total of 13 gigantic vertebrae -- one of which weighed nearly 200 kilograms (440 pounds) -- were found at the site, as well as four ribs and a hip bone.
It took years and multiple trips to collect and prepare the giant fossils, and longer for the team of Peruvian and European researchers to confirm exactly what they had been found.
On Wednesday, they revealed it is a new species of basilosaurid, an extinct family of cetaceans.
Today's cetaceans include dolphins, whales and porpoises, but their early ancestors lived on land, some resembling small deer.
Over time they moved into the water, and basilosaurids are believed to be the first cetaceans to have a fully aquatic lifestyle.
One of their adaptations at that time was gigantism -- they became very big.
But the new discovery indicates that cetaceans reached their peak body mass roughly 30 million years earlier than previously thought, the study said.
- Tiny head, heavy bones -
Like other basilosaurids, Perucetus colossus likely had a "ridiculously small" head compared to its body, Amson said -- though there were no available bones to confirm this.
Lacking any teeth, it was impossible to say for sure what they ate. But Amson speculated that scavenging off the seafloor was a strong possibility, partly because the animals could not swim quickly.
The researchers were confident that the animal lived in shallow waters in coastal environments, due to the strange heaviness of its bones.
Its whole skeleton was estimated to weigh between five to seven tonnes -- more than twice as heavy as the skeleton of a blue whale.
"This is -- for sure -- the heaviest skeleton of any mammal known to date," as well as any aquatic animal, Amson said.
Perucetus colossus needed heavy bones to compensate for the huge amount of buoyant blubber -- and air in its lungs -- which could otherwise send it bobbing to the surface.
But just the right balance of bone density and blubber allowed the giant animal to stay in the middle of around 10 metres (33 feet) of water "without moving a muscle," Amson explained.
Felix Marx, a marine mammal expert at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa not involved in the study, told AFP that Perucetus colossus "is very different from anything else we've ever found".
He cautioned that extinct sea cows had heavier bones than would be expected for their total body weight, potentially suggesting Perucetus colossus could be on the lower end of its estimated weight range.
The fossils are being displayed at the Museum of Natural History in Lima.
M.A.Colin--AMWN