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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY

Ancient Reptiles in the Sahara

Paleontologists have found some strange crocodile cousins beneath the sands of the Sahara in present-day Niger and Morocco. The creatures roamed during the Cretaceous period on the landmass Gondwana before it broke up into the southern continents.

In other news of the ancient past, researchers say 15th-century Tibetan wall paintings and religious texts found in Himalayan caves could be linked to the legendary paradise of Shangri-La. The caves were carved into sheer cliffs in the ancient kingdom of Mustang, now part of Nepal.

Medical scans on 22 mummies from Cairo's Museum of Antiquities have revealed evidence of hardened arteries in three of them and possible heart disease in three more, suggesting that heart disease is an ancient malady.

Researchers say that chimpanzees in the jungles of Guinea in West Africa appear to think more carefully about implements and how to assemble them than many anthropologists had assumed. Their behavior could provide clues to the advent of the Stone Age.

The giant Irish deer or Irish elk is one of the largest deer species that ever lived. A new study suggests that it went extinct some 10,000 years ago due to starvation. Climate change may have killed the plants on which it fed.