Tempers and Compensation on Cruise Ship Rising

The 4,000 passengers and crew aboard the stricken Carnival Triumph cruise ship will disembark after dark tonight from the fetid cruiser dubbed "the poop deck" on social media, according to officials.

"It will come in. It will not stop," Alabama State Port Authority Director Jimmy Lyons said at a news conference today. "We're going to do everything we can from our standpoint to ensure that this is as smooth as possible."

He estimated the ship would arrive between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. tonight.

Delighted passengers waved at media helicopters that flew out to film the ship and passenger Rob Mowlam told ABCNews.com by phone today that most of the passengers on board were "really upbeat and positive."

Nevertheless, when he gets off Mowlam said, "I will probably flush the toilet 10 times just because I can."

Mowlam, 37, got married on board the Triumph Saturday and said he and his wife, Stephanie Stevenson, 27, haven't yet thought of redoing the honeymoon other than to say, "It won't be a cruise."

Lyons said that with powerless "dead ships" like the Triumph, it is usually safer to bring them in during daylight hours, but, "Once they make the initial effort to come into the channel, there's no turning back."

Click here for photos of the stranded ship at sea.

Lt. Cmdr. Paul McConnell/U.S. Coast Guard/AP Photo

Carnival Cancels All Scheduled Voyages Aboard the Triumph Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Making Its Way to Port Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Stranded for Third Day Watch Video

"There are issues regarding coming into the ship channel and docking at night because the ship has no power and there's safety issues there," Richard Tillman of the Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau told ABCNews.com.

When asked if the ship could be disembarked in the dark of night, Tillman said, "It is not advised. It would be very unusual."

Carnival Cruise Senior Vice President of Marketing Terri Thornton, however, insisted during a news conference at the port of Mobile today, "Our understanding is it will be alongside this evening."

Thornton denied the rumors that there was a fatality on the ship. He said that there was one illness early on, a dialysis patient, but that passenger was removed from the vessel and transferred to a medical facility.

The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting now and there are multiple generators on board. And customs officials will board the ship while it is being piloted to port to accelerate the embarkation, officials said.

After eight miserable days at sea, the ship's owners have increased the compensation for what some on board are calling the vacation from hell.

All 3,143 passengers aboard the 900 foot colossus, which stalled in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire early Sunday, were already being given a full refund for the cruise, transportation expenses and vouchers for a another cruise. Carnival Cruise Lines is now boosting that offer to include another $500 per person. Gerry Cahill, president and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines, announced the additional compensation Wednesday.

"We know it has been a longer journey back than we anticipated at the beginning of the week under very challenging circumstances," he said in a statement. "We are very sorry for what our guests have had to endure. Therefore, in addition to the full refund and future cruise credit already offered, we have decided to provide this additional compensation."

Carnival also said that it has canceled a dozen planned voyages for the Triumph and acknowledged that the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before an engine-room fire left it powerless in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read More..

Asteroid to give Earth a record close shave on Friday

Earth is about to dodge a bullet. An asteroid will buzz the planet on 15 February, coming closer than many communications satellites.

At 45 metres wide, the space rock is the biggest object in recorded history to swoop this close to Earth. Were it to collide with the planet, it would cause devastation akin to the 1908 Tunguska event that flattened 2000 square kilometres of trees in Siberia.

Astronomers have been tracking the object, called 2012 DA14, since it was discovered a year ago. It will pass about 27,500 kilometres above Earth's surface, making its closest approach over Indonesia at 7.24 pm GMT. In dark, clear skies the asteroid will be visible with binoculars.

Closer look

There is no risk of a collision, but the near miss offers a chance to observe the asteroid up close, for instance, using radar to map its surface. This was done in late 2011 with the asteroid 2005 YU55, which didn't come as near to Earth but was a whopping 400 metres across. Astronomers got a detailed view of a surface covered with craters.

"2012 DA14 is a much smaller object, so won't look this good," says Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. Still, the radar images should give a better sense of the object's shape and spin, which will improve our understanding of its likely future path, she says.

