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What if all the cats on Earth vanished one day, beamed back to their home planet or taken up in the kitty rapture? We'd certainly miss their funny LOLCat antics and the way they sleep on our keyboards, but what greater disasters lie in store for a feline-free planet Earth? One scientist takes a look at the catpocalypse, and it's not pretty. More »
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Science is always good for an awesomely counter-intuitive finding, and this one has to be the mother of them all. Despite the fact that life itself originally came from the sea, the same can't be said of the ocean's current occupants. More »
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The first, moss-like plants emerged on land about 470 million years ago. In just 25 million years, they stripped the planet of vital minerals, wrecked Earth's carbon cycle, started an ice age, and caused a mass extinction of marine life. More »
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In theory, a supernova thousands of light-years away could release gamma-rays that would fry most life on Earth. But the star must be positioned exactly right for this to ever happen, and there's no way to prove it. Until now. More »
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A 15 kilometer wide asteroid is headed toward the Earth, but NASA scientists spot it three years before impact. Movie lore not withstanding, what the hell are we supposed to do? Could we even organize the global community enough to stop this flaming ball that astronomers call a near-Earth object (NEO)? Let's find out. More »
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How the dinosaurs died is maybe the most well-known story in all paleontology, but the dinosaurs' origins are more obscure. Dinosaurs might well have gotten their chance to rule the planet from the very thing that later killed them off. More »
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As sea temperatures rise, many fish species will have to relocate to find waters that can support them. But they won't have a lot of time to look for the right new home. For fish, it's survival of the fastest. More »
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One of the most dramatic mass extinctions in history, the End Permian event 250 million years ago, took out 95 percent of species on Earth. Scientists have long believed this holocaust began when a mega-volcano erupted in what is now Siberia, polluting the atmosphere and causing acid rain for possibly thousands of years. But now a new study suggests that the first wave of extinctions after the volcano were self-perpetuating. More »
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The Permo-Triassic extinction event happened 251 million years ago, killing off 96% of all marine species, and 70% of those on land. As bad as all that was, it now appears that land-based species recovered much faster than previously believed. More »
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In the ultimate cosmic cataclysm, two ultra-dense bodies collide. For less than a second, incredible amounts of super-charged particles explode forth. These blasts could wipe out most life on Earth...and it's probably happened dozens of times already. More »
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For years, paleontologists have disagreed over whether birds from the Cretaceous period went out with a whimper — dying out gradually over the course of millions of years — or with a bang — getting wiped out by the same mass extinction event that is believed to have killed off Earth's most recent (and final) wave of dinosaurs. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5841541&view=rss&microfeed=true England's Prince Charles has always been something of an environmentalist, and now he's begun to share his concern that Earth is in the middle of a sixth mass extinction. The term "sixth extinction," popularized by anthropologist Richard Leakey and New Yorker environment writer Elizabeth Kolbert, refers to the fact that Earth has already been through five events over the past couple billion years where the majority of all life on the planet died out. The Telegraph summed up the Prince's speech to the World Wildlife Fund: More »
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We're almost certain that a giant meteor hit Earth 65 million years ago. But a mysterious "three-meter gap" in the fossil record might mean dinosaurs were already dying off. Now a newly discovered fossil might finally reveal the whole story. More »
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This is an artist's conception of the river turtle Boremys, which is one of the first known species whose existence actually improved in the immediate aftermath of the massive extinction event, 65 million years ago. More »
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Earth has had five mass extinction events in the last 540 million years, in which more than three-quarters of animal species went extinct. We're on the verge of the sixth mass extinction, but it's not too late to stop it. More »
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About 250 million years ago, the world suffered through an extinction event that makes the death of the dinosaurs look like a minor hiccup by comparison. And now we have our best understanding yet of what caused the Great Dying. More »
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It's not enough that birds are dropping from the skies and fish are washing up on our shores...now we've got disappearing bumblebees to contend with. Some American bumblebee species saw a massive 96% population drop in the last 20 years. More »
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375 million years ago, Earth suffered through its worst extinction event ever: 95% of all species perished. But here's the paradox: extinctions weren't actually any more common then than they are now. The real secret is that Earth's biodiversity collapsed. More »
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Meteorites killed the dinosaurs and have nearly wiped out humanity in multiple Hollywood blockbusters, but have these deadly space rocks actually gotten a bad rap? One geologist argues we should actually be thankful for all meteorites have done for us. More »
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450 million years ago, the Earth's warm oceans teemed with life we'd recognize as seaweed, starfish, clams, and coral reefs. Suddenly, over half these species died. Now scientists say it was caused by cosmic rays - and could happen again. More »
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250 million years ago, 95% of life on Earth perished, probably from megavolcanoes. 65 million years ago, a meteor strike destroyed the dinosaurs. Now, some say another mass extinction is underway. Scientists tell you how to survive it. More »
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This map shows extinction hot spots for vertebrates (mammals, birds, and amphibians). Brown areas and blue areas are regions of intense die-offs. It's from a massive research study published today, showing nearly one-fifth of vertebrates are threatened with extinction. More »
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The theory that a giant asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago gained acceptance when we discovered the gigantic Chicxulub crater. Now we've found the crater of another asteroid that struck Earth at almost the exact same time. More »
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A gamma ray burst hitting Earth would seriously harm the plankton that are responsible for a significant fraction of photosynthesis. That would cause a massive spike in carbon dioxide levels, potentially causing a mass extinction...and it's quite possibly already happened. More »
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During long history of planet Earth, massive extinctions and violent climate changes are the norm. We've created this infographic to help you chart the rise and fall and rise of life on Earth over the past few billion years. More »
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Climate change is melting the poles, and the Deepwater oil disaster is killing countless animals in the Gulf. It feels like an environmental apocalypse is brewing. Is the planet about to undergo a mass extinction? We asked an extinction biologist. More »
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In the 1980s, fossil record research showed a curious cycle: Every 27 million years, Earth hosted a mass extinction. Some scientists blamed a dim star dubbed Nemesis. More »
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Among paleontologists, it's sometimes called the "Great Dying." Roughly a quarter of a billion years ago, 90-95 percent of all life on Earth died out. It took 30 million years for the planet to recover. What happened? More »
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Life on Earth probably wouldn't be extinguished by a comet strike alone. Mass extinctions require at least two kinds of mega-events, one of which is often a volcano that erupts for thousands of years. More »
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It's high time Earth got smacked with a comet. These firey globs of doom tend to come in cycles, raining down on our planet about once every 36 million years. Using a computer simulation of how our solar system moves through the Milky Way, astrobiologists at the UK's Cardiff University found that we pass through the densest part of the galaxy every 35 to 40 million years — they call it a "bounce." It turns out that comet impacts on Earth follow a similar cycle, increasing in frequency just about every 36 million years, give or take. More »
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