News & views (a name that means ‘opposite birds’, in refer- Daniel J. Field is in the Department of Xing, X.) 37–95 (Bull. Am. Mus. Natl Hist. No. 440; ence to their atypical shoulder-joint articula- Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Am. Mus. Natl Hist., 2020). 8. Hu, H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 19571–19578 tions), which occupy a branch of the dinosaur Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK. (2019). family tree that is much closer to that of mod- e-mail: [email protected] 9. Elzanowski, A. Cour. Forschungsinst. Senckenb. 181, ern birds than the branches occupied by either 37–53 (1995). 10. Mayr, G. Avian Evolution: The Fossil Record of Birds and its Archaeopteryx or Sapeornis. The presence of Paleobiological Significance (Wiley, 2016). an ectopterygoid in Enantiornithes has been 1. del Hoyo, J. All the Birds of the World (Lynx, 2020). 11. O’Connor, P. M. & Forster, C. A. J. Vert. Paleontol. 30, suggested previously9, but this identification 2. Felice, R. N. & Goswami, A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 1178–1201 (2010). 10 555–560 (2018). 12. Li, Y., Ruta, M. & Wills, M. A. Syst. Biol. 69, 638–659 (2020). has been questioned . Thus, the detection of 3. O’Connor, P. M. et al. Nature 588, 272–276 (2020). 13. Field, D. J., Benito, J., Chen, A., Jagt, J. W. M. & an ectopterygoid in Falcatakely either shows 4. Field, D. J. et al. Nature 557, 96–100 (2018). Ksepka, D. T. Nature 579, 397–401 (2020). that this ancestral component of the palate was 5. Krause, D. W. et al. Nature 515, 512–517 (2014). 14. Longrich, N. R., Tokaryk, T. & Field, D. J. Proc. Natl Acad. 6. Lavocat, R. Bull. Mus. Natl Hist. Nat. 27, 256–259 (1955). Sci. USA 108, 15253–15257 (2011). indeed retained in Enantiornithes (at a rela- 7. Pittman, M. et al. in Pennaraptoran Theropod Dinosaurs: tively late stage in avian evolutionary history), Past Progress and New Frontiers (eds Pittman, M. & This article was published online on 25 November 2020. or challenges the identification of Falcatakely as a member of Enantiornithes, suggesting Particle physics instead that it belongs on a deeper branch of the family tree of Mesozoic birds. Although it is impossible to decide defin- itively between these two options without How protons interact access to further fossil material, O’Connor et al. grapple with this uncertainty to an with their exotic siblings impressively thorough degree, showing that Falcatakely nests with Enantiornithes in evo- Manuel Lorenz lutionary trees constructed under a range of alternative analytical approaches. Moreover, The nuclear forces that act on short-lived subatomic particles the identification of Falcatakely as a member have been hard to study. This problem has now been solved by of Enantiornithes makes sense in light of the smashing high-energy protons together and measuring the previous identification of fragmentary bones assigned to Enantiornithes from the same momenta of the unstable particles produced. See p.232 Madagascan fossil locality11. Nonetheless, some research has indicated that family-tree reconstructions of dinosaurs can return con- On page 232, the ALICE Collaboration1 consist of three quarks, at least one of which flicting results when skulls, instead of com- reports that data from high-energy collisions must be a type (flavour) known as a strange plete skeletons, are analysed12. This lack of between protons can be used to investigate the quark; the other quarks can be up or down, certainty is all the more reason for the team little-understood nuclear forces between pro- the two lightest quark flavours. Hyperons are to continue its productive fieldwork in the tons and subatomic particles called hyperons. not present in the everyday matter that sur- hope of discovering more-complete material. The measurements have comparable precision rounds us on Earth, but — depending on their Modern birds originated in the Late Creta- to state-of-the-art numerical calculations of interactions with nucleons — might affect the ceous13, and it has become increasingly appar- the forces, thereby allowing conclusive quanti- compressibility of nuclear matter at high den- ent that the final 20 million years of the age of tative comparisons of experimental data with sities. This means they could be relevant to the the dinosaurs (86 million to 66 million years theory. Accurate knowledge of these forces stability of neutron stars4. Precise knowledge ago) was a pivotal time in avian evolutionary is needed for various aspects of physics of hyperon–nucleon interactions is therefore history. The discovery of Falcatakely shows research, for example in efforts to understand of great importance not only for nuclear phys- us that the importance of this window in time the stability of neutron stars. ics, but also for astrophysics. However, meas- for bird evolution extends well beyond the ori- The nuclear force between neutrons and urements of these interactions are difficult gin of modern birds. Apparently, ‘pre-modern’ protons (which are known collectively as to make in conventional experiments involv- bird lineages such as Enantiornithes