Author: Harry Marcolis

A team of scientists studying rock samples in the Gulf of Mexico is providing new evidence about exactly how the dinosaurs were killed off 66 million years ago when a massive asteroid about 10 kilometers wide crashed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Researchers have debated the possible ways the Chicxulub impact could have wiped out most of Earth’s species, with some arguing that tsunamis in the aftermath of the explosion were the main culprit.

Now, researchers led by Professor Joanna Morgan at Imperial College London, make a good case that the specific gases released into the atmosphere by the asteroid impact created a long-lasting global winter that doomed two-thirds of Earth’s species.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

By analyzing minerals and shatter patterns in the ocean bedrock, the researchers were able to determine the direction taken by the asteroid and its impact speed. According to their calculations, the asteroid crashed into a shallow sea at a speed of about 64,000 kilometers per hour, creating a hole in the ocean floor some 30 kilometers deep.

But the key finding involved the type of rock with which the asteroid collided.

The scientists found that the Gulf of Mexico is covered with a mineral known as anhydrite that releases sulphur when heated. They concluded that gigantic clouds of sulphuric ash released by the Chicxulub asteroid blocked out the sun and produced a devastating global winter, causing many food chains to perish.

The large amount of sulphur-laden climatic gases indicate that “surface temperatures were likely to have been significantly reduced for several years and ocean temperatures affected for hundreds of years after the Chicxulub impact,” write the authors.

Humans have an innate fear of dangerous animals — such as spiders and snakes — according to a new study in Frontiers In Psychology.

This research comes from a group of scientists from numerous European universities who found that spiders trigger a stress reaction in children as young as 6-months-old. That is important because most infants at that age cannot tell the difference between dangerous and safe objects. However, spiders and snakes triggered a definite emotional response.

Most researchers believe fear stems from social cues that develop at a young age. However, infants who have not been exposed to the world tell a different story.

“When we showed pictures of a snake or a spider to the babies instead of a flower or a fish of the same size and colour, they reacted with significantly bigger pupils,” said lead author Stefanie Hoehl, a researcher at the University of Vienna, in a statement.

In addition, researchers also noted German citizens, despite having only two poisonous snakes and no deadly spiders in their country, are scared of snakes and spiders. As a result, it is likely the fear is inherent rather than learned. The team in the study believes that adaptation is similar to how primates have an evolutionary response to dangerous animals.

While researchers are not sure, they believe the fear looked at in the study originates in parents and then is passed down through generations. Nobody likes to be scared, but being able to recognize dangerous objects helps people better recognize and avoid dangerous hazards.

“We assume that the reason for this particular reaction upon seeing spiders and snakes is due to the coexistence of these potentially dangerous animals with humans and their ancestors for more than 40 to 60 million years — and therefore much longer than with today’s dangerous mammals,” added Hoehl, according to International Business Times.

This evolutionary adaptation can also be applied to man-made items as well. Objects like knives or syringes can lead to inherent fear because, after generations of injury, a response can be built into the brain.

Insect populations in Germany’s protected preserves have dramatically declined over the past 30 years, according to new research in the journal PLOS ONE.

This discovery comes from a group of European researchers who found that between 1989 and 2016 the biomass of flying insects declined by 75 percent across 63 nature reserves. In the past, most of the attention has focused on the decline of pollinators like bees and butterflies. However, the new study shows the problem may affect more species than previously thought.

“The fact that flying insects are decreasing at such a high rate in such a large area is an even more alarming discovery,” said study co-author Hans de Kroon, researcher at Radboud University in the Netherlands, in a statement.

Scientists first began collecting insects in traps — known as malaise traps — back in 1989. Since then, the devices have enabled teams to measure the total insect biomass. As the study reveals, less and less insects have been captured over time.

The decline of insect biomass during midsummer peaked at 82 percent, showing that drop-off during that time of the year is much more severe than average decline. While such shifts can be the result of weather variability, climate changes cannot account for the sharp decline noted in the research.

The team is not sure of the reason behind the decline, but they do note that over 63 of the preserves looked at in the study are surrounded by agricultural lands. Those areas — which are harmful to many insect species — could act as an “ecological trap” that hurt the insects inside the preserves.

Though the research took place in Germany, the team believes the findings are indicative of much larger trends. They hope the findings will encourage policy makers to take a closer look at global insect populations and create preserves that are not so close to agricultural land.

“As entire ecosystems are dependent on insects for food and as pollinators, it places the decline of insect eating birds and mammals in a new context,” added Kroon, according to UPI. “We can barely imagine what would happen if this downward trend continues unabated.”

A catastrophic event in Antarctica has left a large number of Adélie penguins dead, with only two chicks out of 40,000 birds surviving the disaster.

Researchers backed by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature made this discovery while studying Adélie penguin chicks on the continent’s coast. They found that almost all of the chicks starved to death as a result of “unusually extensive sea ice” that made normal food supplies hard to find.

“Adélie penguins are one of the hardiest and most amazing animals on our planet,” said Rod Downie, Head of Polar Programmes at the World Wildlife Fund, in a statement. “This devastating event contrasts with the image that many people might have of penguins. It’s more like ‘Tarantino does Happy Feet’, with dead penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land.”

As brutal as the die-off is, this is the not the first time such an event has occurred. Four years ago, unusual environmental conditions disrupted the penguin’s breeding activity. That caused no chicks to survive the 2013-2014 breeding season, and temporarily crippled populations.

Environmental groups are worried about the recent die-off for numerous reasons, but the biggest is that new proposals could open the area up to krill fisheries. If that happens, it could further deplete the bird’s food source and make the situation even worse.

To discuss such methods, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) will meet in Hobart, Australia next week. There, they will look at ideas to protect local penguins and keep the area away from the fishing industry. Such proposals may also help create a safe spot where penguin breeding can take place.

“The region is impacted by environmental changes that are linked to the breakup of the Mertz glacier since 2010,” said Yan Ropert-Coudert, lead researcher on the Adélie penguin program at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), according to Gears of Biz. “An MPA will not remedy these changes but it could prevent further impacts that direct anthropogenic pressures, such as tourism and proposed fisheries, could bring.”