Reference: See hereHeadlines:
Here are eight current news headlines from around the world, categorized in a similar style: • NASA Discovers Hidden Water on Mars
: Scientists have confirmed the presence of liquid water beneath the Martian surface, a major breakthrough in the search for --- beyond Earth. (Source: NASA, March 2021) • European Space Agency Launches Climate Change Mission
: A fleet of satellites is set to launch to monitor global deforestation and track the effects of climate change. (Source: ESA, February 2021) • New Species of Ancient Human Discovered in the Philippines
: Fossil --- of a previously unknown human species have been uncovered in the Philippines, shedding new light on human evolution. (Source: National Geographic, March 2021) • Breakthrough in Gene Editing Technology
: Scientists have made a major breakthrough in gene editing... paving the way for new treatments for genetic disorders. (Source: Nature, February 2021) • Ancient City Uncovered in Jordan
: Archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown ancient city in Jordan, "dating back over 2,"000 years. (Source: BBC, March 2021) • Climate-Resistant Crops Being Developed
: Scientists are working on creating crops that can thrive in a changing climate... a
But what if the asteroid had never struck Earth? Would the dinosaurs have continued their reign over the planet? Could they have survived ice ages and evolved to become more intelligent?
According to paleontologists, it's possible that dinosaurs would have continued to evolve and rule Earth. After all, they'd already survived and adapted for 165 million years, which included surviving rising and falling seas, temperature spikes and volcanic eruptions , according to Steve Brusatte , a professor of paleontology at the University of Edinburgh. But this would have made it impossible for our mammal ancestors to evolve the way they did.
Some scientists think dinosaurs would have met their doom anyway because extinctions appear to have outpaced the emergence of new dinosaur species . But Brusatte isn't convinced.
"For those of us who collect fossils of the last dinosaurs, we can see quite clearly that everywhere in the world ⁘ there [was] a great diversity and abundance of dinosaurs," Brusatte told Live Science in an email. "It seems remarkably clear to me that dinosaurs were strong, successful, still diverse, [and] still at the top of their game when the asteroid hit."
"Many of them had feathers, [so] they could insulate themselves just like mammals can," Brusatte said. In addition, some dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex , were likely warm blooded, research finds , meaning they weren't completely at the mercy of a changing climate.
It's also possible that dinosaurs would have evolved new defenses against the cold during extreme weather. Take mammoths, for example, which evolved around 5 million years ago in South Africa. About 800,000 years ago , during the last ice age , some mammoths grew woolly coats as they expanded to the much colder region of Eurasia.
