The Top Ten are not numbered but #4 from the top is “Dinosaurs Weren’t in Decline When the Asteroid Hit. The thing that still puzzles many of us is, if dinosaurs weren’t in decline, why did they ALL die out?
extinction
Tens of thousands of rock paintings from 12,500 ya discovered in Colombia
From The Guardian: Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.
Asked at The Conversation: Could dinosaurs re-evolve?
We are told no. But just a minute. According to the story, some dinos evolved into birds. If so, massive changes ARE possible. It’s not clear why changed circumstances could not cause some of those changes to be reversed.
Apocalypse Alley: The asteroid Apophis 2068
Dvorsky: Should Apophis crash into Earth, it would unleash the equivalent of 1,150 megatons of TNT, in an event 3,800 times more powerful than the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima.
Did climate change cause the extinction of two hominin species?
Other researchers have offered some caution about the assumption that climate change is the cause, in part because of the sparseness of the fossil record.
The Great Fox spider of Britain is back from extinction
Thought extinct but spotted at a military training base.
How is that project of reintroducing lost species coming?
The interesting part will be to see whether—if both the animals and the environment have changed—reintroduction or recreation from advanced genomic techniques produces a viable independent species or a species that humans must indefinitely maintain.
This time, climate change helped do in the Neanderthals
Eventually, there will be more explanations for the demise of the Neanderthals as a separate group than there were Neanderthals. But never mind, the series has plenty of episodes to run in the meantime.
At Smithsonian Magazine: Why birds survived but not dinosaurs
Researchers: Beaked birds had the advantage that they could live on seeds from destroyed forests until new vegetation grew again.
Was the dinosaur destruction fine-tuned?
Okay but, seriously, if this data is correct, how would we know the extinction WASN’T fine-tuned?
Coffee!! Early Australia featured some weird monsters
Apparently, the platypus ended up inheriting the lot.
Dino death: Asteroid impact more likely than volcanoes, new study says
t Phjys.org: Now, a research team from Imperial College London, the University of Bristol and University College London has shown that only the asteroid impact could have created conditions that were unfavourable for dinosaurs across the globe.
Blue bee returns from extinction
Because of environment concern today, species are often reported as extinct that actually aren’t. They just stay out of the way of humans.
“Crazy beast” from 66 million years ago finally identified
BBC: Its discovery challenges previous assumptions that mammals were generally very small – the size of mice – at this point in their evolutionary history.
At Nature: Evolutionary trees can’t reveal speciation and extinction rates
New paper poses a serious challenge to the schoolroom Darwin industry. You know, one day, the study of evolution might be interesting, like the study of history. Prying the Darwin lobby and its propaganda loose from positions of power is a necessary first step.