|
Home / News / Tags / extinction
|
|
30
Stories about: extinction |
|
|
The koala bears are some of the most beautiful animals on the entire planet, and yet they are now threatened with extinction due to loss of habitat and human activities. A new report provides a bleak perspective to their future, showing that the bears could disappear completely within less than 30 years. The most sev... |
10 November 2009
20:01 GMT |
 |
|
In a groundbreaking discovery that could potentially unlock the mystery surrounding the disappearance of dinosaurs, experts in India have uncovered an ancient dinosaur spawning ground, featuring hundreds of clusters of eggs. Initial estimates place the fossilized remains at about 65 million years in the past, althoug... |
2 October 2009
03:59 GMT |
|
|
According to a new scientific study, published in the latest issue of the Geological Journal, the woolly mammoth persisted in the territory that is now the United Kingdom 6,000 years longer than first estimated. The new research, which analyzed several fossils found in Shropshire in 1986, determined that the large be... |
18 June 2009
04:39 GMT |
|
|
New archaeological data that have emerged following digs in New Mexico and Colorado seem to infirm the hypothesis that states that the catastrophic chain of events that triggered the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinct event killed off all dinosaur species on Earth, alongside some 70 percent of all other animals and fo... |
29 April 2009
10:59 GMT |
|
|
According to a new set of scientific investigations carried out at the site of the Chicxulub crater, in the northern Yucatan Peninsula, New Mexico, the asteroid that hit our planet more than 65 million years ago was not the reason for the extinction of dinosaurs and about 65 percent of all other species on Earth. The... |
27 April 2009
02:52 GMT |
|
|
The events that unfolded about 250 million years ago, at the Permian-Triassic boundary, are some of the most mysterious in history. At that moment, over a short period of time, more than 90 percent of all animals and plants on the surface of the planet died off, in a massive extinction event, for which satisfactory e... |
30 March 2009
10:39 GMT |
|
|
It's widely accepted in the scientific community that a massive extinction event took place on Earth between the Permian and the Triassic periods, wiping up almost 90 percent of both marine and land species and driving the ancestors of dinosaurs to the brink of extinction. Now, a team of researchers is seeking t... |
3 March 2009
09:40 GMT |
|
|
Over the years, we've heard numerous theories and hypotheses as to how the dinosaurs went extinct, and what caused the global event responsible for it. We've been thought to believe a comet or an asteroid is more than capable of wiping out all life on Earth, but a new research seems to contradict that. That... |
18 February 2009
07:01 GMT |
|
|
When people hear about mass extinctions of the past, they immediately think dinosaurs and asteroids, but what they don't know is that the event that occurred about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period), was not the first. In fact, before they even appeared, life came close to being obliterat... |
13 December 2008
04:16 GMT |
|
|
According to some IT industry analysts, the well known and widely used computer mouse may become an endangered species in the not so far future. The tendency in the industry is to offer users devices that will allow them to move the cursor on a screen through finger or hand gestures on touch screens and multi-touch t... |
21 November 2008
04:43 GMT |
|
|
The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), a salamander that also goes by the names of the "water monster" or the "Mexican walking fish," was an important element in Aztec legends and diet. As legend has it, the Aztec god of lightning, death and monstrosities, Xolotl, changed into an axolotl and ran into hiding in the Xochim... |
4 November 2008
06:10 GMT |
|
|
We all know that the environmental collapse topic is overrated, old news and largely discussed, to the point where it has become devoid of its true meaning. However, with all the people talking about it and urging towards taking a stance, one would expect that all is going better and that the problems are finally st... |
4 November 2008
04:29 GMT |
|
|
More complex studies of all five mass extinctions that paleontologists know about have shown that, with the exception of, maybe, the last one, four global extinction events (GEE) have no plausible scientific explanation. In the researchers' own words, a rock falling out of the sky simply doesn't cut it. The... |
17 October 2008
09:29 GMT |
|
|