were nucleons) is a residual effect of the strong ing direct particle collisions in accelerators, still experimenting with bold new forms — interaction that acts between their ele- because hyperons are short-lived (their life- and possibly previously unfilled ecological mentary constituents (quarks and gluons). times are about 10−10 s; ref. 5) and fly only a few niches — well into the terminal stages of the First-principles calculations of the nuclear centi metres, on average, before they decay. Cretaceous. force have been challenging because of the The ALICE Collaboration now reports that The pre-modern birds were wiped out in the peculiarities of the strong interaction. Our proton–hyperon interactions can be investi- end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, along knowledge of this force is, therefore, based gated using high-energy collisions between with all other dinosaurs, apart from modern largely on simplified models and theories2, protons carried out at the Large Hadron Col- birds14. Considering the impressive diversity guided by experimental data3. The strong lider (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s particle phys- and global distribution of Enantiornithes in interaction between hadrons (subatomic par- ics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The the Late Cretaceous, determining why they ticles, such as nucleons, that consist of two technique depends on measurements of corre- disappeared in that mass extinction, whereas or more quarks bound together by the strong lations between the momenta of protons and the earliest modern-bird lineages survived, interaction) at low energies is therefore often hyperons produced in the collisions. remains one of the greatest mysteries in referred to as the final frontier of the standard The process studied in the experiments avian evolutionary history. The answers to model of particle physics. involves three steps (Fig. 1). First, protons are such questions, much like the unexpected The interaction between nucleons has been collided at extremely high energies, taking anatomy of creatures such as Falcatakely, can measured with high accuracy3, but the inter- advantage of the fact that the LHC produces be revealed only by evidence from the fossil action of nucleons with their heavier siblings, higher collision energies than any other record. So, let’s keep digging. the hyperons, is less well assessed. Hyperons accelerator. Second, hadrons are emitted 222 | Nature | Vol 588 | 10 December 2020 ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All rights reserved. ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All rights reserved. LHC are expected to go into full operation in a b c the coming years, including NICA in Russia, J-PARC in Japan and FAIR in Germany. Although fewer proton–hyperon pairs are generated per Particle Interactions Detector collision in lower-energy collisions, a greater source Proton proportion of those pairs will be emitted at low momenta — which might turn out to be advan- Hyperon tageous, because more data are needed to reduce the statistical errors in measurements Figure 1 | Investigating the proton–hyperon interaction. a, The ALICE Collaboration1 smashed together of low-momentum systems. Increases in com- high-energy protons in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. b, The collisions generate a ‘particle source’ — a puting power should also substantially reduce volume of space in which components of the colliding protons interact and become confined within new the uncertainties of first-principles calcula- particles. These new particles are emitted from the source, and include protons that pair up with heavier tions of nuclear forces. Taken together, these particles known as hyperons. c, The paired-up protons and hyperons interact with each other in a way that developments bode well for future research alters the relative momentum of the system, which is then measured by a detector. These measurements are into the final frontier of the standard model then used to determine the nuclear force between the proton–hyperon pair. of particle physics. by a ‘source’ produced by the collision — a be calculated from first principles so that the Manuel Lorenz is at the Institute for Nuclear volume of space in which quarks and gluons results can be compared with experimental Physics, Goethe University, Frankfurt 60438, that originally came from the protons interact findings. The precision with which nucleon– Germany. and become confined within new hadrons. The nucleon interactions can be determined from e-mail: [email protected] source emits various types of hadron, includ- experimental data is still superior to that ing protons and hyperons, some of which form obtained from these calculations, but the 1. ALICE Collaboration. Nature 588, 232–238 (2020). proton–hyperon pairs. Finally, the proton and ALICE Collaboration’s measurements of the 2. Epelbaum, E., Hammer, H.-W. & Meissner, U.-G. Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 1773–1825 (2009). hyperon in each of these pairs interact with proton–hyperon interactions almost exactly 3.