At Quanta, it’s suggested they might be linked to extinction events.
extinction
At The Scientist: No, we did not kill off the Neanderthals but maybe we helped
If the Neanderthal woman was living and having kids with a non-Neanderthal man, she wasn’t living and having kids with a Neanderthal man. Perhaps, if non-Neanderthal men were more numerous, it was only a matter of time and only the usual amount of violence, rather than a big massacre.
In this version, we did NOT kill off the Neanderthals
There just weren’t very many Neanderthals to begin with so they were subject to a number of factors that diminished their numbers even further, say researchers.
Some dinos replaced their teeth multiple times a year
What’s interesting here is that even though just regrowing teeth through life would seem like an advantage, for mammals, more complex teeth turned out to be a bigger advantage.
Claim: Many types of human were kayoed in the Sixth Great Extinction
The trouble with these kinds of stories is, they write themselves. We don;t need data. If we like our history without much data, we should read epics instead of this stuff.
The mammals who crawled out after the dinosaurs died, 66 mya
Now, will those remains bolster textbook Darwinism or help sink it? Or in-between? We shall see.
New evidence found for the asteroid that deep-sixed the dinosaurs
It’s certainly valuable new information. The outstanding puzzle has always been, why were all dinosaurs killed off but not all mammals or reptiles?
Lovelock (now 100 years old): Cyborgs will replace us and treat us like houseplants
Like Darwin’s Ascent of Man, Lovelock’s Ascent of the Cyborgs has no ladder and he doesn’t sense the need for one.
At The Atlantic: Dinosaurs might have had whole civilizations; how would you know?
Actually, the Anthropocene is mainly a testament to the enormous power of immaterial ideas to shape things, for good or ill. It is the best argument against materialism and it is right under our noses.
Philosopher puts a positive spin on contemplating human extinction
So many scandals and impasses that science faces today stem in large part from the problem Moynihan avoids. Facts don’t validate themselves outside a structure that posits meaning from beyond the system. The system does not validate itself.
Researchers: 50 million years needed to recover extinct NZ birds! No, alas,, it’s impossible
Apart from cloning, to get the exact same birds, we’d have to rent the multiverse (if it existed). And then we would have an infinite number of planets with islands like New Zealand, including these birds. Never mind one…
Why didn’t the saber-toothed tigers survive?
If climate change, humans, or any other effect tended to mean smaller prey animals, it’s clear what happened: Saber teeth are not needed for dealing with sheep and calves. A mountain lion lugs less equipment around but gets the same value.
Are extinctions evidence of a divine purpose in life?
Hugh Ross: As with all mass extinction events that have occurred in the history of Earth’s life, the Pliocene-Pleistocene mass extinction event poses a serious challenge to models attempting to explain the history of Earth’s life by strictly natural means.
A new bug for Darwin’s finches: Mating disrupted by parasite
The whole story leaves one wondering what role incidental factors played, over many centuries, in the constant, reversible micro-evolution of the once-iconic Darwin’s finches.
Fun: Animatrons of extinct giant predators
Jurassic Park as if you were part of the cast.