The Tasmanian devil populations are in serious decline, notifies the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in its latest report. While the devils had a "least concern" rating a decade ago, the Union decided to move their threat level to "endangered". In some habitats, the populations decreased by as m... |
16 October 2008
10:20 GMT |
|
|
The state of Earth's wildlife is bleak at best, say researchers. More than 50 percent of all mammal species are endangered and a quarter of them are in immediate danger and face extinction. Out of the 5,487 mammals studied in this year's edition of the Red Book, a publication that keeps track of the danger ... |
7 October 2008
05:16 GMT |
|
|
Giant tortoises still represent the living symbol of the Galápagos archipelago, even as four of the fifteen species have long since been exterminated by human activity in the region. However, one of them could be brought back to life based on genetic techniques applied to museum-preserved specimens. When... |
24 September 2008
09:19 GMT |
|
|
A new study found out that early dinosaurs were far from being able to pose a threat for their competition; however, evolution in the planetary climate changed all that. At the beginning of the Triassic period, the planet was inhabited by a group of ruling reptilians called archosaurs. Over the next 10 million y... |
12 September 2008
03:53 GMT |
|
|
With the help of data regarding the fossils of as much as 4,000 known species of mammals that lived on Earth up to 60 million years ago, Aaron Clauset of the Santa Fe Institute and Douglas Erwin of the National Museum of Natural History created one of the most accurate computer models that estimates how the body size... |
18 July 2008
10:43 GMT |
|
|
The mass extinction of the marine life nearly 93 million years ago would have been most likely determined by the lack of oxygen in the oceanic waters as an intense underwater volcanic activity was triggered, says a study co-authored by Steven Turgeon of the University of Alberta. For a long time volcanism was thought... |
17 July 2008
10:29 GMT |
|
|
Fatal facial cancer tumors have been ravaging the Tasmanian devil populations ever since the mid 1990s, killing up to one third of the total number of the world's largest surviving carnivorous marsupials in the last decade or so. The fatal devil facial tumour disease (which in Tasmanian devils is probably spread... |
15 July 2008
05:20 GMT |
|
|
The group of most threatened animal species on Earth was extended recently to include the corals, which, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, will lose more than 25 percent of all species within the next couple of decades. Currently, there are 845 registered species of corals, out of w... |
11 July 2008
05:44 GMT |
|
|
When it comes to reptiles, temperature, rather than chance, decides the sex of their young ones. In most species of reptiles, an increase in nesting temperature usually gives rise to more females than males, although for a unique species of reptiles known as tuatara the situation is exactly the opposite. This basical... |
2 July 2008
10:05 GMT |
|
|
Just as Jesus woke up from the dead some two millennia ago, now a tree known as the Methuselah Tree (Phoenix dactylifera L.), currently extinct, has come back to life from a 2000 year old seed. The Methuselah Tree is currently the record holder for the oldest known seed ever to germinate. The seeds were allegedly dis... |
13 June 2008
03:45 GMT |
|
|
According to a new report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature 11 species of sharks around the world are at high-risks of extinction, while another five show a significant decline. The reason is, as usual, over-fishing, which is affecting shark species especially due to their low rates of re... |
23 May 2008
06:14 GMT |
|
|
Asteroid and comet collisions usually bring havoc to Earth, often provoking mass extinctions, but they can also seed life. In fact, we're most likely the product of such an event that took place several hundred million years ago. The last large impact that occurred is dated about 65 million years in the past and... |
15 May 2008
10:02 GMT |
|
|
As it travels through the Milky Way, the Sun experiences a periodical oscillation in relation to the galactic plane, meaning that the solar system intersects with some of the densest areas of the galaxy. This in turn can send comets and asteroids our way and determine catastrophic impacts with the Earth, such as that... |
13 May 2008
09:31 GMT |
|
|
Over 6.6 billion people inhabit the planet today. With all that, 70,000 years ago, no more than 2,000 people existed, as revealed by a new research carried out at Stanford University and published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. 70,000 years ago, our species was represented only by a small isolated African... |
29 April 2008
04:42 GMT |
|
|
