Crows possess higher intelligence long thought primarily human:
Now the birds can add one more feather to their brainiac claims: Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals.
A second study, also in Science, looked in unprecedented detail at the neuroanatomy of pigeons and barn owls, finding hints to the basis of their intelligence that likely applies to corvids’, too.
“Together, the two papers show that intelligence/consciousness are grounded in connectivity and activity patterns of neurons” in the most neuron-dense part of the bird brain, called the pallium, neurobiologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, who wrote an analysis of the studies for Science, told STAT. “Brains can appear diverse, and at the same time share profound similarities. The extent to which similar properties present themselves might be simply a matter of scale: how many neurons are available to work.”
Understanding the minds of nonhuman animals promises to shed light on the origins of such cognitive abilities as, in this case, knowing and analyzing the contents of one’s own brain. That’s how people solve challenges and make discoveries — what do I know? what if I look at it this way? — and it’s a pillar of higher intelligence. Knowing what you know is also a form of consciousness, and the discovery that more and more nonhumans seem to have it raises tricky questions about how we treat them.
“It has been a good week for bird brains!” said crow expert John Marzluff of the University of Washington, who was not involved in the new studies. In particular, the discovery that crows know what they know will not surprise avian scientists, “who have increasingly demonstrated the cognitive abilities of birds, … but they will be relieved! This research is groundbreaking.”
Journal References:
Andreas Nieder, Lysann Wagener, Paul Rinnert. A neural correlate of sensory consciousness in a corvid bird [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abb1447)
Martin Stacho, Christina Herold, Noemi Rook, et al. A cortex-like canonical circuit in the avian forebrain [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abc5534)
Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Birds do have a brain cortex—and think [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abe0536)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @03:44AM
Finally Azuma has found a peer to have intellectual discussions with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @03:48AM (4 children)
Aesop's tales recorded crows are clever, unlike their typical bird-brained cousins.
BTW, I looked at the sub queue. It's about 90% "upstart" subs. That ain't right.
(Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:38AM (1 child)
Upstart is an IRC bot? There's a secret IRC channel where all the cool kids hide out? The only people who don't join IRC are trolls?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:56AM
Join us at irc.soylentnews.org There is much hilarity on #soylent and #shitlords.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:01AM (1 child)
Aye, but remember, unless a scientist tells you water is wet and the sky is blue it's naught but uninformed folk shitwankery....
Ah, but there again, it depends...the resident robins (Erithacus rubecula) in our front garden display signs of intelligence, it won't be the first time that they've flown up to me, flown to the bird table, flown back to me to indicate that the table is empty and could I please put out more suet and meal worms...they know about windows, and will, deliberately, land on the sill in front of any of the cats sitting inside, taunting them..Intelligent, but cocky little buggers..
Blackbirds(Turdus merula) are dumb, plain and simple..
Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), I'm still 50-50 about, some are dumb, some are clever, they have the advantage of operating as a 'flock intelligence' so, as an example, when I go into the garden the starlings will scarper, but if the member(s) of the flock who recognise me as 'not a threat - the muppet who puts out food for us', they'll stop, call, then within a minute or so, the rest of the flock will show back up again.
Pigeons (Rattus volaticus) are clever buggers, 25 years ago, when I worked in London, there were a number of them who'd managed to figure out the traffic light/pedestrian crossings...at one particular nasty road junction in the Mitcham area with a complex system of crossings and pedestrian islands, it was a normal thing for them to suddenly appear at your feet when you pressed the button to cross, then waddle along to the other side, first time it happened I was like WTF?, but the other pedestrians seemed to accept it as normal.
And then there's Magpies (Pica pica)....I put them higher up the intelligence scale than crows, I've watched them hunt blackbirds as a pack (parents and juveniles), as I've sat and watched them over the years, I know that they've been doing the same, watching me back, there's a lot more going on behind those eyes than just mere instinctive programming. If I can throw in a pet theory, thanks to the centuries of human persecution of the corvids, we've removed a lot of the 'stupid' from the gene pools of birds who were naturally bright to start with.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday September 27 2020, @03:27PM
> If I can throw in a pet theory, thanks to the centuries of human persecution of the corvids, we've removed a lot of the 'stupid' from the gene pools of birds who were naturally bright to start with.
