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Domain: park.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to park.org.

Comments · 9

  1. Those who fail to study the past... by amightywind · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Mass Extinctions from Global Warming?

    Make things up in the present! Here is our best understanding of causes of the past mass extinctions:

    • Precambrian/Vendian - widespread glaciation
    • Cambrian - Cooling and depletion of oxygen in marine waters
    • Early Orduvician - Glaciation
    • Devonian - global cooling, similar to the event which is thought to have cause the late Ordovician mass extinction
    • Permian - global widespread cooling and/or worldwide lowering of sea level Cretaceous - Meteorite, cooling climate disruption

    There has never been an extinction event caused by global warming. Warmth is conducive to life.

  2. Re:Evolution by Scrameustache · · Score: 1 · on Scientists Give Human Organs to Lamb

    Evolution, at its very fundamentals, just plain makes no sense.

    Makes perfect sense to me, and to tons of people with fancy titles like "professor" and "doctor".
    Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that thing makes no sense. Maybe you're just stupid, have you given any thought to that possiblity?

    And no, there is not infinately more evidence for evolution then for spontaneous genesis.

    Yes, there is infinatly more evidence for evolution. Since there IS evidence for evolution, whereas there is only claims for the "the old man in the sky waved his hand and POOF! Horsies and bunnies!".

    Then again, if finding the tooth of a now extinct type of pig or chimp is enough to convince someone that we all evolved from monkeys

    Yeah, you're igorant all right.
    Here's something you seem to have never heard of: The Evolution of Man.

    Glad I could help.

  3. Re:that's two in a few days by rustl · · Score: 2, Informative · on Closest Asteroid Yet Flies Past Earth
    No, that show was about the Permian mass extinction, the dinosaurs died off in the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction one. See hannover.park.org

    The show said that there was a temperature rise of about 5 degree C, cause unknown possibly Siberian sheild lava flow, and this warmed the seas enough to cause the melt/sublimation of large amounts of Methane Hydrate releasing large amounts of methane causing a greenhouse effect and another 5 degree rise in global temp.

  4. Re:Farnsworth and TV by cr0sh · · Score: 2, Informative · on College Freshman Builds Fusion Reactor
    They, of course, phrased that wrong - arguably, Philo T. Farnsworth is the inventor of completely electronic television. Until RCA and Sarnoff stole his ideas and ran. This resulted in Farnsworth dying "a pauper". Only recently was he reinstated in that role instead of RCA, ala court action, similar to the Tesla/Marconi debate, ENIAC vs. ABC, among others...

    See this site and this site for more details...

  5. A few interesting science sites by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1 · on Interesting and Educational Web Pages for Children?

    Here's a few sites that'll be maybe at the very limits of the kids' grasp and understanding. But that's good. They should be challenged to learn "the next step up", rather than being fed dumbed-down Barney crud. There's nothing in these pages that a parent can object to (unless they happen to be diehard creationists).

    http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html

    The Tree of Life is a collaborative web project, produced by biologists from around the world. On more than 2600 World Wide Web pages, the Tree of Life provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their history, and characteristics.

    http://whyfiles.org/

    "Science behind the news"

    http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/

    The Nine Planets is an overview of the history, mythology, and current scientific knowledge of each of the planets and moons in our solar system. Each page has text and images, some have sounds and movies, most provide references to additional related information.


    http://parallel.park.org/Canada/Museum/extinctio n/ tablecont.html
    Extinctions: Cycles of Life and Death Through Time (more than just the dinosaurs 65 million years ago)

  6. There's been a lot more than two by ynotds · · Score: 3, Informative · on Lava Flow May Have Caused Extinction
    Note that there are two different big extinctions
    There are generally five biggies identified since the "Cambrian explosion", the sudden diversification of animal body plans/phyla, these being identified with the Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian, Permian and Cretaceous geological periods.

    However it doesn't take a lot of imagination to realise that the abrupt changes in the rocks which have long guided geologists to divide geologic time into distinct epochs must be due to global changes in the ecology, especially in marine microorganisms ... the smoking gun for the late Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium.

    This overview of the big five events and their causes shows them bracketed by a pair that led into the Cambrian explosion and a seemingly human induced one.

    There is a lot of conjecture about causes for specific extinction events, IMNSHO mainly due to the growing human (and especially scientific) demand that causes be singular. Purported causes include extensive glaciation which is relatively easy to spot in the geological record, flood volcanism, which is a bit harder because it is relatively localised, and impacts, the most recent of which at least managed to leave a layer enriched with iridium and a large crater.

    But even re that most recent dinosaur ending event there is still evidence that the Deccan Traps lava flood may have played a role, as there are persistent claims for impacts as well as Siberian lava flows around the time of the real biggie at the end of the Permian which this article focuses on.

    Personally I'm leaning more and more towards a double whammy theory of mass extinction that would require some sustained global stress complemented by a more sudden knockout punch. And that doesn't get humanity off the hook.

    Of more consequence for populist misinterpretations of Darwin's great insights is that it has needed the slate to be wiped almost clean many times before an opportunity arose for mammals, let alone humans, to rise to prominence.

    As co-conspirators in the rise of imformation technology we should be able to see the importance of mass extinctions opening opportunities for those who may be better at innovation.
  7. Re:Humans and counting by Thud457 · · Score: 2, Informative · on Every Species on Earth

    "???? -> 1900 - 75 species extinct"

    I believe that may be inaccurate.

  8. Re:It is not garbage by netpixie · · Score: 1 · on Global Warming Worse Than Thought
    But, we have never had a disaster that has wiped out all higher life

    Nice try but wrong. IIRC quite a few geological age boundaries are defined by mass extinctions which did kill off all higher life. Check this for more.

    -------------------------------------------

  9. Age of the earth by mwillis · · Score: 1 · on Evolution is a Myth in Kansas

    I agree with you on the foolishness of "Young
    Earth" studies. (Young Earthers believe all geology was a result
    of a biblical flood and the world is as old as the bible seems to say,
    and look for "science" that supports this view). But just calling the
    "Young-earth" crowd foolish doesn't necessarily convince anyone. You
    need proof. Here is a brief history of the universe that must all be
    argued away by the young-earthers.


    A brief history of the world:

    The universe itself is about 14 billion years old, give or take a billion.

    The world is about 4.55 billion years old. This date
    is probably when the moon was created by a large impact with
    the earth. The oldest rocks we can find are about 3.8 billion years
    ago. Primitive lifeforms exist from this era. Until 2 billion years ago the
    earth was an inhospitable place, basically devoid of oxygen.
    During the paleozoic era, from 540 million years ago, to 250
    million years ago, complex life evolved in the sea and plants formed on
    land. The first reptiles evolved. A number of mass extinctions occur in
    this time, but 250 million years ago, a really big mass extinction
    happens. Was it volcanism? More than 90% of existing species become
    extinct.

    The Mesozoic era, from 250 million years ago, to 65 million years
    ago, is the age of reptiles. Dinosaurs appear. 65 Million years ago,
    something big hit the earth and caused a huge round of mass extinctions
    known as the kt
    event. The dinosaurs disappeared. This is the "big break" for the
    mammals that became eventually our species. Between 65 million years
    ago and 4-5 million years ago, really ugly mammal forms evolved into
    things that look like people. 4-5 million years ago, we have evidence
    of some of our first recognizable forerunners. A. Afarensis ("Lucy")
    is between 3 and 4 million years old. 400,000 years ago we find Homo
    Sapiens. 200,000 years ago we find evidence of Homo Sapiens Sapiens
    -- modern man.

    By contrast, civilization with recorded history only begins 10,000
    years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in modern-day
    Iraq.