NEWS
By Karen Lips | September 1, 2009
Amphibians are going extinct around the globe. As a scientist specializing in frogs, I have watched dozens of species of these creatures die out. The extinction of frogs and salamanders might seem unimportant, but this couldn't be further from the truth. These animals regulate their local ecosystems, consume and control populations of mosquitoes and other insects that spread disease, and potentially point the way to new drugs for fighting diseases such as cancer and HIV-AIDS. Their fate is inexorably linked to our own. The biggest danger to most species today is habitat loss.
NEWS
September 21, 2007
Resident Evil: Extinction, the video-game-based film that opens today and stars Milla Jovovich, was not screened for critics. See photos from Resident Evil: Extinction at baltimoresun.com/evil
NEWS
By Robert S. Boyd | March 23, 2007
Tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis: Mother Nature seems to have it in for our world these days. In a way, though, we live in a relatively peaceful time. While it's no comfort to those hurting or grieving now, Earth saw far greater catastrophes in its long and troubled past. The planet has been frozen, roasted, smothered, battered, shaken and half-drowned. Entire species have been obliterated. So far, fortunately, that doesn't include Homo sapiens, but we've had a close call.
NEWS
May 5, 2006
Autism 5.5 of every 1,000 children diagnosed About 300,000 U.S. children have been diagnosed with autism, according to the largest national study so far of the prevalence of this complex behavioral disorder. That means about 5.5 out of every 1,000 school-age children have been diagnosed with the condition. Past estimates have ranged from 1 to 9 out of every 1,000 children, based on smaller studies in individual states or cities. The government-run study released yesterday reports findings from national surveys of tens of thousands of families.
NEWS
By JOHN BIEMER | April 28, 2006
A devastating fungus is sweeping the planet, wiping out entire populations of amphibians at such a rate that biologists are helping pull together a huge "Noah's Ark" project to capture frogs, toads and salamanders and put them in safe places. Various factors already have combined to cause more than 120 amphibian species to vanish since 1980, in what one biologist has called "one of the largest extinction spasms for vertebrates in history." A third of the world's nearly 6,000 amphibian species are threatened - their populations weak and susceptible to disease.
NEWS
By John Atcheson | December 15, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Arctic Council's recent report on the effects of global warming in the far north paints a grim picture: global floods, extinction of polar bears and other marine mammals, collapsed fisheries. But it ignored a ticking time bomb buried in the Arctic tundra. There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times as much methane as is in the atmosphere.
NEWS
December 3, 2004
WINTER HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS Read today's special section on winter high school sports, and go online to find schedules, photo galleries, archived photos and more. www.baltimoresun.com/highschool HEALTH & SCIENCE Visit our online Health & Science gallery and see a video of Sun science writer David Kohn discussing his story from today's section about species extinction. www.baltimoresun.com/healthscience
NEWS
By David Kohn | December 3, 2004
What ever happened to the White Warty Back? The Lined Pocketbook? The Coosa Elk Toe? That's what Arthur Bogan wants to know. For 18 years, he's been looking for these creatures - all species of freshwater mussel that were once plentiful in Southeastern rivers and streams. Bogan has looked all over, without success, and suspects the species are extinct, victims of pollution, and dams that choke the bivalves with silt. But looking for mussels is tricky work. Bogan sometimes snorkels, or uses a glass-bottomed bucket.
NEWS
By Tom Horton | November 5, 2004
Some thoughts on oysters, and the unthinkable. In the natural resources world, there's hardly a nastier word than "moratorium" - you can't catch or hunt something you've always considered your birthright. For game and fish managers, a ban is equally harsh. It means they failed in their jobs. No one likes a moratorium. But there's a nastier word - extinction. It's why we've bitten the bullet and had moratoriums three times in Maryland in recent decades. The first ban came on American shad, whose harvests had fallen by 1980 to about 1 percent of historic levels.
NEWS
By Dennis O'Brien | May 14, 2004
Scientists say they have found the place where an asteroid or comet smashed into Earth 250 million years ago and may have triggered the largest extinction in history, setting the stage for the appearance of dinosaurs and eventually humans. The object created the Bedout crater in a rise of the ocean floor about 120 miles northwest of Australia, researchers say. They say their analysis of the glass and minerals found at key sites in Antarctica and Australia and dug out of the crater, at depths of 10,000 feet, show that the object hit at the same time as the planet began the largest-scale extinction in its history.