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News Feature
Nature 448, 122-125 (12 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448122a; Published online 11 July 2007
Mass extinctions: Reading the book of death
Nick Lane1
- Nick Lane is the author of Power, sex, suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life.
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Abstract
Studies of mass extinctions tend to emphasize the sheer scope of the carnage. But subtle differences between the species that died and those that survived can be crucial, finds Nick Lane.
The extinction at the end of the Permian period, some 251 million years ago, is the most fascinating mass-murder mystery in Earth's history. Simply put, a party or parties unknown killed off up to 96% of all species then alive.
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