Although most of the time they are associated to death and destruction, asteroids such as the one responsible for the extinction of the marine life 250 million years ago, or that of the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago, traveling through the immensity of space could have also brought organic materials, necess... |
18 December 2007
04:41 GMT |
|
|
The 6 billion humans inhabiting the Earth are here by sheer casualty. 74,000 years ago, the human species was at the brink of extinction, with a mere census of 2,000 individuals who finally managed to overcome the crisis and transmit their genetic pool to the modern man. The crisis coincided with the first migrations... |
27 September 2007
15:31 GMT |
|
|
It has already been predicted that by the end of the century, half of the languages spoken now worldwide will be gone. Not by evolving into another language (like Latin into Italian, Spanish, French or Romanian), but by being wiped out by other languages. A team has detected five global "hot spots" of indigenous lang... |
19 September 2007
04:35 GMT |
|
|
The most famous mass extinction is perhaps that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. The current man made extinction could be even worse. And several mass extinctions occurred along the geological eras. But the dinosaur extinction could be a minor event compared to what the clumsy snails and clams did 250 million ... |
31 July 2007
03:43 GMT |
|
|
At least five mass extinctions may have occurred in the history of our planet, meaning that in a relatively short period of time, a large number of species have disappeared. Probably the most famous one took place 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaur domination reached its end.... |
28 July 2007
07:01 GMT |
|
|
Mekong giant catfish can reach 3 m (10 ft) in length and be 350 kg (780 pounds) and arapaima of the Amazon can be 4.5 m (15 ft) long. But all these "little" creatures are dwarfed by the Chinese paddlefish, a monster that is 23 feet (7 meters) long and weighs 500 kg (even if recorded data speak about 3.5 m (12 ft) in... |
27 July 2007
06:37 GMT |
|
|
By far, this is the most emblematic giant beast of the Ice Age: the woolly mammoth. Now, a research investigating DNA from the bones, teeth and tusks of the extinct mammoths showed how their populations fluctuated after the last interglacial period, during the last glaciation. "In combination with the results on othe... |
11 June 2007
02:48 GMT |
|
|
About 6 waves of massive extinction are known in the history of the Earth. The last one wiped out the dinosaur world 65 million years ago and was probably due to a meteorite collision. But the recent one has no natural causes. It is man made and rampant, eliminating three animal or plant species every hour. Scientist... |
23 May 2007
06:53 GMT |
|
|
A group of scientists discovered new compelling evidence of a cataclysmic event that took place 13,000 years ago on Earth. A large comet exploded over the Earth and created a hail of fireballs that set most of the Northern Hemisphere on fire.After analyzing 26 different sites in Europe and North America, they found ... |
21 May 2007
08:42 GMT |
|
|
Faster mating means safer existence. This is valid at least in the case of the large herbivorous mammals, from rhinos and elephants to deer and antelopes: the slower their reproductive period, the higher the risk of extinction. Habitat loss and naturally limited living areas are also great factors of risk, but under ... |
16 May 2007
06:52 GMT |
|
|
This week, astronomers reported the brightest star explosion in our own galaxy and were all thrilled by the size and amount of light that the most spectacular supernova ever recorded had produced.Surely, they would be thrilled to see another explosion even closer to our solar system, like perhaps the star Eta Carina... |
12 May 2007
07:06 GMT |
|
|
At the end of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 65 million years ago, a catastrophic extinction event ended dinosaurs' dominance on land. One group of dinosaurs is known to have survived to the present day. Taxonomists consider modern birds to be direct descendants of theropod dinosaurs.The rise and fall of ... |
24 April 2007
02:47 GMT |
|
|
Leopard is the symbol of grace and force. Unfortunately, these magnificent beasts have been intensively persecuted and poached since ancient times, and have disappeared from many areas, like North Africa, Middle East or Eastern China, while only in South Saharan Africa some populations maintain healthy. A recent cen... |
21 April 2007
04:00 GMT |
|
|
Dinosaurs enjoyed their odor, as these ancient flowers exist since the Cretaceous Epoch (145.5 to 65.5 million years ago). They existed also in Europe till the arrival of the glaciations. But today, they are restricted to subtropical climes. About 60 % of magnolia species are found in Asia, with over 40 % growing in ... |
6 April 2007
06:11 GMT |
|
|
|
|
