
-
Heat humble Celtics for sixth straight win, Thunder roll on
-
Trump escalates trade war with sweeping global tariffs
-
Japan says US tariffs 'extremely regrettable', may break WTO rules
-
South Koreans anxious, angry as court to rule on impeached president
-
Juve at in-form Roma with Champions League in the balance
-
Injuries put undermanned Bayern's title bid to the test
-
Ovechkin scores 892nd goal -- three away from Gretzky's NHL record
-
Australian former rugby star Petaia signs for NFL's Chargers
-
China says opposes new US tariffs, vows 'countermeasures'
-
Athletics world watching as 'Grand Slam Track' prepares for launch
-
Heat humble Celtics for sixth straight win, Cavs top Knicks
-
Quake-hit Myanmar's junta chief to head to Bangkok summit
-
New Spielberg, Nolan films teased at CinemaCon
-
Shaken NATO allies to meet Trump's top diplomat
-
Israel's Netanyahu arrives in Hungary, defying ICC warrant
-
Shiny and deadly, unexploded munitions a threat to Gaza children
-
Stocks tank, havens rally as Trump tariffs fan trade war
-
Altomare hangs on to tie defending champ Korda at LPGA Match Play
-
Paraguay gold rush leaves tea producers bitter
-
Health concerns swirl as Bolivian city drowns in rubbish
-
Syria says deadly Israeli strikes a 'blatant violation'
-
Financial markets tumble after Trump tariff announcement
-
Starbucks faces new hot spill lawsuits weeks after $50mn ruling
-
Europe riled, but plans cool-headed response to Trump's tariffs
-
'Shenmue' voted most influential video game ever in UK poll
-
New coal capacity hit 20-year low in 2024: report
-
Revealed: Why monkeys are better at yodelling than humans
-
Key details on Trump's market-shaking tariffs
-
'A little tough love': Top quotes from Trump tariff talk
-
US business groups voice dismay at Trump's new tariffs
-
Grealish dedicates Man City goal to late brother
-
US tariffs take aim everywhere, including uninhabited islands
-
Trump sparks trade war with sweeping global tariffs
-
Israeli strikes hit Damascus, central Syria; monitor says 4 dead
-
Slot 'hates' offside rule that gave Liverpool win over Everton
-
US stocks end up, but volatility ahead after latest Trump tariffs
-
Barca oust Atletico to set up Clasico Copa del Rey final
-
Mourinho grabs Galatasaray coach's face after losing Istanbul derby
-
Grealish strikes early as Man City move up to fourth in Premier League
-
Reims edge out fourth-tier Cannes to set up PSG French Cup final
-
Liverpool beat Everton as title looms, Man City win without Haaland
-
Jota wins bad-tempered derby as Liverpool move 12 points clear
-
Inter and Milan level in derby Italian Cup semi
-
Stuttgart beat Leipzig to reach German Cup final
-
Trump unveils sweeping global tariffs
-
Italian director Nanni Moretti in hospital after heart attack: media
-
LIV Golf stars playing at Doral with Masters on their minds
-
Trump unveils sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariffs
-
Most deadly 2024 hurricane names retired from use: UN agency
-
Boeing chief reports progress to Senate panel after 'serious missteps'

Asteroid dust caused 15-year winter that killed dinosaurs: study
Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid bigger than Mount Everest smashed into Earth, killing off three quarters of all life on the planet -- including the dinosaurs.
This much we know.
But exactly how the impact of the asteroid Chicxulub caused all those animals to go extinct has remained a matter of debate.
The leading theory recently has been that sulphur from the asteroid's impact -- or soot from global wildfires it sparked -- blocked out the sky and plunged the world into a long, dark winter, killing all but the lucky few.
However research published Monday based on particles found at a key fossil site reasserted an earlier hypothesis: that the impact winter was caused by dust kicked up by the asteroid.
Fine silicate dust from pulverised rock would have stayed in the atmosphere for 15 years, dropping global temperatures by up to 15 degrees Celsius, researchers said in a study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Back in 1980, father-and-son scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez first proposed that the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid strike that shrouded the world in dust.
Their claim was initially met with some scepticism -- until a decade later when the massive crater of Chicxulub was found in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, scientists largely agree that Chicxulub was to blame.
But the idea that it was sulphur, rather than dust, that caused the impact winter has become "very popular" in recent years, Ozgur Karatekin, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, told AFP.
Study co-author Karatekin said this was because the dust from the impact was thought to be the wrong size to stay in the atmosphere for long enough.
For the study, the international team of researchers was able to measure dust particles thought to be from right after the asteroid struck.
- 'Catastrophic collapse' -
The particles were found at the Tanis fossil site in the US state of North Dakota.
Though 3,000 kilometres (1,865 miles) away from the crater, the site has preserved a number of remarkable finds believed to be dated from directly after the asteroid impact in sediment layers of an ancient lake.
The dust particles were around 0.8 to 8.0 micrometres -- just the right size to stick around in the atmosphere for up to 15 years, the researchers said.
Entering this data into climate models similar to those used for current-day Earth, the researchers determined that dust likely played a far greater role in the mass extinction than had previously been thought.
Out of all the material that was shot into the atmosphere by the asteroid, they estimated that it was 75 percent dust, 24 percent sulphur and one percent soot.
The dust particles "totally shut down photosynthesis" in plants for at least a year, causing a "catastrophic collapse" of life, Karatekin said.
Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and not involved in the research, told AFP that the study was another interesting effort to answer the "hot question" -- what drove the impact winter -- but did not provide the definitive answer.
He emphasised that discovering what happened during the world's last mass extinction event was important not just for understanding the past, but also the future.
"Maybe we can better predict our own mass extinction that we're probably in the middle of," Gulick said.
Y.Nakamura--AMWN