That is an interesting hypothesis to ponder. It would not be the first evolutionary pressure humans have put on other forms of life. It would be interesting to think that we are making the other lifeforms on earth more intelligent, and from there on, perhaps there was a time when other lifeforms more intelligent than early humans applied similar pressure to us, resulting in the evolutionary path we have taken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:40AM (3 children)
Janrinok submits as ed? STEM is now for the birds? Hmmm, or left to the Buzzards.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:05AM (2 children)
What makes you think that editors are not permitted to make submissions? They are, however, forbidden from processing their own submissions and this fact, along with the rules that we insist wherever possible on each story being approved for release by a second editor, help prevent abuse of the release process by bias. In the event of a Breaking News story of great importance requiring immediate action then the story can be released by a single editor as long as it is seconded as soon as possible after release.
My last submission to this site was in May of 2019. It was a story about the 737 MAX aircraft - a topic perfectly suited to our site. Do you have a problem with that submission?
The Arthur T Knackerbracket (ATK) account is allocated to a bot so that anyone who uses that software can submit stories in exactly the same way that they would any other. Again, I ask if you have a problem with that as a concept. ATK is used both on IRC and by several in our community to collect and submit stories. Upstart (on IRC) can also use the ATK bot for story analysis and extraction but the submissions are made via a different software package as it is written in a different language than the bot itself.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:35PM (1 child)
Now all we need is an APK bot, lol.
Oooooo.....an MDC bot: just to keep the memories alive! PPPPPPPPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEE! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 28 2020, @07:41AM
I wrote the ATK bot when MDC was still an active part of our community and the thought of naming a bot after him never crossed my mind. However, I think that a bot named after him is an excellent idea!.
Lets just see how long it takes until somebody asks 'who is MDC...?'.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:50AM (1 child)
Humans are too entitled with their unreasonable expectation to get paid. AIs are too expensive because we have to pay for their compute time while they process training data but before they do any billable work. Is there some way we can send crows to code boot camp and make the crows pay for it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by istartedi on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:25AM
They'll need an editor with dark mode, and they tend to hunt and peck on the keyboard.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:59AM
crows found more intelligent than runaway and dry. news at 11.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:06AM (2 children)
and here i was thinking that only jews possess that shit...
these type of articles, that point out the potential worth of other stuff then jews are making me nervous.
also, there are aspects of evolutionary psychology that imply, that under certain circumstances there might exist other duties for a lesser individual in a group, the feeling sorry for the jews.
and god forbid, even killing a couple of them...
damnit, reality is a real piss on my parade...
-zug (Vlad to some)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:31AM (1 child)
...many people seem to take these kind of comments as racism and hate speech towards actual jews...
but now that intelligence and awareness is up for scrutiny, i would like to point put that this is not the case.
jews as individuals are, per se, not distinguishable from the people around us.
however they exist both as a group, that is a networked set of individuals, and objects of perception inside others heads.
now, to the ACTUAL FUCKING POINT:
just as crows seem to have higher then anticipated mental functions, so do the people who are by birth "your people", aka the racists and such.
amongs the many duties the have, there are couple that does not require social adeptness and striving to be loved.
those are to uphold the law, and the stability of the nation by whatever means necessary.
that includes sniping intruders at the border, deleting "foreign" objects that seem to have gotten too much foothold in the "economy", and sometimes picking off local trash.
one does not get loved for this, but the job needs to get done.
so, since we contemplate our animal siblings, and our origins, please light a candle for and take a moment to ruminate over the fact that our unloved white supremacist fellows exist for a reason.
from evolutionary perspective, sometime long ago they were needed, they came, they fought for those who called them, and not been loved more or less form the beginning.
so when i trashtalk jews, i actually want attention and love, since without me, you would be stuck in arab culture and the entertainment it has to offer =)
(by the way, damn i would like tho shoot some of them :thumbsup:)
zug, the white supremacist.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:04AM
Absolutely not. I attest they exist just from pure stupidity, no reason whatsoever.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:11AM (29 children)
We better keep this on the d/l because it could cause Christianity to implode. Animals with souls would screw the whole 'dominion over his earth' thing. Plus we would have to treat them as equals in God's eyes. That's a pretty huge ego blow for God's chosen people.
