extinct
What if the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct? Why our world might look very different
Giant dinosaurs and mammals through time. Credit: Nick Longrich Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth with the force of 10 billion atomic bombs and changed the course of evolution. The skies darkened and plants stopped photosynthesising. The plants died, then the animals that fed on them. The food chain collapsed. Over 90% …
This Tiny Creature Seemed Extinct. DNA Technology Helped Prove It Wasn’t.
“We know from ‘C.S.I.’ that we leave DNA everywhere,” said Sean Rogers, a biologist at the University of Calgary who published a review of eDNA technology in November. “With conservation it became — instead of taking nets to try to capture fish or hoping to catch something on a wildlife camera — let’s take forensics …
Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Debate rages on
But the cause has never been definitively settled, and some scientists have questioned the widely held “sudden-death by asteroid” theory. That camp believes that massive volcanic eruptions, which may have released climate-changing gases in the Spain-sized region known as the Deccan Traps, played a significant role. Now, a group of researchers at Yale University are …
Giant Parrot Heracles inexpectatus, aka ‘Squawkzilla,’ Is First-of-Its-Kind Find in New Zealand: Study
(Newser) – Researchers believe they’ve found the largest known parrot to ever inhabit our planet, and it just happens to be about twice the size of the parrot it now dethrones. While the critically endangered kakapo of New Zealand can weigh close to 8 pounds, Heracles inexpectatus weighed an estimated 15.5 pounds and, …
