Algae: a key player in mass extinctions?

Dry spell almost killed off human race

Submitted by Stance: It was a very close call. If a devastating drought that gripped Africa had lasted just a little longer, or been a little worse, we would not be here today. There would be no humans, no cities, no art and no science. There would be no wars and no human-induced climate change. The world would belong to the animals. An international genetics project has found that modern humans almost became extinct 70,000 years ago. The Genographic Project, led by American and Israeli research...

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Human race will be extinct within 100 years

A microbiology professor who helped eradicate smallpox has claimed we will be extinct within only 100 years.Professor Frank Fenner of the Australian National University believes that the human race will be unable to survive due to overpopulation and overconsumption following a global population explosion. As the scientist whohelped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction. And now Professor FrankFenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian Na...

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Nasa warns over upcoming solar storm

Nasa has warned that solar flare activity in 2013 could cause widespread disruptions and devastation.Described as a "once in a generation solar storm" the flares could cause blackouts, communication disruptions and stop electrical devices from functioning, inflicting widespread devastation when it hits. Britain couldface widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, ...

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How space dust could wipe out life on Earth

If this were some 1950s sci-fi thriller, the Doomsday Cloud would loom dark and ominous in the evening sky. Each night more stars would wink out along its edges. The cloud would sweep past Jupiter, swallowing it whole, and race on toward Earth. There would be an inky darknessat noon. And so on.No, nothing is going to blot out the sun. But recent observations and numerical simulations suggest that eventually—in a few millennia,maybe—the solar system may plow into a cloud of gas and dust a thousan...

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Mass extinction event spared Europe

When a massive comet smashed in to the Earth 65 million years ago it caused widespread devastation that saw the end of the dinosaurs but strangely parts of Europe managed to recover muchfaster than everywhere else."When a comet crashed into theYucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, all hell broke loose. . Scientists have guessed at the scene: a world enshrouded in ashen darkness leftover from the cosmic impact that left almost...

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Comet impact narrowly avoided in 1883

A huge comet narrowly missed hitting the Earth when it passed within 5,000 miles of us in 1883.Astronomers have been examining a photograph of the comet taken in 1883 by Mexican astronomer José Banilla. At the time it was hailed as the first photograph of a UFO. The object would have been 8 times the mass of Haley"s comet and would have wrought untolddevastation if it had hit us. Mexican astronomer José Banilla took the image, which appears to show something passing in frontof the...

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Harold Camping claims new apocalypse date

Despite his prediction of May 21st falling through, Camping now claims that the world will end on Friday.The controversial radio preacher made headlines back in May when he announced that he"d extrapolated the date of the apocalypse using numerical codes extracted from the Bible, but when that date came and wentnothing happened. Now he"s back with a new prediction of Friday October 21st. The radio preacher whopredicted Judgment Day on May 21 has not backed down from his claims tha...

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Japan tsunami could be 1000-year event

Seismologists discover evidence of a similar tsunami that hit Sendai in 869 AD.The devastation wraught by the disaster that hit Japan on March 11, 2011 has been nothing less than horrific, but evidence of a similar tsunami eventin 869 AD has lead at least one seismologist to conclude that a tsunami of this size could happen on average once every one thousand years. It is not unusual for undersea earthquakes to generate tsunamis in this part ofJapan. . Offshore quakes in the 19th a...

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Could a nuke save us from an asteroid ?

In the event of an impending collision, would a nuclear bomb be enough to stop a killer asteroid ?Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have been running computer simulations to determine if a nuke could stop an asteroid like in movies such as Armageddon. "Ultimately this 1-megaton blast will disrupt all of the rocks in the rockpile of this asteroid, and if this werean Earth-crossing asteroid, would fully mitigate the hazard represented by the initial asteroid...

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How the World will END!

By Herbert C. Fyfe From Pearson's Magazine, July 1900. Illustrated by Warwick Goble Many of us are apt, not without some reason, to regard the world we live in as the centre of the universe, and to look upon the sun, the moon, and the stars as objects placed in the heavens for the special benefit of the human race. That the earth is but a minute object in the Cosmos; that it forms one of a number of bodies, many of them larger than itself, revolving around their central lumin...

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