"Right now astronomers expect that Earth's gravity will shift the asteroid's orbit closer to the sun, which means it is unlikely to get cosy with our planet again for another 100 years.

Astronomers also hope to read the object's spectrum - chemical clues in its reflected light that can reveal its composition, says JPL's Donald Yeomans. This can help studies of all near-Earth asteroids, he says: "If you can match up spectral types of asteroids to a corresponding meteorite type, which has been studied to death on the ground, then you know what this thing is made of at the elementary level."

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Olympics: Wrestlers vow to fight Olympic removal

PARIS: Wrestlers around the world on Wednesday vowed to fight to save the ancient sport's Olympic status, after the International Olympic Committee voted to drop it for the 2020 Games.

Japan and Turkey -- whose cities Tokyo and Istanbul are bidding to host the Games in seven years' time -- led the calls for the world body to reconsider, as an online petition was organised urging a rethink and gained thousands of supporters.

The president of the Turkish wrestling federation, Hamza Yerlikaya, called the decision, taken at the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Tuesday, "unfair" and a "mistake" that they would seek to overturn.

"To have the 2020 Olympics in Istanbul without wrestling is unthinkable," said Yerlikaya, himself a double Olympic gold medallist, three-time world champion and eight-time European champion in Greco-Roman wrestling.

"We won't allow it," he added.

In Japan, Yerlikaya's counterpart Tomiaki Fukuda said on his federation's website that he was "dissatisfied and baffled", echoing the views of the sport's world governing body, which called the decision "an aberration".

Wrestling will remain on the programme for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro but faces a fight against seven other sports for inclusion at the Games four years later. A final decision is to be made when all IOC members meet in September.

Members are seen as unlikely to vote against the executive board, however, raising the prospect that one of the few sports that survived from the original Olympics in ancient Greece into the modern era will disappear.

Wrestling first appeared in 708 BC and has only ever been left out of the Olympic programme once before in 1900.

The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) has vowed to fight the decision, while multiple medallists Russia and Iran have also said they hoped the IOC would backtrack.

"This issue will definitely be a big blow to the country's sport, as it is one of our country's most popular sports," the head of Iran's national Olympic commitee, Mohammad Aliabadi was quoted as saying in Iranian media, "I will certainly pursue the case."

IOC president Jacques Rogge meanwhile insisted on Wednesday that the vote -- by secret ballot -- was fair and said he understood the angry response from those involved in the sport.

A meeting was planned between the committee and the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA), to discuss the matter, he told a news conference in Lausanne.

Wrestlers have been left dismayed by the decision, with Japan's undisputed queen of the ring, Saori Yoshida, saying: "I am so devastated that I don't know what to do."

Yoshida, a 55kg-class freestyle wrestler who is the face of Tokyo's campaign for the right to host the 2020 Games, has won a record 13 straight Olympic and world championship gold medals over 10 years.

In India, Sushil Kumar, who won a bronze in Beijing and a silver in London last year, said: "I still can't get over the news that we won't be at the Olympics.

"All sportsmen look towards the Olympics as the pinnacle of excellence, everyone wants to take part in them. Now what do we do? Give up wrestling? I hope the IOC will reconsider this decision."

An online petition at change.org entitled "The International Olympic Committee: Save Wrestling as an Olympic sport #SaveOlympicWrestling" has also been mounted, urging the US Senate to take up the matter.

By late afternoon on Wednesday, it had more than 21,000 signatures.

On Twitter, one user, @WrestlersLoveUs, wrote: "Ancient Olympic wrestlers used to sometimes fight to the death. IOC better understand we're ready to do that again. #SaveOlympicWrestling."

-AFP/fl

Read More..

Skype 6.2 arrives for Windows, Mac

Microsoft's Skype team today rolled out two new updates, both labeled as version 6.2, for Windows and Mac.

The Windows version includes a redesigned top toolbar that brings together main actions, like calling phones, creating groups, and adding contacts. It also includes "eGifting," or the ability to send Skype credits to users on their birthday which the recipients can use anytime.

