Anon Archived Researchers consider whether supernovae killed off large ocean animals at dawn of Pleistocene (phys.org)
submitted ago by 2905584?
Posted by: 2905584?
Posting time: 2 years ago on
Last edit time: never edited.
Archived on: 3/12/2019 10:00:00 AM
Views: 172
SCP: 12
12 upvotes, 0 downvotes (100% upvoted it)
Anon Archived Researchers consider whether supernovae killed off large ocean animals at dawn of Pleistocene (phys.org)
submitted ago by 2905584?
view the rest of the comments →
[–] AnthraxAlex ago (edited ago)
They claim the reason it died out was because its large size made it receive a higher dose of radiation from supernovae than smaller animals causing it to be vulnerable to higher mutation and cancer rates. But other large marine animals from the same era survived to become modern marine mammals.
[–] 15510825? [S] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Possibly not receive, but it's plausible that a predator could end up with more damage long term. Same way eagles get high concentrations of toxins that fuck with reproductive rates, gobbling up big fish that have themselves consumed high quantities of tainted matter.
The unmeasurable aspect would be general environmental sensitivity. One could extrapolate based on the effects of radiation on modern sharks, but there's no megaladons about to get the direct data.
[–] AnthraxAlex 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
The supernova info is interesting they need to do a lot more work to link it to extinction level events imo. I've heard that catching a beam from a gamma Ray burst would be an extinction level event but as far as I know that would basically kill everything equally.
[–] 15515081? ago
Bioamplification has nothing to do with absorbed radiation dose...