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Before the dinosaurs, a million-year long volcanic eruption destroyed the ozone layer
It's known as the "Great Dying," an extinction event even more powerful than the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It's called the Permian-Triassic extinction event, and it took place 250 million years ago, before dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Scientists previously believed the Permian-Triassic extinction event happened because of a volcanic eruption. And not just any volcanic eruption... the volcanic eruption. Called the "Siberian Flood Basalts," this million-year-long volcanic eruption potentially caused the extinction of up to 96 percent of marine life, along with 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species.
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Eight bird species are first confirmed avian extinctions this decade
Most of the extinctions were caused by deforestation in South America, a new study of endangered birds shows
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Half the planet should be set aside for wildlife – to save ourselves
If we want to avoid mass extinctions and preserve the ecosystems all plants and animals depend on, governments should protect a third of the oceans and land by 2030 and half by 2050, with a focus on areas of high biodiversity. So say leading biologists in an editorial in the journal Science this week.
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Stephen Hawking: Humans need to leave Earth or risk being annihilated by nuclear war or climate change
Stephen Hawking believed humans need to leave the Earth in order to avoid annihilation. In a collection of essays published posthumously on Tuesday, Hawking wrote that climate change and the possibility of nuclear war are putting humans in grave danger, adding that the latter is likely the biggest threat to humanity. The scientist, who died in March, wrote in Brief Answers to the Big Questions that people treat the Earth with "reckless indifference," which could result in our own extinction if we don't find another home.
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We can save coral reefs by putting them on ice
The planet’s coral reefs are in trouble. Thanks to warming and acidifying oceans, the animals that make up coral reefs are dying, turning the reefs themselves into algae-covered ghost towns. This represents a loss of habitat for numerous nearby creatures, many of which evolved to only live in the reefs. So the deaths of the corals can lead to the deaths of many other species. From monitoring the reefs by listening to them to local action and working to understand the dynamics of coral illness, scientists and conservationists...
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'Test tube trees' plan to combat extinction
Why trees grown in test tubes could be the answer to preserving the world's forests for the future.
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'The most intellectual creature to ever walk Earth is destroying its only home' | Jane Goodall
Introducing the Guardian’s new series The Age of Extinction, the renowned primatologist describes the dramatic vanishing of wildlife she has witnessed in her lifetime – and how we can all play a vital role in halting its destruction
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There be monsters: from cabinets of curiosity to demons within
Monsters once inhabited the mysterious fringes of the known world. In our human-dominated present, can they still be found? By Natalie Lawrence.
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Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds
Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation. The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life..
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Escalator to Extinction: How Mountain Species Are Imperiled by Warming
A recent study showed that birds in the Andes were heading uphill to keep pace with warming temperatures and would soon run out of room. It’s the latest example of how species are on the move as they struggle to adapt to climate change.
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‘It’s very easy to save a species’: how Carl Jones rescued more endangered animals than anyone else
Without Jones, the world might have lost the Mauritius kestrel, the pink pigeon, the echo parakeet and more – but the biologist’s methods are controversial. The last surviving bird of prey on Mauritius seemed doomed. In 1974, there were only four Mauritius kestrels left in the wild and attempts to breed them in captivity were failing. Extinction was “all but inevitable”, in the words of Norman Myers, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists.
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Steller's sea cow: the first historical extinction of a marine mammal at human hands
Their closest living relatives are the dugong and manatees, known collectively as the sirenians. But while all four surviving species of sirenian live in warm tropical waters, Steller's sea cow had become highly specialised to the sub-Arctic waters of the northern Pacific Ocean. This specialisation included growing to incredible sizes: adults could reach up to 10 metres in length while weighing up to 11 tonnes, bigger than many modern whales. To put this into perspective, an adult male killer whale can come in at eight metres long and weigh up to six tonnes.
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Anthropocene – A Sense of Place Magazine – Medium
The Age of Humans
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Humans have wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, says WWF
Life on earth is being wiped out by humans living beyond the planet's means, according to conservation organisation WWF. Their latest global report claims wildlife is dying out faster than ever and says nature needs international "life support". Between 1970 and 2014, 60% of all animals with a backbone - fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals - were wiped out by human appetites and activity, the report says.
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Puritan Tiger Beetles, ‘Vicious Predators,’ May Soon Hunt Again
The beetles are New England’s most endangered species. Now scientists have begun an unlikely effort to return them to the banks of the Connecticut River.
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The 'great dying': rapid warming caused largest extinction event ever, report says
Rapid global warming caused the largest extinction event in the Earth’s history, which wiped out the vast majority of marine and terrestrial animals on the planet, scientists have found. The mass extinction, known as the “great dying”, occurred around 252m years ago and marked the end of the Permian geologic period. The study of sediments and fossilized creatures show the event was the single greatest calamity ever to befall life on Earth, eclipsing even the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago.
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Climate change caused the “Great Dying,” aka the planet’s worst extinction
The “Great Dying” was just as bad as it sounds. In the planet’s worst mass extinction 252 million years ago, up to 80 percent of all species died out, including up to 96 percent of ocean species. Trilobites, sea scorpions, and spiny sharks disappeared forever. The rapid reorganization of life on Earth spawned all kinds of unimaginably nasty things, like a giant burp of toxic hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere released from decaying marine animals.
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These species went extinct in 2018. More may be doomed to follow in 2019.
They've been on our planet for millions of years, but 2018 was the year several species officially vanished forever. Three bird species went completely extinct this year, scientists say, two of which are songbirds from northeastern Brazil: The Cryptic Treehunter (Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti) and Alagoas Foliage-gleaner (Philydor novaesi), according to a recent report from the conservation group BirdLife International.
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In Memoriam: The Species We Lost To Extinction In 2018
Each year, the Oscars present an In Memoriam – a roundup of the famous faces the world lost in the past 12 months. And as the year that’s seen warnings of apocalyptic worldwide extinctions with effects lasting millions of years into the future finally draws to its close, it’s only fitting that we do the same. So here’s IFLScience’s In Memoriam: a tribute to all the species we lost in 2018. Fittingly, the first wildlife obituary belongs to a movie star: the Spix’s Macaw. The star of Rio’s brilliant blue plumage has now been seen in the wild for the last time – around 100 of the birds still exist, and all are in captivity.
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Extinct mammoths could be given protected status in bid to save elephants
Extinct mammoths could be given protected status in bid to save elephants
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