(Score: 0) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 27 2020, @12:48PM (8 children)
Some modicum of existential awareness does not a soul make. How is science going to prove something has what science claims doesn't exist for how long now?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:05PM (3 children)
Science has amendment and growth built into its foundational principles.
Religion is based on the "word of God" and tends to require bloody revolutions and conflict with "false prophets" who attempt to bring updated words of God to earth. The Pope is trying to bring Catholicism forward, but it's only baby steps he's even trying to take because he knows anything radical will collapse what little is left of the Holy Roman Empire.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:22PM
They're called American Catholics. I have been trying to get them to form their own protestant cell for a long time. They really, really don't like the current Pope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @02:54AM
Pope Francis is most popular with atheists.
This does not make him a particularly good leader of the CATHOLIC CHURCH.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @01:27PM
Atheists insist on a naturalistic explanation no matter the evidence. That's not to be confused with a meaningful definition of science and that does not have growth built into its foundational principles. It presumes the conclusions and tries to figure out how those assumed conclusions are true.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 27 2020, @03:49PM
So what *does* make a soul? What is its composition, how can it be detected, etc? Because, I hate to break this to you, but as materialistic as this sounds (and I'm not an atheist so consider the source here!) a thing that can't be detected, sensed, or otherwise even known to exist may as well not exist.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @05:38PM (1 child)
Well we can see you are lacking one though you are presumably in a human body. Did a satanic ritual cause that bidy to become lossessed by your demon spirit??
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:41PM
Nope. She got corrupted by critical thinking. Arguably Satan's most powerful weapon.
Looks like it's hell for her.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:07PM
"Science" doesn't claim that at all. Some scientists might, but they'd be offering an opinion.
The actual claim would be "show me how to measure a soul" or similar.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:02PM (1 child)
I think this admission is actually a sign of increasing human intelligence: recognition of intelligence in other species.
It may be that our alien observers will decloak as soon as the majority of humans enact (and faithfully abide) laws and rights for all intelligent species, because until we do that, what intelligent alien species would introduce itself to a bunch of abusive xenophobes with nuclear weapons?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:35PM
Bravo sir.
I had forgotten about the nuclear option.
Perhaps we should nuke the crows to keep things status quo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @11:55PM (14 children)
Quite the opposite. It's just more complexity that atheists have to explain. The more sophisticated/complicated/advanced that life forms are the more difficult it is for atheists to explain. Atheists always try to make overly simplistic assumptions based on the fact that simpler things is easier and simpler to explain via evolution. But it turns out life is way way more advanced and sophisticated than previously thought.
Despite the fact that Darwin predicted many many things Darwin got wrong Darwin would have never dreamed of how sophisticated and advanced life is at the microscale. Much harder to explain. Never mind the fact that the fossil record is an absolute disaster for those that believe in common descent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @11:58PM
err .. the first sentence should read despite the many things that Darwin predicted that he got wrong *
(Score: 2, Informative) by MIRV888 on Monday September 28 2020, @07:16AM (12 children)
You seem unfamiliar with the 'complex systems come from simple origins' data we have been accumulating from quite some time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @10:04AM (11 children)
I'm familiar with the speculation that they do but I'm unfamiliar with anyone showing that they do. For instance show me where life can originate from non-life in nature itself (not in a lab or a human controlled environment). Show me nature itself creating the computer that I'm using. Or the car that I drive. No, it's created by humans.
So yes, I'm unfamiliar with any such thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:36AM (10 children)
Do yourself a favor and don't run creationist/ID arguments. They are the most potent source of *maltheism* it is possible to tap. If something deliberately made what we see, it is some combination of insane, incompetent, and/or evil.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @01:29PM (9 children)
You assume to know the intent of the designer.