Another feature in the Skype 6.2 for Windows release includes the option to send an instant message using ctrl+enter. This version drops support for PCs using Intel Pentium 3 or similar CPUs which don't support SSE2 instructions.

The Skype for Mac 6.2 update includes the same eGifting capability. It also adds support for one-way SMS without the addition and verification of the user's mobile number.

The
Mac update includes several bug fixes, including problems with signing out of Facebook, and issues around the display of Messenger contacts in a Skype contact group.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet under the headline "Skype rolls out 6.2 updates for Windows, Mac."

Read More..

Obama Pledges U.S. Action on Climate, With or Without Congress

If there were anything in President Barack Obama's State of the Union to give hope to wistful environmentalists, it was the unprecedented promise to confront climate change with or without Congress, and to pursue new energy technology in the process.

Following his strong statements in his inaugural address about the ripeness of the moment to address a changing climate, Obama outlined a series of proposals to do it. Recognizing that the 12 hottest years on record all occurred in the last decade and a half, Obama said his most ambitious goal would be a "bipartisan, market-based solution," similar to the cap-and-trade system that died in Congress during his first term.(See related story: "California Tackles Climate Change, But Will Others Follow?")

But without legislative action, Obama threatened to act himself using executive authority. "I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy," he said. That will translate, White House officials said earlier in the week, to new regulations for existing coal-burning power plants and directives to promote energy efficiency and new technology research. (See related story: "How Bold a Path on Climate Change in Obama's State of the Union?")

The effort isn't one that can be stalled, he noted. Not just because of a warming planet, but also because of international competition from countries like China and parts of Western Europe that have gone "all in" on clean energy.

Energy experts signaled support of Obama's comments on energy security, including a plan for an Energy Security Trust to use revenue from oil and gas production on public lands to fund new energy research. "Clean energy businesses commend the president for reaffirming his commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to address the damaging and costly impacts of climate change," Lisa Jacobson, president of Business Council for Sustainable Energy, said in a statement. The influential League of Conservation Voters perked up to Obama's vow to act on climate change, even if alone.

Noticeably unmentioned in the speech was the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands to the refining centers of Texas. Environmentalists have urged Obama to reject the project's application for federal approval in order to hold the line against carbon-intensive production from the oil sands. (See related blog post: "Obama and Keystone XL: The Moment of Truth?") Energy analysts believe Obama is likely to approve the project in the coming weeks, yet at the same time offer new regulations on domestic oil and natural gas development.

Other environmental analysts took Obama's remarks as simple talk, so far not backed by action. “How many times do we have to have the problem described?” David Yarnold, president of the Audubon Society said after the speech. “Smarter standards for coal-fired power plants are the quickest path to a cleaner future, and the president can make that happen right now.”

Obama's path toward accomplishing those goals will likely be lonely. In the Republican rebuttal to Obama's speech, Florida Senator Marco Rubio sidelined climate change as an issue of concern and highlighted the deep partisan distrust. "When we point out that no matter how many job-killing laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather, he accuses us of wanting dirty water and dirty air," Rubio said. He echoed the long-held Republican concern that remaking an economy may not be the wisest way to confront the problem of extreme weather.

Central to Obama's efforts will be his nominees to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in his second term. Both roles were at times attacked over his first term, notably when EPA instituted new air and water regulations and DOE was caught making a bad investment in the now-defunct solar manufacturer Solyndra. If the tone of his State of the Union offers a blueprint, he'll choose people unafraid to act.

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Read More..

Charred Human Remains Found in Burned Cabin

Investigators have located charred human remains in the burned-out cabin where they believe suspected cop killer and ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner was holed up as the structure burned to the ground, police said.

The human remains were found within the debris of the burned cabin and identification will be attempted through forensic means, the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department said in a news release early this morning.

Dorner barricaded himself in the cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear Tuesday afternoon after engaging in a gunfight with police, killing one officer and injuring another, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.

Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the department, which is the lead agency in the action, said Tuesday night investigators would remain at the site all night.

FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Dorner Manhunt

When Bachman was asked whether police thought Dorner was in the burning cabin, she said, "Right. We believe that the person that barricaded himself inside the cabin engaged in gunfire with our deputies and other law enforcement officers is still inside there, even though the building burned."

Bachman spoke shortly after the Los Angeles Police Department denied earlier reports that a body was found in the cabin, contradicting what law enforcement sources told ABC News and other news organizations.

Police around the cabin told ABC News they saw Dorner enter but never leave the building as it was consumed by flames, creating a billowing column of black smoke seen for miles.

A news conference is scheduled for later today in San Bernardino.

One sheriff's deputy was killed in a shootout with Dorner earlier Tuesday afternoon, believed to be his fourth victim after killing a Riverside police officer and two other people this month, including the daughter of a former police captain, and promising to kill many more in an online manifesto.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

Carjacking Victim Says Christopher Dorner Was Dressed for Damage Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Inside the Shootout Watch Video

Chris Dorner Manhunt: Fugitive Ex-Cop in Shootout With Police Watch Video

Cops said they heard a single gunshot go off from inside the cabin just as they began to see smoke and fire. Later they heard the sound of more gunshots, which was the sound of ammunition being ignited by the heat of the blaze, law enforcement officials said.

Police did not enter the building, but shot tear gas inside.

One of the largest dragnets in recent history, which led police to follow clues across the West and into Mexico, apparently ended just miles from where Dorner's trail went cold last week.

It all began at 12:20 p.m. PT Tuesday, when a maid working at a local resort called 911, saying she and another worker had been tied up and held hostage by Dorner in a cabin, sources said.

The maid told police she was able to escape, but Dorner had stolen one of their cars, which was identified as a purple Nissan.

The San Bernardino Sheriff's Office and state Fish and Wildlife wardens spotted the stolen vehicle and engaged in a shootout with Dorner.

Officials say Dorner crashed the stolen vehicle and fled on foot only to commandeer Rick Heltebrake's white pickup truck on a nearby road a short time later.

"[Dorner] said, 'I don't want to hurt you, just get out and start walking up the road and take your dog with you.' He was calm. I was calm. I would say I was in fear for my life, there was no panic, he told me what to do and I did it," Heltebrake said.

"He was dressed in all camouflage, had a big assault sniper-type rifle. He had a vest on like a ballistic vest," Heltebrake added.

The white pickup truck bought Dorner extra time because police were still looking for the purple Nissan, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Lt. Patrick Foy told "Good Morning America" today.

"We were looking for a purple color Nissan and all of a sudden this white pickup starts coming by in the opposite direction. That's not the suspect's vehicle that we had been looking for," Foy said.

A warden with the Fish and Wildlife department noticed Dorner driving and the pursuit picked up again, Foy said.

"Ultimately, the officer who was driving that vehicle stopped and pulled out his patrol rifle and engaged probably 15 to 20 shots as Dorner was driving away," Foy said.

Dorner then ran on foot to the cabin in which he barricaded himself and got in a shootout with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and other officers who arrived.

The two deputies were wounded in the firefight and airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said. The second deputy was in surgery and was expected to survive, police said.

Police sealed all the roads into the area, preventing cars from entering the area and searching all of those on the way out. All schools were briefly placed on lockdown.

Believing that Dorner might have been watching reports of the standoff, authorities asked media not to broadcast images of police officers' surrounding the cabin, but sent him a message.

"If he's watching this, the message is: Enough is enough," Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andy Smith told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. "It's time to turn yourself in. It's time to stop the bloodshed. It's time to let this event and let this incident be over."

