Dinosaur Extinction Link To Crater Confirmed

From The BBC:

An international panel of experts has strongly endorsed evidence that a space impact was behind the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs.

They reached the consensus after conducting the most wide-ranging analysis yet of the evidence.

Writing in Science journal, they rule out alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism.

Read more ....

Could Extinct Species Make a Comeback?

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News 60 Minutes:

Lesley Stahl Reports on Research that Could One Day Resurrect Extinct Species and Save Endangered Ones.

(CBS) It's difficult to imagine that 10,000 years ago, right here in North America, there lived giant animals that are now the stuff of legends - mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths and sabretooth cats. They, and thousands of other species, have vanished from the Earth. And today, partly due to the expansion of one species - ours - animals are going extinct faster than ever before.

Read more ....

Ten Things That Cause Mass Extinctions

Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: It's normal for a species to go extinct, and an average rate of one a year is the natural background rate. But over the past 4.5 billion years, there have been times when extinctions occured at 100 to 1,000 times faster - with the largest event wiping out 95 % of all species. Somewhere between five and 20 such mass extinctions have occured. Here are 10 possible causes for future extinction events.

Read more ....

Czech Zoo Sends Rare Northern White Rhinos To Kenya

From the BBC:

Four rare Northern White rhinos have been flown from a Czech zoo to Kenya, in a desperate attempt to save the species from extinction.

Animal experts hope the rhinos - two males and two females - will breed in their natural habitat in Africa.

Only eight Northern White rhinos are known to survive worldwide, all of them in captivity: six in the Czech Republic and two in the US.

The last four living in the wild in Africa have not been seen since 2006.

Read more ....

Mammals May Be Nearly Half Way Toward Mass Extinction

Small herd of buffalo in Utah, U.S. If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 18, 2009) — If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis.

Many scientists warn that the perfect storm of global warming and environmental degradation -- both the result of human activity is leading to a sixth mass extinction equal to the "Big Five" that have occurred over the past 450 million years, the last of which killed off the dinosaurs 68 million years ago.

Read more ....

Mammoth Extinction Altered Ecosystem

New evidence suggests that changes in the North American ecosystem didn't kill the mammoth - their demise may have brought the changes about. Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: The extinction of mammoths in North America at the end of the last ice age was not caused by a change in the ecosystem: it's what triggered the changes, a new study suggests.

The study also elucidates a possible cause for the demise of mammoths and mastodons 15,000 years ago, and researchers say that the expanded incidence of fire in the landscape - suspected of being caused by human arrival - only appeared after the extinction.

Read more ....

To Deflect An Asteroid, Try A Lasso, Not ANuke

From Wired Science:

To save the world from the real threat of a major asteroid impact, one engineer has imagined a scheme similar to George Bailey’s wish to lasso the moon for his sweetheart in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The plan is to attach a gigantic weight to an Earth-bound asteroid using an enormous cord. This crazy-sounding contraption would change the asteroid’s center of mass and subsequently its trajectory, averting a potentially catastrophic scenario.

Read more ....

Ancient Volcano's Devastating Effects Confirmed

This satellite image shows smoldering underground fires that took place at Toba in 1997. A devastating volcanic eruption occurred at the site roughly 73,000 years ago. Credit: NASA

From Live Science:

A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a new study that adds evidence to a controversial topic.

The Toba eruption, which took place on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia about 73,000 years ago, released an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere that blanketed the skies and blocked out sunlight for six years. In the aftermath, global temperatures dropped by as much as 16 degrees centigrade (28 degrees Fahrenheit) and life on Earth plunged deeper into an ice age that lasted around 1,800 years.

Read more ....

Antarctica Was Climate Refuge During Great Extinction

From New Scientist:

The cool climate of Antarctica was a refuge for animals fleeing climate change during the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history, suggests a new fossil study. The discovery may have implications for how modern animals will adapt to global warming.

Around 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, about 90 per cent of land species were wiped out as global temperatures soared. A cat-sized distant relative of mammals, Kombuisia antarctica, seems to have survived the extinction by fleeing south to Antarctica.

Read more ....

Mass Extinction: Why Did Half Of N. America's Large Mammals Disappear 40,000 To 10,000 Years Ago?

Artist's rendering of a woolly mammoth family. (Credit: iStockphoto/KIM FREITAS)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 27, 2009) — Years of scientific debate over the extinction of ancient species in North America have yielded many theories. However, new findings from J. Tyler Faith, GW Ph.D. candidate in the hominid paleobiology doctoral program, and Todd Surovell, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming, reveal that a mass extinction occurred in a geological instant.

Read more ....

Supervolcano Eruption In Sumatra Deforested India 73,000 Years Ago

Landsat satellite photo of Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia.
(Credit: Image courtesy of NASA / via Wikimedia Commons)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 24, 2009) — A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report.

The volcano ejected an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, leaving a crater (now the world's largest volcanic lake) that is 100 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Ash from the event has been found in India, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.

