This 'Great Dying' appears to have been driven by a complex series of incidents, with a new study finding prolonged, intense climate fluctuations not unlike modern El Niños almost undoubtedly made a bad situation a lot worse.
A space rock that smacked into Earth 66 million years ago and devastated the ancient life living thereon took a remarkably circuitous route to get here, a new study has found.
To save a diversity of plants and animals from the current mass extinction, the UN introduced a historic 'peace pact with nature' at the end of 2022, in which countries pledged to turn 30 % of the planet into protected zones by 2030.
A recent study has shed new light on this topic, pointing the finger more directly at human activity as the major cause of this mass extinction.
The loss of wolves to the region has been largely overlooked by humans, even in our scientific research, but the impact of their absence is written loudly in the missing trees.
Fossils from La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California suggest that sabertooth cats and other large North American mammals disappeared as a result of wildfires spurred by human activity.
Mounting evidence is pointing to the world having entered a sixth mass extinction. If the current rate of extinction continues we could lose most species by 2200.
In 2021, a global assessment found a shocking one-third of all tree species are currently teetering on the edge of existence. The extinction of a single species can cause a massive domino effect.
From the rapid development of vaccines for Covid-19 to the stunning collection of an asteroid sample, these were the biggest science moments of the year.
It looks like another extinction prior to the appearance of the dinosaurs paved the way for their long reign. That extinction took place about 233 million years ago. And scientists have only now discovered it.
Killer cosmic rays from nearby supernovae could be the culprit behind at least one mass extinction event, researchers said, and finding certain radioactive isotopes in Earth.
Three bird species, two frogs, a shark, a famous snail and one of the world's largest freshwater fish were among those declared extinct this year. According to many experts, the sixth mass extinction is currently taking place.
Volcanic activity did not play a direct role in the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, according to an international team of researchers. It was all about the asteroid.
Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have, on average, declined in size by 60 percent in just over 40 years.
A series of reports compiled by nearly 600 scientists meeting in Columbia paint a grim picture of the world at the end of the century, with human activities driving the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history.
