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ARCHAEOLOGISTS were able to take a peek into life almost 400 years ago after a treasure hunter fulfilled his lifelong goal of uncovering the remains of a 17th-century vessel dubbed the “shipwreck of the century”. The heavily-armed galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha served as the rear guard of the 20-strong Spanish fleet that left Havana, Cuba, in early September 1622, destined for Spain. In addition to 265 people, the ship was carrying as much as 40 tonnes of silver, gold and around 70 pounds of Colombian emeralds, some of the finest and most expensive in the world. After a hurricane struck on September 5, 1622, eight ships sank – including the Atocha – littering the ocean floor from the Marquesas Keys to the Dry Tortugas, between 30 and 70 miles to the west of Key West, Florida. As the Atocha went down into the water at a depth of 55 feet, rescuers tried to get into the drowned hull but found the hatches were tightly battened. The site of the wreck was marked, but a second hur...

A giant prehistoric amphibian once burrowed under ground to become dormant when water was scarce, according to a new study. Metoposaurus diagnosticus weighed half a tonne and was 10 feet long, but its environment had only two seasons: wet and dry. The Metoposaurus needed water for its Lifestyle , but researchers have discovered the extremely long dry season 230 million years ago drove the species to burrow under ground and go dormant. Metoposaurus diagnosticus weighed half a tonne and was 10 feet long, but its environment had only two seasons: wet and dry. It needed water for its lifestyle, but researchers have discovered the extremely long dry season 230 million drove the species to burrow underground and go dormant The burrowing behaviour of Metoposaurus was recently discovered by Dorota Konietzko-Meier, of the University of Opole in Poland and the University of Bonn in Germany, and Martin Sander, also of the University of Bonn. Their study, published in the Jou...