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Earth's orbit linked to extinctions.

Spanish rodents lived and died by changes in our orbit.

Can a tiny change to the Earth's orbit wipe out life? New evidence suggests that perhaps it can — in Spanish rodents, at least.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on October 11, 2006 06:48 PM |

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Este articulo es una verguenza que lo publiquen. Quien de nosotros estara en 2.250.000 millones de anos para comprobar estas estupideces que escriben.-
Seria bueno que los cientificos y estudiosos del mundo trataran de solucionar el cancer y sida

Posted by: Enrique Jose Souto | October 12, 2006 07:43 PM

I believe is a little silly to associate man’s destiny to rat’s.
Do not some other species have lived longer than two millions years on earth. Probably Evolving. But keeping their characteristics intact Nevertheless?
What is your thinking?

Posted by: Jorge H. Vargas | October 12, 2006 09:53 PM

I'm wondering whether the relatively slow shift in orbital path could account for what appears to be sudden shifts in climate? Last year we had a horrible hurricane season, for example, but this year it's been pretty tame.

Are systems complex enough that the tiny orbital changes or wobble along our axis could provide a more realistic explanation of our climate changes than all the politicized arguments?

Posted by: Mike | October 12, 2006 10:27 PM

I don't understand how the earth's orbit can oscillate between an ellipse and a circle - which is itself just a special form of an ellipse. I know that the earth precesses around its axis every 22,000 years or so, if I remember my college physics correctly, but nothing about this oscillation between an ellipse and a circle. Let me know if you have the answer.

John Durocher

Posted by: John Durocher | October 13, 2006 12:25 AM

> ...a time when Earth's orbit was much more
> circular than normal, reducing the contrast
> between seasons.

What??? Seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt, not by the ellipticity of its orbit. This is taught in fifth grade science.

(The Earth is actually closest to the Sun in mid-Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course that's Summer in the Southern Hemisphere.)

Posted by: Michael Maxwell | October 16, 2006 09:22 PM

The data about these changes -in orbit, sun distance, and axis (angle and "wobble")- must be factored into all data about climate change if we are to see the problem in all its aspects. (Anything less will let down future generations with our short-sightedness.) Ian Flintoff

Posted by: Ian Flintoff | October 16, 2006 10:51 PM

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