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Scientists Say The Asteroid That Killed The Dinosaurs Almost Wiped Us Out Too (theweek.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Conventional wisdom states that mammalian diversity emerged from the ashes of the Cretaceous/Tertiary mass extinction event, ultimately giving rise to our own humble species. But Joshua A. Krisch writes at This Week that the asteroid that decimated the dinosaurs also wiped out roughly 93 percent of all mammalian species. "Because mammals did so well after the extinction, we have tended to assume that it didn't hit them as hard," says Nick Longrich. "However our analysis shows that the mammals were hit harder than most groups of animals, such as lizards, turtles, crocodilians, but they proved to be far more adaptable in the aftermath." Mammals survived, multiplied, and ultimately gave rise to human beings.
So what was the great secret that our possum-like ancestors knew that dinosaurs did not? One answer is that early mammals were small enough to survive on insects and dying plants, while large dinosaurs and reptiles required a vast diet of leafy greens and healthy prey that simply weren't available in the lean years, post-impact. So brontosauruses starved to death while prehistoric possums filled their far smaller and less discerning bellies. "Even if large herbivorous dinosaurs had managed to survive the initial meteor strike, they would have had nothing to eat," says Russ Graham, "because most of the earth's above-ground plant material had been destroyed." Other studies have suggested that mammals survived by burrowing underground or living near the water, where they would have been somewhat shielded from the intense heatwaves, post-impact. Studies also suggest that mammals may have been better spread-out around the globe, and so had the freedom to recover independently and evolve with greater diversity. "After this extinction event, there was an explosion of diversity, and it was driven by having different evolutionary experiments going on simultaneously in different locations," Longrich says. "This may have helped drive the recovery. With so many different species evolving in different directions in different parts of the world, evolution was more likely to stumble across new evolutionary paths."
I always imagined that dinosaurs, as part of an ecosystem, were fairly well adapted to their environment. After the "extinction event", which significantly changed the environment and lead to their extinction would also result in the elimination of many species (both flora and fauna).
What I found interesting that is hinted at in the TFA (and had not thought about) was the creation/availability of niches for surviving species to take over and evolve into.
I would be quite interested in finding out if there are any fossil remains of mammals and how they fit into the ecosystem with dinosaurs before the big one hit. Other than cockroaches, I suspect that the Earth's inhabitants were wildly different and the different creatures inhabited different parts of the food chain would be very different from the ones that inhabited it after the meteor strike.
Hopefully this research will result in more study being taken in the world of 60+ million years ago.
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That word, as defined by pedants, is utterly useless. Other than those who hail from one particular ancient civilization that had a certain peculiar military punishment, nobody kills exactly 1 in 10 of anything.
That's why the vast majority of the population who have normal minds use an entirely different definition of the word. A definition that's actually relevant to enough real situations to justify the word's existence.
Because having imaginary friends is cute if you're under 8, after that it gets kinda sad, and when you pass 20 it gets scary.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I feel like every few years the "scientific community" comes to a consensus on a new dino apocalypse theory. I am, so sick of unlearning all the shit that I learned in high school only to have to relearn it again.
For example, dinosaurs were on their way out before the meteor hit.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/...
So was the asteroid really that bad? Honestly, I just don't care anymore. What I do care about is the pseudoscience passed off as facts as if the scientific community is doing more than trying to tell a consistent story based on a minuscule amount of evidence. The sad thing is scientists can't agree on theories when there is a preponderance of evidence. What hope do we have of knowing something that happened to living things millions of years ago. Quit sensationalizing this stuff.
Because having imaginary friends is cute if you're under 8, after that it gets kinda sad, and when you pass 20 it gets scary.
When it gets really scary is when you pass it on to your kids.
"Tommy, your great-great-...-great grandparents screwed up. So an all-powerful being says that that means that you deserve to die and then be roasted forever in pain. But don't be afraid. Just ask Jesus and he'll make it all better. He got himself killed painfully just to save you from that. And didn't even bother to ask permission from you first."
