Mass extinctions are just as severe as their name suggests. In the past 40 years, the number of wild animals has plunged 50 percent, a 2014 study found. Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of the new book The Sixth Extinction. This time, it's humanity that is driving the mass die-off, which is why a debate is now afoot in scientific circles over whether to rechristen our current geological epoch as the "Anthropocene Era" — from anthropos, for "man," and cene, for "new.". How fast is this happening?Extremely fast. Hundreds of species of frogs and toads are suffering population declines and extinctions because of the chytrid fungus disease, which is sometimes spread into new areas by humans. Vertebrate species have, however, been closely studied, and at least 338 have gone extinct, with the number rising to 617 when one includes those species "extinct in the wild" and "possibly extinct." The chapter ends on a tragic note: the extinction of a certain species of bat in New England may spread to other bat species—another illustration of how the extinction of one animal can cause a domino effect, resulting in a mass-extinction. The sixth mass extinction, explained. Populations of wild animals have more than halved since 1970, while the human population has doubled. At a 2010 summit in Japan, the United Nations set similar targets. And the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that populations of vertebrates — higher animals with spinal columns — have fallen by an average of 60 percent since 1970. Can extinct species be resurrected?Using DNA technology, scientists are working on recreating species that have disappeared. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book by journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. Students collaboratively investigate our planet’s five mass extinctions and the possibility of a sixth mass extinction. THE SIXTH EXTINCTION concept Human activities have caused a mass extinction of species, which threatens the rich biodiversity on Earth. The loss of species can have catastrophic effects on the food chain on which humanity depends. All over the world, different species are already going extinct, thanks to the declining amount of available undeveloped land, and the rising … But the findings published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) show that the rate at which species are dying out has accelerated in recent decades. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction … By burning fossil fuels, we are rapidly changing the atmosphere, the oceans, and the climate, forcing potentially millions of species into extinction. There have been five unquestionably great extinctions on earth: the end-Ordovician, the late-Devonian, the end-Permian, end-Triassic, and the … Later this year, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to set new global goals to combat the ongoing biodiversity crisis in the coming decades. This interdependency of different species is bad news for humans, too. As increasingly accepted theories have argued—and as the Science papers show—we are now in the midst of the sixth great extinction, the unsettlingly-named Anthropocene, or the age of … 6 Minute Read. The third option is to edit the genes of an extinct species' closest living analog to obtain an approximation. There have been five others throughout time, but … The Earth is currently experiencing an extinction crisis largely due to the exploitation of the planet by people. "When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system," said Paul Ehrlich, a well known Stanford professor who wrote the controversial 1968 book "The Population Bomb" and is a co-author of the new study. Only five times before in our planet’s history have so many species and so much biodiversity been lost so quickly. The impacts of a still-avoidable sixth mass extinction would likely be so massive they’d be best described as science fiction. It's the pace of recent extinctions that is alarming. The past 20 years have brought a 90 percent plunge in the number of monarch butterflies in America, a loss of 900 million, and an 87 percent loss of rusty-patched bumblebees. Species extinction is an ordinary part of the natural processes of our planet; in fact, 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth are gone. The populations of the world's wild animals have fallen by more than 50 percent and humanity is to blame. Humans have already wiped out hundreds of species and pushed many more to the brink of extinction through wildlife trade, pollution, habitat loss and the use of toxic substances. The populations of the world's wild animals have fallen by more than 50 percent and humanity is to blame.

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