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Saturday, 2 January 2010

Ten things that cause mass extinctions

Asteroid hitting EarthIt's normal for a species to go extinct, but occasionally many thousands go extinct at the same time in a 'mass extinction' - here are ten possible causes. read more

Eight spin-offs from space

AstronautSending stuff into space is not cheap and NASA gets through vast sums of money. How do they justify the expense? One way is to highlight the many technologies developed for the space program, but which now benefit society. read more

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COSMOS magazine: current issue

Cosmos Issue 24

On sale in newsstands now!

COSMIC ROULETTE

Was Charles Darwin the genius behind the great revolution in science, or did he merely state the obvious? Richard Conniff reads between the lines.

Also in this issue: THE END OF EVOLUTION - The forces that drive evolution are disappearing, says Steve Jones, who argues that we are undergoing a 'grand averaging', totally new in history.

Also in this issue: SNOWBALL EARTH - 800 million years ago, a climate lurch left Earth entombed in ice and almost devoid of life. But could it have been the catalyst for complex life?

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Online features

Dead Sea needs world help to survive

Dead Seaby Ahmad Khatib | The Dead Sea may soon shrink to a lifeless pond as Middle East political strife blocks vital measures needed to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water. read more

Global warming: growing threat to arctic reindeer

Arctic ReindeerAs rising temperatures and development strip the Arctic of food and grazing land for reindeer, so too do the indigenous Sami people risk the loss of an important part of their culture. read more

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Selected COSMOS magazine features

Islands of fire

Volcanoby Heather Catchpole | New Zealand, on the southern fringe of the Pacific's Ring of Fire, is a simmering hotbed of volcanic activity, says Heather Catchpole. While eruptions have largely avoided populous areas, much of Auckland is actually sitting on a ticking time bomb. read more

Of mice and men

Manby Mark Davis | Immunology is stuck in the lab and needs a major overhaul to remain relevant. Now is the time for a study of the immune system on a grand scale, something akin to the Human Genome Project. read more

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Fiction

Proof of Life

Proof of lifeRunning an artificial intelligence inside your head is all fun and games until someone loses an I. read more

Under The Shouting Sky

Saturn hung overhead, a great pastel yellow ball. It took a special kind of imagination to see the planet for what it really was. read more

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Reviews

Science and Islam

Science and IslamThe Dark Ages, a period lasting one thousand years in the Western world that was devoid of art, literature, science and technology, coincided with the ‘golden age’ of Muslim thought. read more

The Discovery of Global Warming

The book begins with a few key scientists who have found unusual results within the murky, ill-defined field of climate and weather studies. read more

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