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 12 February 2013

Exploring oscillation proves a moving experience

From the animating pigs' hearts to diving into an acoustic pod, an exhibition exploring the world of oscillation is full of surprises

Gene therapy cures diabetic dogs

Diabetic beagles haven't needed an insulin injection for four years following treatment with two genes that work together to regulate glucose

Withering heights: Why animals are shrinking

It might sound incredible, but many animals are shrinking - and they will become ever tinier in the centuries to come

Suspicious quake gives away North Korea's third nuke

The magnitude-4.9 earthquake was probably due to a 10-kiloton underground nuclear bomb; the next step is to monitor for signs of radioactive gas

Latest Landsat in 40-year mission blasts off

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission, the newest addition to NASA's 40-year mission monitoring Earth from space, blasted into orbit yesterday

Robotic tormenter depresses lab rats

A new robotic rat induces stress and depression in lab animals, creating models of psychological disorders for testing new drugs

Curiosity's first drilling hints at Martian mining

The NASA rover has sampled beneath the Martian surface, perhaps laying the groundwork for future craft to build on or even mine the Red Planet

Algorithm learns how to revive lost languages

An automated system that reconstructs ancient languages could help recover the sound of words not spoken for thousands of years

Arctic sunshine cranks up threat from greenhouse gases

Soil microbes break down organic matter in permafrost more rapidly when exposed to ultraviolet light, so sunshine could speed up carbon dioxide release

Trading places with us makes robots better teammates

It's good when co-workers understand each other - especially if one of them is a robot. Read how a mechanical arm learned the mind of Celeste Biever

Wind power is now cheaper than coal in some countries

Steady technological improvements and uncertainty over the future of fossil fuels are making wind power truly competitive

Read More..

Horsemeat disguised as beef confirmed in France: company

PARIS: A major French frozen food retailer said on Tuesday it had found horsemeat in two lots of frozen beef lasagne meals it removed from its shelves last week.

Picard, which has hundreds of outlets across France that sell ready-to-eat meals, said the products were made by Comigel, the French firm which last week sparked the frozen food scandal now spreading across Europe.

- AFP

Read More..

iTunes now Apple's fourth-largest business, says analyst

Apple's iTunes generated revenue of $13.5 billion last year, making it the company's fourth-largest business, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu.

A business that simply broke even a few years ago has been rising "steadily and rapidly," Dediu said in a post yesterday.
iTunes has averaged growth of more than 30 percent over the past two years. The $13.5 billion in sales in 2012 was up from $10.2 billion in 2011.

At the same time that iTunes is adding a greater chunk of sales to Apple's overall results, the
Mac and
iPod lineups are contributing less. If this trend continues, iTunes could become Apple's third-largest business sometime this year, forecasts Dediu.

Another business already bigger than the Mac is Apple's Accessories line, which includes products such as Apple TV. As Dediu points out, iTunes and Apple accessories depend on hardware sales to thrive. But the results show that these "ancillary" businesses are contributing more than their fair share.

"Indeed, if seen in isolation, iTunes plus Accessories combined is a bigger business in terms of revenues than any of the other phone vendors except Samsung," Dediu said.

Read More..

What Killed Dinosaurs: New Ideas About the Wipeout

New insights about the asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs suggest it may have just been the final blow, and that the reptiles were already suffering from a finicky climate prompted by volcanic eruptions long before the meteorite struck.

"The [asteroid] impact was the coup de grace," Paul Renne, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.

The research, detailed in the February 8 issue of the journal Science, adds to the ongoing scientific debate over what exactly killed off the dinosaurs.

That debate, which once revolved around the question of whether the culprit was an asteroid or volcano-induced climate changes, has evolved to consider the possibility that perhaps multiple environmental factors were involved.

Renne and his team recently determined the most precise date yet for the asteroid strike, which occurred in the Yucatan peninsula in what is now Mexico.

Using a high-precision dating technique on tektites—pebble-sized rocks formed during meteorite impacts—from Haiti that were created during the event, the team concluded that the impact occurred 66,038,000 years ago—slightly later than previously thought.

When error limits are taken into account, the new date is the same as the date of the extinction, the team says, making the events simultaneous.

Renne said the new findings, should lay to rest any remaining doubts about whether an asteroid was a factor in the dinosaurs' demise.

"We have shown that these events are synchronous to within a gnat's eyebrow," he said, "and therefore the impact clearly played a major role in extinctions."

That is not to say, however, that the asteroid—which carved out the so-called Chicxulub crater—was the sole cause of the dinosaurs' extinction.

