Turtle shells are truly remarkable structures. As embryos, turtles' bones begin to fuse, as ribs, shoulder bones, and vertebrae merge together to form the hard outer shell. That's an incredible evolutionary adaptation, and the Permian fossil Eunotosaurus helps explain how turtles got their shells.

Once upon a time, the tortoise Manuela lived a happy life with the Almeidas, a Brazilian family who lives west of Rio de Janeiro. That was 30 years ago, before the day she got lost, seemingly forever.

For a brief period after the dinosaurs vanished, truly gigantic reptiles like the 50-foot snake Titanoboa and twenty-foot crocodiles dominated the swamps of ancient Colombia. Now we've discovered another, much gentler giant - the humongous 60-million-year-old "coal turtle."

Turtles are one of many species that use their sense of Earth's magnetic field to navigate great distances. But the magnetic field is constantly drifting, and that can cause major confusion in such a long-lived species. Here's their ingenious solution.

Thankfully someone had the common sense to glue a wheel from a rolling office chair to our 12-year-old African tortoise-friend's missing leg, instead of going down the popular route of making tortoise soup out of him.

This is an artist's conception of the river turtle Boremys, which is one of the first known species whose existence actually improved in the immediate aftermath of the massive extinction event, 65 million years ago.

Terrorists? Toxic gas cloud? Meteor shower? No—the NYT reports JFK's Runway 4 was closed for over an hour today because a hundred turtles crawled all over it.

Pens! Pens! PENS! Excited? No, of course not, because when was the last time a pen was remotely interesting? Here's a nice exception to the rule: Turtle's "SNAPback" pens expose their tips with a pistol-like cocking action (so much innuendo!)

This massive turtle, weighing 440 pounds, was pulled out of Hanoi's Ho Hoan Kiem, or Lake of the Returned Sword, by a few dozen people, including Special Forces soldiers, using three nets.

A cutesie magnetic turtle that collects pins and paperclips. You remember what those are, right? Like your Firefox bookmarks, but ten years' ago.

Microsoft's sent out invites for an event on April 12th, plastered with the phrase "It's time to share." It's double entendre about their leaked "Pink" social networking-centric phones, see!?!

With Windows Phone 7 out, everyone has forgotten about the other Microsoft handsets, the allegedly Sidekick-derived Turtle and Pure cellphones. Someone got a peek into the firmware, which confirms some of the rumors about these "not-so-dumb cellphones".

With MWC right around the corner, all eyes are on Microsoft for the launch of Windows Phone 7. And though we heard Project Pink was in trouble, this FCC filing suggests the Sharp-made Turtle may still be on its way.

Cnet's Ina Fried says the Microsoft Pink phones leaked yesterday are "more the evolution of the Sidekick" using Windows Mobile as the core OS, and in addition to Microsoft's main phone push. What's interesting is the reason Microsoft bought Danger.

Project Pink is Microsoft's secret new phone, their first major phone play since the iPhone. Here are the first pictures of Pink phones, Turtle and Pure.

Three legged turtle gets an air-filled, shock-absorbed tire. Giz <3's BB.