Word: extinct
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Finarelli and Flynn did not study as broad a collection of animals as the authors of the earlier paper. They studied just one order, the carnivores, but they did so in depth. Sampling both living terrestrial carnivores and the fossils of extinct ones, they analyzed overall brain volume relative to body mass in fully 289 species. They also factored in what is known (or, in the case of fossils, theorized) about each species' social behavior. What they got was a surprising mix of findings. (See pictures of 10 species near extinction...
...growing larger over time, some fluctuating up and down, some remaining relatively steady, some actually growing smaller. Most of the larger members of the feliform suborder - which includes large cats as well as hyenas and mongooses - pretty much stuck with the brain size they had from the start. The extinct bear-dog - a family of animals that died out 9 million years ago and were, as their name suggests, related to both bears and dogs - actually became more pea-brained over time. Common dogs, like humans, have enjoyed a comparatively recent expansion of cranial capacity...
...especially vulnerable to new diseases--the right pathogen in the right place could spread around the world in 24 hours--but it also gives us the tools to form an effective defense. "The fact that the world is one continuous village now means viruses that would have gone extinct before have the potential to take hold much more rapidly," says Nathan Wolfe, director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI). "But it also means we can create a planetary immune system...
...national party" and creating woe-is-us groups to resuscitate their brand, while Democrats are publishing books like The Strange Death of Republican America and 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. John McCain's campaign manager recently described his party as basically extinct on the West Coast, nearly extinct in the Northeast and endangered in the Mountain West and Southwest...
...Republicans going extinct? And can the death march be stopped? The Washington critiques of the Republican Party as powerless, leaderless and rudderless - the new Donner party - are not very illuminating. Minority parties always look weak and inept in the penalty box. Sure, it can be comical to watch Republican National Committee (RNC) gaffe machine Michael Steele riff on his hip-hop vision for the party or Texas Governor Rick Perry carry on about secession or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann explain how F.D.R.'s "Hoot-Smalley" Act caused the Depression (the Smoot-Hawley Act, a Republican tariff bill, was enacted before...