Evidence now suggests massive volcanic eruptions in India that predated the asteroid strike also played a part, triggering climate changes that were already killing off some dinosaur groups.

For example, "nobody has ever found a non-avian dinosaur fossil exactly at the impact layer," Renne said in an email. "Hence, strictly speaking, the non-avian dinosaurs"—those dinosaurs unrelated to birds—"may have already gone extinct by the time of the impact."

Death From the Skies

The idea that volcanism was responsible for the dinosaurs' demise actually predates the impact theory, and it fits well with what is known about Earth's other mass extinction events.

"Many of the other mass extinctions have been found to co-occur with large-scale volcanic eruptions," said Heiko Pälike, a paleoceanographer at the University of Bremen in Germany.

But in the 1980s, father-son team Luis and Walter Alvarez, a physicist and planetary scientists, respectively, presented a bold new theory.

After discovering that a layer of clay that's found throughout the world and that coincided with the end of the Cretaceous period is enriched in iridium—an element rare on Earth but common in space rocks—they proposed that a meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs.

"As the impact theory took hold, especially with the more physical scientists ... the volcanists lost ground," Renne explained.

The impact theory gained further momentum in the 1990's, when scientists discovered a 110-mile (180-kilometer) wide impact crater in the Yucatan peninsula that dated to the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods—the so-called KT boundary—when the dinosaurs disappeared.

The crater's size indicated that whatever created it was roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter.

An asteroid of that size striking the Earth would have had devastating consequences, including destructive pressure waves, global wildfires, tsunamis, and a "rain" of molten rock reentering the atmosphere.

Additionally, "much additional particulate matter would have stayed afloat in the atmosphere for weeks, months, perhaps years, blocking incoming solar radiation and thus killing plant life and causing catastrophic drops in temperatures," explained Hans-Dieter Sues, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Hybrid Theory for Dinosaur Extinction

The once-abandoned volcanism theory has seen a revival of sorts in recent years, however, as a result of fresh insights about a period of sustained ancient volcanic activity in India and the discovery that dinosaur diversity may have already been declining before the asteroid strike.

The debate now is "whether the Chicxulub impact was the 'smoking gun,' as many researchers claim," Sues said, "or one of several causative factors, kind of like 'Murder on the Orient Express.'"

Renne belongs to the camp that thinks a series of volcanic eruptions in India that produced ancient lava flows known as the Deccan Traps caused dramatic climate variations, including long cold snaps, that may have already been culling the dinosaurs before the asteroid struck.

"It seems clear that volcanism alone, if on a sufficiently massive and rapid scale, can trigger extinctions," Renne said. "Thus my view that the impact was probably the final straw, but not the sole cause."

Unanswered questions

The new hybrid theory still has some major questions it must answer, however, like precisely how much the Indian volcanic eruptions affected the dinosaurs.

"Some people say if you look at the eruption of Mount Pinatubo [in 1991], it cooled the Earth for a short period of time due to the aerosol and the dust that was ejected," Pälike said.

But "others say in the long run volcanoes probably pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and actually warm the planet, at least temporarily."

It's also unclear how the Deccan Traps eruptions were spread out in time. "We know that they started a few million years before the end of the Cretaceous and lasted for several million years after, extending even beyond the [asteroid impact]," Pälike said.

"However, some people have suggested that there were clusters of eruptions that happened within a span of a few tens of thousands of years."

Knowing the timing of the eruptions is important, Pälike added, because if they were happening close to the end of the Cretaceous, it's more likely they played a role in the dinosaurs' extinction than if most of the eruptions happened two million years before.

Pälike thinks that more precise dating of the volcanic ash layers in India could help answer some of the remaining questions: "That's the next step of the puzzle."

Pinning down the cause of the dinosaurs' extinction isn't just of academic interest, said Jonathan Bloch, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.

"It's important for us to understand how ecosystems respond to big perturbations," Bloch said, "whether it's gradual climate change or a catastrophic event. These are all things we have to think about as humans on the planet today."

Read More..