You can run, but you can't hide. (Univ of Chicago researchers find that mass extinctions disregard special survival strategies and wipe out all forms of life)(Brief Article)

From: USA Today (Magazine) | Date: December 1, 1995 | Copyright information

According to University of Chicago paleontologists David Jablonski and David Raup, mass extinctions wipe out all types of life forms, without regard to special survival strategies they may have developed during times when extinction rates are relatively low. The two scientists studied the survivorship of 350 evolutionary lineages of marine mollusks--clams and other two-shelled ocean dwellers --during the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs at the close of the Cretaceous P...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research

(book reviews)
National Forum ; The aftermath of a forest fire is all too well known to us. Every fire season in the forest states, the evening news will show at least one charred scene of smoking hulks of once vigorous old growth. Yet soon thereafter, the first signs of recolonization ...
Catastrophes and lesser calamities: the causes of mass extinction.(researched by Tony Hallam)
Chemistry and Industry ; Process of elimination Catastrophes and lesser calamities: the causes of mass extinction Tony Hallam We have seen the future and it hurts. During the past year the noisily publicised havoc that hurricane and floods wreaked upon New Orleans was eclipsed by the catastrophes that earthquakes and
Mass extinctions and macroevolution
Paleobiology ; Abstract.-Mass extinctions are important to macroevolution not only because they involve a sharp increase in extinction intensity over "background" levels, but also because they bring a change in extinction selectivity, and these quantitative and qualitative shifts set the stage for evolutionary
On the continuity of background and mass extinction
Paleobiology ; Abstract.-Do mass extinctions grade continuously into the background extinctions occurring throughout the history of life, or are they a fundamentally distinct phenomenon that cannot be explained by processes responsible for background extinction? Various criteria have been proposed for addressing
Computerized mass extinction.
Science News ; Computerized mass extinction Paleontologist James W. Valentine of the University of California at Santa Barbara used his computer to create and then kill off hundreds of animal species. Valentine wasn't just pretending to be a supreme being. He wanted to figure out whether the five great mass
Nature `will take more than 10 million years' to recover from mankind
The Independent - London ; LIFE ON EARTH will take at least 10 million years to recover from the mass extinction of animals and plants brought about by human activities, say scientists. An investigation of the ease with which life rebounds after a mass extinction has found that it takes far longer than previously realised.
To the editor
Natural History ; Casual Mentor Eugene Odum, the "father of ecology" interviewed in "Whole Earth Mentor" ("Natural Selections," October 1998) is mistaken to dismiss mass extinctions so casually. We recognize mass extinctions in the geological record because groups of dominant organisms die out. And look who's
Periodic mass extinctions at random.
Science News ; Periodic mass extinctions at random Gazing into the rock and fossil record, some geologists and paleontologists have found various periodicities to the mass extinctions that punctuate the earth's history. These extinctions wiped out 50 percent to 95 percent of the species living at the time, and
Bone of contention: palaeontologists disagree on whether meteorites or volcanic eruptions caused mass extinctions. The good news is, starting them is not easy.(Mass extinction)
Chemistry and Industry ; Rather worryingly, mass extinctions seem to have occurred fairly regularly over the past 550m years. In total, palaeontologists think that the Earth has experienced 27 mass extinction events, where a large number of species become extinct in a fairly short--in geological terms--period of time. Most
Signs of Nemesis: meteors, magnetism.
Science News ; Signs of Nemesis: Meteors, magnetism A well-known hypothesis blames impactsof cometes--triggered by Nemesis, the alleged companion star to the sun-- for mass extinctions of biological species that appear to have occurred periodically in the history of the earth. In the attempt to show that such