Hot off the presses!
This month our Solanaceae fruit fossil paper finally came out in ! The paper, led by Rocio with a huge team of co-authors including Abel and Stacey, describes two new fruit fossils -- one from the chilipepper tribe (Capsiceae) from Colorado and another from the tomatillo tribe (Physalideae) from Colombia. These two fossils join two previously described Physalis from Patagonia, and all are Eocence fossils (ca. 50 million years old). This paints a new picture of the family -- where we previously thought it was young and South American in origin, it now appears to be widespread long ago and the origin is uncertain. With similarly old fossils in North and South America, Solanaceae could have arisen in either continent, and of course who knows what we may find someday in Australia or Asia!
The fossil chilipepper story was featured in 鶹ѰToday and has since been picked up by a number of media outlets, including the , , and the ! See below:
1. Chili peppers more deeply rooted in Colorado than previously thought. 鶹ѰBoulder Today (Boulder, USA) - 20/04/2023.
2. (Cordoba, Argentina) - 24/04/2023.
3. (Radio Centro Spain) - 24/04/2023.
4. / Phys.org (Douglas, UK) – 20/04/2023.
5. / Deporticos (San José, Costa Rica) – 20/04/2023.
6. / Technology Networks (Sudbury, UK) – 21/04/2023.
7. / EurekAlert (Washington, USA) – 21/04/2023.
8. / Mon Planeta (Barcelona, España) – 24/04/2023.
9. / Earth.com (Telluride, USA) – 24/04/2023.
10. / New Atlas (Melbourne, Australia) – 24/04/2023.
11. / The Chronicle News (Trinidad, USA) – 24/04/2023.
12. / IFLScience (Sudbury, UK) – 24/04/2023.
13. / ICrewPlay (Roma, Italy) – 26/04/2023.
14. / Axios (Denver, USA) – 28/04/2023.
15. / Science Times (Nueva York, USA) – 30/04/2023.
16. / Gidahatti (Ankara, Turkey) – 1/05/2023.
17. / ScienceAlert (Canberra, Australia) – 1/05/2023.
18. / Popular Science (Nueva York, USA) – 1/05/2023.
19. / Focus Tech (Roma, Italy) – 2/05/2023.
20. / Deutsche Welle (Bonn, Germany) – 2/05/2023.
21. / Sunset Magazine (Los Ángeles, USA) – 5/05/2023.
22. / Wired en español (Mexico city, Mexico) – 8/05/2023.
23. / India Education Diary (Nueva Delhi, India) – 9/05/2023.
24. / Tapas Magazine (Madrid, Spain) – 10/05/2023.
25. / The Daily Meal (Indianapolis, United States) – 11/05/2023.
26. / Latina Press (Undenheim, Germany) – 13/05/2023.
27. / The Gazette (Colorado Springs, United States) – 13/05/2023.
28. / Mirage News (Wollongong, Australia) – 22/05/2023.
29. / Public News Service (Boulder, United States) – 30/05/2023.
30. / Utah Public Radio (Logan, Unites States) – 2/06/2023.
31. / Wyoming Public Radio (Laramie, United States) – 7/06/2023.
32. / KUNR Public Radio (Reno, United States) – 7/06/2023.