So you think you’re having a busy day? In just 24 hours, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have rewritten the history of mammals and secured the future of one mammal in particular.

First, a trip back to the end of the Cretaceous. The extinction of the dinosaurs did not kick-start the evolutionary burst that led to modern mammals, according to research from ZSL and Imperial College in this week’s Nature.

As any smart Alec school kid will tell you, mammals thrived once the dinosaurs were off the scene. The furry little critters were free to get on with important tasks, such as breeding like proto-rabbits and evolving into us. The new report suggests that this is not quite true. The great spurt in diversification and evolution that led to humans and other modern mammals happened 10 million years later, during a bout of global warming. The lineages that did evolve rapidly after the extinction event soon burned out and have few modern descendants. Read more over on news@nature.

Back to the future, and London’s resident gorillas are swinging a little more spaciously. Today, Prince Philip will open a new enclosure for the great apes at London Zoo (operated by ZSL). The £5.3 million area has taken 18 months to build and is described as the zoo’s ‘most significant investment for more than 40 years’. It opens to non-royals on March 30.