Posted on Saturday 19 March 2005

From the guy who brought you the Nemesis theory, we now have something new to worry about. In a study of underwater fossil records conducted by Richard A Muller and Robert Rohde of Berkeley, there appears to be strong evidence that the planet's bio-diversity fluctuates on an 62 million cycle. This cycle overlays all the major mass extinction events in the past 500 million years, including the Permian-Triassic extinction event which wiped out about 95% of all marine species and the more famous Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs.

While the cycle appears to be quite clear in the data, the causes of it are not. Muller has long favoured an astronomical explanations for species die off but his co-researcher, Rohde, prefers the idea of massive periodic bouts volcanism.

Whichever is the case, I'd just like to point out that the last low point in this cycle happened just over 62 million years ago and that right now the planet's bio-diversity is plummeting at an alarming rate. Perhaps, they're right when they argue that Doomsday really is nigh.

Also of note: the dinosaurs died of athletes foot.