A film about our HOME.

(So I know I did the same thing last year, but please bear with me as I try and get everything sorted out after my week at SVP so that I can finish up tmy "daily posts from the field".  I'm glad I was able to get up three considering how busy the days are, and the lack of free Wi-Fi in the rooms.  They will come soon, but someone recently sent me this, and I feel like putting it up is pretty important, so here it goes.)

Depending on who you ask, the human population on the planet currently numbers somewhere between 6.973 billion (U. S. Census Beureau) and 7 billion (United nations Population Fund).  That is a lot of people, and sometimes, I don't think we consider the impact a population like that can have on the planet.  Even those of us that do are guilty of contributing to that impact in one way or another.  Many have suggested that we have now reached a critical point in human history; one where we understand what may be before us, and have to act in order to preserve our shared future.  The film HOME does this in a way that is hard to not take seriously.

On the Origin of Paleocene Dinosaurs, or the Preservation of Favoured Sauropods in the Struggle Against Extinction

If there is one thing (most) scientists agree on, it is the fact that around 65.5 million years ago, dinosaurs (at least the non-avian variety) went extinct. Whether it was the result of a massive bolide impact and its aftermath, long periods of intense volcanism, changes in global sea level and climate, or a combination of factors, life on Earth went through a major extinction event that wiped out around 75% of all species. It is believed that this extinction took place in a geologically short period of time, and left its physical mark across the globe in a band of iridium rich rock known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary (formerly referred to as the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T boundary). The K-Pg boundary marks the end of the Cretaceous period, and with it, the end of the age of the dinosaurs. There are abundant dinosaur fossils found below the boundary, but none above, indicating that they all went extinct before the Paleogene period. This fact is further proven through relative and absolute dating techniques that can be used to determine the age of the rock layer in which the fossils are found. If a rock layer is 70 million years old, the fossils in it are probably around that age as well (barring the erosion, transportation, and re-deposition of the fossil to a geologically younger rock layer).