To learn more from fossils they find in nature, paleontologists are trying to create their own.

For decades, paleontologists have been experimenting with heat, pressure, and other factors to mimic nature’s ability to preserve the bodies of living things as fossils. Trying to copy fossilization in a laboratory would allow paleontologists to better understand the process and learn more about the history of life on our planet from the fossils they find.

In a study published in the journ