Saturday, August 15, 2009

Discovery and extinction

Writer Geoffrey Lean takes a rather extreme position regarding human-caused extinction - I've never read anything to suggest we'll lose half the species on the planet in the next century - but he has some interesting nuggets about discovery. In particular, he introduces the Smithsonian's Dr Kristofer Helgen, who has published full descriptions of 23 new mammals and has an astonishing 77 more in the pipeline. Helgen says, "Most people don't realise this, but we are smack-dab in the middle of the age of discovery for mammals."

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