extinction

After underachieving for decades, artificial intelligence (AI) has suddenly become scary good. And if we’re not very careful it may become quite dangerous—even so dangerous that it constitutes an “existential risk” to humanity.Geoffrey Hinton, one of the more credible “doomers” because he worked for Google for many years and is known as “the godfather of AI,” has repeatedly warned these threats are not just science fiction. He has said, for example: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using for bad…

Photo: josefkubes (Shutterstock)A survey of the leading AI scientists says there’s a 5% chance that AI will become uncontrollable and wipe out humanity. In the short term, researchers estimate AI will become significantly more advanced, able to create a Top 40 pop song and write an NYT bestseller before 2030. So at least our AI overlords will entertain us before they kill us.Like It or Not, Your Doctor Will Use AI | AI Unlocked“While AI experts’ predictions should not be seen as a reliable guide to objective truth, they…

Schematic diagram of a three-stage model for the paleoenvironmental evolution of the Upper Yangtze, China, through the middle-late Permian. Credit: Wang et al 2024 Mass extinctions are rapid global decreases in Earth's biodiversity, with five key events identified over the planet's history, arguably the most famous of which occurred ~66 million years ago during the Cretaceous, which brought the rein of dinosaurs to an end.…

Scientists have linked mass extinctions and climate change over the past 260 million years to massive volcanic eruptions and Earth’s astronomical cycles. This research, emphasizing the role of CO2 emissions in climate change, reveals an intricate connection between Earth’s geology and its position in space, distinct from modern, human-caused climate change.New research reveals that Earth’s geological history is tied to astronomical motions—not just the planet’s interior.A team of scientists has concluded that that has…

For thousands of years, a breed of white, woolly dog played an important and cultural role for Coast Salish people in Western Canada but when colonists moved in the animal quickly became extinct, a new study says.It started with a dog named Mutton that died in 1859. Its pelt had been in a collection at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.DNA analysis on the pelt, coupled with traditional knowledge from the Coast Salish people, provided new insights on the dog once bred for…

As It Happens6:28Why do these mosquitos keep perching on the nostrils of frogs who want to eat them?John Gould had been snapping pictures of mosquitoes on frogs for years before he noticed a trend — the bloodsuckers always seem to land right on the amphibians' noses."You would think that a frog would be the worst place to land, because frogs love to eat mosquitoes," Gould, a behavioural biologist at Australia's University of Newcastle, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. Nevertheless, Gould has collected more than a dozen…

Prehistoric people are attacking an elephant. New research shows that humans and not the climate caused a sharp decline in almost all megafauna on Earth 50.000 years ago. Credit: First printed in Bryant & Gay, 1883. Wood carving by E. Bayard. For years, scientists have debated whether humans or the climate caused the population of large mammals to decline dramatically over the past several thousand years. A new study from Aarhus University confirms that climate cannot be the explanation.About 100,000 years ago, the…

December 7, 20235 min readThe iridescent, blind De Winton’s golden mole was last seen in 1937 and later declared officially lost. But scientists have since rediscovered it by tracking its environmental DNABy The Conversation US & Samantha MynhardtDe Winton’s golden mole was rediscovered in November 2023 through environmental DNA tracking after not being sighted since 1937. The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.The De Winton’s golden…

In around a billion years, the sun will become hot enough to boil all the oceans on our planet, and life as we know it will be destroyed.The fate of life on Earth, scientists think, is more or less sealed.But a passing star could prove to be an unlikely savior, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Bordeaux, France, and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.The researchers ran 12,000 simulations to see what would happen if a star passed within 100 astronomical units (about 9.3 billion…

Some specimens of mulgaras used in this investigation from the Western Australian Museum Mammology collection. Credit: Photo by Jake Newman-Martin. Courtesy WA Museum Researchers from Curtin University have made a bittersweet discovery, identifying three new species of mulgaras, small Australian marsupials. While this finding expands our understanding of marsupials related to Tasmanian Devils and quolls, it is marred by the likelihood that these newly discovered species are already extinct. These mulgaras, known for…