Word: massing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...tree of life, we often envision evolution working like a patient gardener, pruning species that don't quite fit, bit by bit. But that's not how extinction works in practice. Throughout our planet's history, mass extinction has occurred five times - most recently 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs finally died out - taking out vast amounts of life all at once, usually due to a catastrophic and sudden climatic change. (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
...rate that was more often than expected by blind chance - generally those groups of species were confined to a fairly small geographic area. "Extinctions tend to be clustered, which means the effects tend to be worse than what you might expect from random," says Roy. "That's true for mass extinctions as well - they end up culling the most vulnerable lineages, leaving the more resistant ones." (See pictures of the 10 species on the brink...
...uneducated Pashtun tribesman from a modest clan, Mehsud reportedly came from a family that made their living driving trucks. Though given to boasting about his grand plans for inflicting mass murder, Mehsud was also cautious. He shunned photographers - there are no definitive portraits - traveled in convoys protected by armed guards and hopped between safe houses. Despite his bellicose rhetoric, Mehsud was also described as baby-faced and jocular in person...
...really going to be relying on volunteers to help us." In addition to turning to private-sector doctors and nurses to aide the effort, Sherin is looking into renting empty storefronts, reopening vacant schools and even using the downtown Amway Arena, home to the Orlando Magic, for mass-vaccination campaigns. "It could be a little bit of pandemic pandemonium in the beginning," he says...
...their batons, tear gas and chemical-laced water cannons to disperse an estimated 20,000 people who had marched in the capital to demand the repeal of the longstanding Internal Security Act (ISA) security law that is often used against political opponents. Over 500 people were arrested - the biggest mass arrest since the city's race riots in 1969 - and over 50 people have been charged with taking part in an illegal assembly, a crime punishable with two-years in prison if found guilty. Among those arrested were about 40 minors under the age of 18 years who were held...