Read more ....

Sophisticated Hunters Not To Blame For Driving Mammoths To Extinction

Giant animals such as the woolly mammoth were already facing extinction by the time humans had developed more lethal weapons. Photograph: Corbis/Royal BC Museum, British Columbia

From The Guardian:

Woolly mammoths and other giant ice-age mammals faced extinction 2,000 years before deadly speartips were invented.

Woolly mammoths and other large, lumbering beasts faced extinction long before early humans perfected their skills as spearmakers, scientists say.

The prehistoric giants began their precipitous decline nearly 2,000 years before our ancestors turned stone fragments into sophisticated spearpoints at the end of the last ice age.

Read more ....

Human Extinction: How Could It Happen?

A nuclear bomb test is shown in Nevada, Aug. 18, 1957. Nuclear or near nuclear war/engagement between any two nations could have a hand in human extinction, research concludes. Getty Images

From Discovery News:

It would take a combination of severe and catastrophic events to drive the hardy human race to extinction, research concludes.

Humans could become extinct, a new study concludes, but no single event, aside from complete destruction of the globe, could do us in, and all extinction scenarios would have to involve some kind of intent, either malicious or not, by people in power.

The determinations suggest that the human race itself will ultimately determine its fate.

Read more ....

10 Failed Doomsday Predictions

Comets feature prominently in at least a couple notable doomsday scenarios. In fact nature may eventually destroy us with an icy space rock, but so far none of the predictions related to comets ­ or any other doomsday prognostications ­ have come true. Credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

With the upcoming disaster film "2012" and the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions, it seems like a good time to put such notions in context.

Most prophets of doom come from a religious perspective, though the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. One thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common: They don't come to pass.

Here are 10 that didn't pan out, so far:

Read more ....

Species' Extinction Threat Grows

From BBC:

More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.

Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.

These included 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.

Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss.

Read more ....

Recipe for Mass Extinction: Add Algae and Stir Controversy

A new hypothesis claims toxins from algae played a major role in all five mass extinctions. Shown here, an algal bloom of blue-green algae. Credit: Fond du Lac County Wisconsin

From Live Science:

Mass extinctions that wiped entire species off the face of the Earth in a relative blink of the eye are often blamed on catastrophic occurrences, such as an asteroid crash or large volcanic eruption. But a new hypothesis points to a different culprit: lowly algae.

In the past 540 million years, five massive extinctions are thought to have killed off, in each case, some 50 percent to 90 percent of animal species. A new study suggests that toxins from algae played a major role in all five extinctions, including the most recent and most well-known – the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The idea was presented at the annual Geological Society of America meeting Oct. 19.

Read more ....

Volcanoes Played Pivotal Role In Ancient Ice Age, Mass Extinction

Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered that volcanoes played a pivotal role in a deadly ice age that occurred nearly half a billion years ago. This photograph shows volcanic ash beds -- formed around 455 million years ago -- layered in the rock of the Nashville Dome area in central Tennessee. (Credit: Photo by Matthew Saltzman, courtesy of Ohio State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 26, 2009) — Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago.

Perhaps ironically, these volcanoes first caused global warming -- by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

When they stopped erupting, Earth's climate was thrown off balance, and the ice age began.

Read more ....

Comets Didn't Wipe Out Sabertooths, Early Americans?

North America's Great Lakes (pictured in an aerial shot on May 4, 2002) were created during glacial retreats and advances over millions of years—including the brief cold snap called the Younger Dryas, which occurred about 12,900 years ago. What caused the cold snap, though, has proved controversial: Recent research has weakened a theory that a giant comet caused the drop in temperatures and wiped out much of North America's wildlife, scientists said in October 2009. Photograph courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

From National Geographic:

A comet impact didn't set off a 1,300-year cold snap that wiped out most life in North America about 12,900 years ago, scientists say.

Though no one disputes the frigid period, more and more researchers have been unable to confirm a 2007 finding that says a collision triggered the change, known as the Younger Dryas.

Read more ....

Did Dryas Comet Really Kill Off Mammoth?

Did a comet impact really kill off megafauna such as the mammoth,
mastodan and sabre-tooth tiger? Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: Debate on the existence of a Younger Dryas comet impact, 12,900 years ago, and whether it is linked to mass extinctions of large mammals and early humans in North America reopened this week.

The Younger Dryas was a 1,300-year-long cold snap that affected climate in much of the Northern Hemisphere. In 2007, a team led by Richard Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the U.S., argued that it was caused by the impact of a comet.

Read more ....

Killer Algae: Key Player In Mass Extinctions

Pond covered with algae. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 20, 2009) — Supervolcanoes and cosmic impacts get all the terrible glory for causing mass extinctions, but a new theory suggests lowly algae may be the killer behind the world's great species annihilations.

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be toxic algae. The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentrations, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection of dust or sediment from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish, poisons shellfish, or even humans.

Read more ....