logo
welcome
Space

Space

How mass extinctions can help scientists find complex alien life

Space
Summary
Nutrition label

74% Informative

Mass extinctions have wiped out more than three-quarters of Earth 's species and greatly reduced its biodiversity.

Yet, in the long term, life on Earth has trended toward increasingly complex forms and ecological organization in spite of these setbacks.

In a paper published to the preprint database arXiv in May , researchers make the case that drastic alterations in Earth 's environment create opportunities for evolutionary exploration.

Human activity represents a modern example of living systems imposing stress on Earth 's biosphere.

These periods of stress often involve the collapse of "keystone" species in the global ecosystem.

What doesn't kill life, as Nicholson and her co-authors suggest, may make it stronger.