Articles for author: Sameen David

The prehistoric oxygen levels that made insects grow to the size of eagles and what happened to those levels when the conditions that created them disappeared

The prehistoric oxygen levels that made insects grow to the size of eagles and what happened to those levels when the conditions that created them disappeared

Imagine walking through a forest and hearing wingbeats above you, then looking up and realizing it’s not a bird casting that shadow, but a dragonfly with a two-foot wingspan. That sounds like fantasy, but scenes like that were real during parts of the Paleozoic era, when giant insects ruled the skies and swamps. The obvious ...

What a day on Earth felt like 500 million years ago - it was 21 hours long, the sky was a different colour and the oceans were warm enough to kill most modern marine life

What a day on Earth felt like 500 million years ago – it was 21 hours long, the sky was a different colour and the oceans were warm enough to kill most modern marine life

Imagine waking up on an Earth where the day ends three hours sooner, the sky feels just a little off from the blue you know, and the ocean is a vast, steaming cauldron that would wipe out most of today’s marine life. That world is not science fiction; it is our planet as it existed ...