And not all dinosaur species died out. The avian dinosaurs survived. So we have most mammal lines dying out, and most dinosaur lines dying out. In short: "giant meteor killed most, but not all, species on Earth"
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
Forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfao urum gyltendum, you modern English-speaking bastard.
So an omnipotent, omniscient being popping out of nothing then crafting us like playdough makes more sense?
It makes a lot more sense than the Universe suddenly appearing from nothing for no reason.
Religion is for people whose minds are too small to handle ambiguity. Science is fine with saying "This is what we know, which is not everything." Religion has to say "We know everything", because when it fails to answer a question, it fails to provide comfort, and that's all it ever provides. People who are more comforted with any answer than by correct answers take to religion. The rest of us expect some logic behind a statement.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And not all dinosaur species died out. The avian dinosaurs survived. So we have most mammal lines dying out, and most dinosaur lines dying out. In short: "giant meteor killed most, but not all, species on Earth"
Avian dinosaurs and mammals have several things in common. They both have some form of covering (fur/feathers), they both have a lot of smaller species, they both have a lot of omnivorous species, and most importantly all mammals and many avian species can regulate their own internal body heat. My guess is that the fur/feathers combined with being warm blooded is what gave mammals/avians the biggest lead. With wildly fluctuating temperatures, being able to self-regulate would be a major advantage. I don't think the immediate heat is the problem. The problem is that if you survive that then the dust has now blocked out the sun and temperatures drop for the next several years. Dinosaurs had evolved for a tropical environment and would have had no way to deal with several years of cold weather. This also explains why most of the reptiles that did survive are aquatic. Water would have helped the aquatic species regulate their body temperatures better.
So was the asteroid really that bad? Honestly, I just don't care anymore. What I do care about is the pseudoscience passed off as facts as if the scientific community is doing more than trying to tell a consistent story based on a minuscule amount of evidence. The sad thing is scientists can't agree on theories when there is a preponderance of evidence. What hope do we have of knowing something that happened to living things millions of years ago. Quit sensationalizing this stuff.
Sounds like you need religion, not science.
I think you crave consistency, and unchanging thought, which religion by it's nature provides.
Regardless, the idea that dinosaurs were on the decline is not contradicting of a meteor strike. It might have been the event that ended dinosaurs as the alpha critters on the planet, but in fact it didn't even completely wipe out the dinosaurs, they are still among us as birds.
This idea that mammals were largely decimated is perfectly consistent with a large asteroid strike as well.
And rather than getting distressed as the pieces of the puzzle are filled in, some of us get in a more celebratory mood as we gain more evidence. The various fields with their individual facts correlating with other disciplines, with geology, physics, paleontology, and often others converging on a likely scenario, and then further research showing the plausibility or lack of plausibility are just plain exciting. Even when wrong, it teaches us which way we don't want to look in the future.
What causes you distress, causes many of us excitement. But it is knowledge versus being certain of something
Which is why I suggest the surety of religion for you, especially of the fundamentalist kind.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Religion, at its foundation, is about the experience of humanity. And, in as much as humans are the same as they always have been, the lessons of religions are immutably valid.
Religions even speak narratives today, fraught with meaning concerning large groups of people. I hope the lessons learned from the growth of religions to their current proportions can find their way into our lexicons of knowledge for future generations, much as religious texts did for early mankind. That said, our chroniclers are no longer the shaman and elders they once were, and their analogous oral histories and manuscripts have been replaced by peer reviewed papers and investigative journalism.
For the well read it is easy to see how the shift from inherited wisdom to procedural knowledge has also resulted in a shift from broad strokes to incredibly detailed minutiae. I long for an updated text, encompassing truth for the ages, designed to be passed to future generations, but developed by a modern mindset and devoid of the pitfalls of some of the current religions. Were I to have the honor I would call it "A handbook for those that walk with humans."
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.