Scientists have long treated mass extinctions as events locked deep in the fossil record. That framing now feels less distant ...

In 2025, the world marked another sad milestone in the ongoing loss of biodiversity: multiple species long missing from their ...

Warnings that humanity is heading toward its own disappearance have shifted from the fringes of science fiction into mainstream research and public debate. Instead of vague prophecies, scientists now ...

About 66 million years ago – perhaps on a downright unlucky day in May – an asteroid smashed into our planet. Even groups that weathered the catastrophe, such as mammals, fishes and flowering plants, ...

A rapid climate collapse during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction devastated ocean life and reshuffled Earth’s ecosystems.

Discover how the first mass extinction put jawed fishes on the map, species that would later come to dominate animal life on ...

During these waves of mass extinction, most vertebrate survivors were confined to refugia, or isolated biodiversity hotspots ...

Prominent research studies have suggested that our planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction, based on extrapolating extinctions from the past 500 years into the future and the idea ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Stewart Edie, Smithsonian Institution (THE CONVERSATION) About 66 million years ago – ...