Word: speciesism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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A few remarkable species, the "extremophiles," have achieved astonishing feats of physiological adaptation at the ends of habitable Earth. In the most frigid polar waters, fish and other animals flourish, their blood kept fluid by biochemical antifreezes. Populations of bacteria live in the spumes of volcanic thermal vents on the...
Earth's biodiversity (short for biological diversity) is organized into three levels. At the top are the ecosystems, such as rain forests, coral reefs and lakes. Next down are the species that compose the ecosystems: swallowtail butterflies, moray eels, people. At the bottom are the variety of genes making up...
Least known are the smallest organisms. By repeated sampling, biologists estimate that as few as 10% of the different kinds of insects, nematode worms and fungi have been discovered. For bacteria and other microorganisms, the number could be well below 1%. Even the largest and most intensively studied organisms are...
Biologists who explore biodiversity see it vanishing before their eyes. To use two of their favorite phrases, they live in a world of wounds and practice a scientific discipline with a deadline. They generally agree that the rate of species extinction is now 100 to 1,000 times as great...
The principal cause of both extinction and the slowing of evolution is the degrading and destruction of habitats by human action. While covering only 6% of Earth's land surface, about the same as the 48 contiguous United States, the rain forests are losing an area about half the size...