Extinction of the human race?

65 million years ago, a 10-km-wide asteroid slammed into a region in Mexico, leaving a 175-Km crater right in the heart of what would one day become the Mayan domain.

That impact, according to Luiz Alvarez (physicist and Nobel laureate) is what led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and about 70% of all the other species on the planet.

UC Berkley physicist Richard Muller & his graduate student, Robert Rhode found solid, reliable evidence that mass extinctions occur regularly every 62 million to 65 million years. PS: We are now overdue!

This hypothesis is based on a three-year computer analysis of the 542-million-year fossil record compiled by Jack Sepkoski. Sepkoski had classified the fossils of creatures by genus. eg: Felis, a genus that includes cats, bobcats and jaguars. Canis includes dogs,wolves and jackals.

Sepkoski found that the 542-million-year time period covered by his compendium divided into layers roughly 3 million years apart, and he identified the oldest and youngest layers in which each genus appeared. eg: jaguars and other cats had not yet appeared at the time of the dinosaurs extinction, but snakes indeed predate the dinosaurs and will presumably postdate us.

Muller and Rhode found (based on Sepkoski's mammoth compendium) that anywhere between 50 to 90 percent of genera (plural of genus) vanished every 62 million to 65 million years.

Muller's "Nemesis hypothesis"

The Sun, like most stars of its age and ilk, has a companion, probably a barely visible star such as a red or brown dwarf or a black hole. Muller hypothesized that Nemesis's orbit would bring it by every X million years, gravitationally jostling the Sun and destabilizing the solar system...

Muller now believes that every 62 million to 65 million years, the solar system's orbit passes through a region of the milky way that is exceptionally gravitationally dense. He thinks that the sudden and extreme gravitational tugs sets off showers of comets and asteroids that pummel the sun and all the planets,including the Earth.

"Sounds promising :| " - Myriam

inspired by the book: "Apocalypse 2012", Lawrence E. Joseph

Death At Intervals - Short Story

While reading Death at intervals by José Saramago, I got to this touching chapter where the writer tells a little story:

"Once upon a time, in the ancient land of fables,there was a family consisting of a father,a mother,a grandfather who was the father's father,and a child of eight,a little boy.Now the grandfather was very old and because of that his hands shook and when he was at table he sometimes dropped his food,to the great irritation of his son and his daughter-in-law,who were always telling him to eat more carefully,but the poor old man, however hard he tried, could not stop his shaking,which only got worse when they told him off,and so he was always staining the tablecloth or dropping food on the floor,not to mention on the napkin they tied around his neck and which they had to change three times a day,at lunch,dinner and supper.

This was how things stood,with no hope of improvement,when the son decided to put a stop to the unpleasant situation.He arrived home with a wooden bowl and said to his father, 'From now on,you'll eat here,sitting on the doorstep because that's easier to clean,and your daughter-in-law won't have to deal with all those dirty tablecloths and napkins.

And so it was. Lunch,dinner and supper,the old man sat alone on the doorstep,raising the food to his mouth as best as he could,losing half on the way,while part of the other half dribbled onto his chin.

The grandson seemed entirely unmoved by the cruel treatment being meted out to his grandfather,he would look at him,then look at his mother and father, and continue to eat as if it were none of his business. Then one afternoon,when the father came home from work,he saw his son carving a piece of wood and assumed he was making himself a toy,as was normal in those distant days.

The following day,however,he realized that the boy wasn't making a toy car,or at least if he was, he couldn't see where the wheels would go,and so he asked, 'What are you making'.

The boy pretended he hadn't heard and continued whittling away at the wood with the point of his knife,this happened in the days when parents were less fearful and wouldn't immediately snatch from their children's hands such a useful tool for making toys.'Didn't you hear me?I asked what were you making with that piece of wood' the father asked again, and his son, without glancing up from what he was doing,replied 'I'm making a bowl for when you are old and your hands shake and you're sent to sit on the front step to eat your meals, like you did with grandpa'. These words had a magical effect. The scales fell from the father's eyes,he saw the truth and its light,and went at once to ask for his father's forgiveness,and when supper-time arrived,he helped him sit down in the chair,fed him with a spoon and gently wiped his chin,because he could still do that,and his dear father could not.

History fails to recount what happened afterwards,but we know for certain that the boy's carving was interrupted and the piece of wood is still there. No one wanted to throw it away, perhaps because they didn't want the lesson to be forgotten..."

The End.

"Hold the grim reaper...The brilliant satire of José Saramago's Death at Intervals examines the nature of mortality"