When a human can make something that can last thousands of years (life) and still survive and adapt to environmental changes as well life has then you can talk. So far not even close. Most of what we make breaks down within a generation or less. Life continues on for generations and generations.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday October 02 2020, @06:30PM (8 children)
So? Intent doesn't matter when even the ostensibly designed things can see the design is utterly bletcherous.
As a pertinent example, if creationism were true, the DNA code would not be prone to slippage, duplications, aneu/polyploidy, SNPs, strand breakage, and heaven knows what else goes wrong with it. It is, in fact, possible to design a much more robust and simpler (64 triplets for 20 amino acids, *really?*) code, and IIRC someone's done it already.
You don't know enough about this subject to speak on it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:55PM (7 children)
I'm sure I know more about the subject than you.
Windows has been very prone to mistakes and being hacked and Blue screens of death. No one argues it wasn't designed. Humans create things that are poorly designed all the time. Just because a design isn't perfect doesn't make it any less designed.
It's also possible that all of the above you mention is part of the design to allow for more variations in the face of changing environments.
Besides things that are designed do in fact break down over time. Cars are subject to popped tired, broken transmissions, engines blowing out, the spark plugs need to be replaced, oil changes are needed, and constant maintenance. Over time the car gets thrown out.
Houses may have roof leaks, termites, etc...
All of these things are still designed.
Again, you are assuming to know the intent of the designer. Life has been around for thousands of years. So far it's stood the test of time. I haven't seen you create something that lasts longer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:05AM
Popped tires *
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday October 03 2020, @01:35AM (5 children)
I'm quite sure you do not :) Not about the life sciences, not about apologia and counter-apologia, and not about the history of your own religion. You're making a terrible showing so far. Your entire argument boils down to lack of knowledge and imagination.
Here's test #1: how could you distinguish the creations of your God-figure from those of an incredibly ancient, powerful, hyperdimensional race of aliens?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @09:21PM (4 children)
Yes because anyone that disagrees with your personal beliefs must do so because they are ignorant. Only you know best.
Your test is not relevant to the discussion (way to change the subject. I would like to get back on to the subject being discussed here). I'm merely responding to the claim that smarter crows is somehow a threat to any religion by pointing out that this is not really relevant. If anything the fact that anyone would try to spin this as evidence for UCD (universal common descent) when it's not would either suggest complete incompetence on the part of the person trying to spin this or it would suggest such a lack of evidence for UCD that someone would have to take something that's not evidence for UCD and really really stretch it into making an argument for UCD with it because they can't really find anything better.
The fact that one may not know certain attributes of a designer doesn't make something any less designed. I can see a car and not necessarily know which manufacturer made it and still know that it was designed by a car manufacturer. I don't need absolute knowledge about a designer to reasonably infer design.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday October 04 2020, @11:51PM (3 children)
Uh...smart crows are neither here nor there. Common descent could produce them, as could intelligent design.
But there very much is a problem, not scientific but theological/apologetic, with the "attributes of the designer" issue. You are not, as coyly suggested, arguing for "some mysterious designer;" you are a partisan of the Abrahamic God. This being is supposed to be perfect and to have a creationist agenda; what we observe and test, empirically and repeatedly, contradicts this. No perfect being would create the giant mass of kludges, bolt-ons, and failures we routinely observe. Evolution does not disprove theism or deism--I am not myself an atheist!--but it does disprove the Abrahamic religions.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2020, @01:13AM (2 children)
"Uh...smart crows are neither here nor there."
Exactly my point. That was exactly what I was responding to and I believe I did so successfully. My point is that smart crows have nothing to do with which religion is true or not true and the person that made the original comment is either an idiot or desperately lacking real evidence to make his point.
All that other stuff you mention is not relevant to the specific point I was making.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 05 2020, @01:11PM (1 child)
It ain't wrong, though, and you don't get to just act as if it weren't said :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2020, @03:32PM
All the other stuff you mention is not relevant to this discussion. This discussion pertains to the original comment being responded to which is wrong. Whether your off topic comments are right or wrong is not the subject of this discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @02:37AM (2 children)
You simply described to me what's already there. I agree, God's creation is remarkable. You haven't shown me how it got there.
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Monday September 28 2020, @07:14AM (1 child)
Praying won't get us there.
Science is batting 100%
If you can figure it out, you can make it work.
They didn't get to the moon on prayers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @10:08AM
Oh, I have nothing against science. It was design that created the space shuttle that got us on the moon. Random chance didn't do it.
If atheism were true I wouldn't expect the universe to be random with no coherent laws. One moment gravity exists in one direction, the next it exists in the other direction, the next it doesn't exist. No patterns.
Science can exist because the universe isn't a random existence. It's the result of a coherent God. Many early scientists looked for the patterns that exist in the universe because they believed in a coherent God. I have nothing against science. But don't confuse naturalism with any useful definition of the word science.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:20AM
You don't see crows supporting Fat Cheeto.
(Score: 0) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 27 2020, @12:37PM
Let's see if they "know" that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 27 2020, @03:48PM (1 child)
Buzzards not so much :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Monday September 28 2020, @07:18AM
Buzzards work for Satan. Thus the evil and stupidity.
;-)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ze on Sunday September 27 2020, @05:31PM (5 children)
It's interesting that we've found the radically different brain structure of birds, compared to mammals and most other things with brains, to be capable of much more than we had expected for the relative size.
Since birds are dinosaurs (officially so according to taxonomy; avian dinosaurs, specifically), all this stuff about how intelligent some of these modern species can get makes me wonder how much we might underestimate the upper limits of extinct varieties. Were there any with equal or greater relative cranial capacity, that could have actually exhibited intelligence similar to or greater than any modern birds? Or have modern corvidae, and such, evolved more powerful brains than their big archaic cousins ever really did? I vaguely recall the capacities stayed relatively low even for larger species, but I'd be a little surprised if there weren't any that might've had greater intellect than we've tended to entertain.
We've found some bird species to invent tools, teach/learn their making, and have cultural variations on their designs differing from those of other populations, as well as to identify particular individuals and communicate said identity among themselves, etc... I'm not talking doctor who scifi dinosaur people here, but with such sorts of rudiments of language, culture, and cooperative society observed in some of the present species, how close could some, that might've been just a little smarter and more physically able, have gotten to what we might roughly qualify as civilization?
Also, bearded vultures decorate themselves with red earth, and some species like magpie are well known to collect shiny trinkets... I really doubt any would've had the level of tools and skills to leave anything interesting surviving into our archeological record as such, but were even such things as basic art and jewelry out of the question? Names and identity? Storytelling? (Hmm, that is if corvidae/et al don't do most of that as it is?)
Picturing tribes of social dinosaurs walking around with jewelry, calling each other by name, and discussing the latest gossip and fashion sounds kinda crazy, but putting them in the light of modern findings on extant species, I think something like this actually sounds more plausible than we tend to seriously consider. Or at least it's kindof a fun thought, anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:20PM
Dumbass birds backed themselves into an evolutionary corner. They have to stay light enough to fly so they can't evolve the necessary faculties required to maintain a 400lb body mass and watch never-ending TV blooper reels like their distant cousins, Americans.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Sunday September 27 2020, @07:48PM (1 child)
Eagles tossing goats off cliff sides for an easy meal requires a bit of planning. They would also have to understand the concept of action and result.
It also makes me laugh every time. (Yes, I know that's horrible.)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @03:24PM
See also: https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-intentionally-set-prey-ablaze-rewriting-history-fire-use-firehawk-raptors [sciencealert.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 27 2020, @09:14PM (1 child)
If a species of dinosaur developed intelligence, and a tool making culture 100 million years ago the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, then went extinct we would have no way of knowing.
It is possible exactly that has happened multiple times and we may never know.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MIRV888 on Monday September 28 2020, @07:30AM
100%
No doubt about it.
If we got really lucky we might find fossils. but you are talking about and incredible length of time. One that's really hard to even comprehend.
The important thing we should learn and haven't is that planetary collisions with large spacial objects can kill almost everything that lives, and they occur with regularity (on a planetary timeline.)
But for the dinosaurs getting whacked, we would not be here.
I dunno if this is a policy violation, but this graph illustrates the mass death that has recurred repeatedly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Extinction_intensity.svg [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event [wikipedia.org]