Peter Ward: Earth's mass extinctions

http://www.ted.com Asteroid strikes get all the coverage, but "Medea Hypothesis" author Peter Ward argues that most of Earth's mass extinctions were caused by lowly bacteria. The culprit, a poison called hydrogen sulfide, may have an interesting application in medicine.
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[rainydayforest]

Microbial life has an ancient history of robustness, but Ward's point is that complex life is a more delicate affair.

I like bacteria as much as the next fellow, but personally I'm more fond of monkeys and toucans.

[SVisionary]

Wow, I want a Rolex now. So when I die from a sudden meteor impact, I can at least die happy with my watch.

[scottohscott]

This is all wrong. There were no dinosaurs, and the earth is 6,000 years old.

[jeffgarofalo]

@Skandalos Very persuasive argument. I'll be reading your journal article on PLoS One next I suppose. What name do you publish under?

[vgman94]

@panzerfausto Ditto. Except without the "??!!!", just a ?. Now again: What is so bad about Bieber to kill off all life on Earth? I dislike the guy myself. But he is just deadpan. Not a great singer, not exactly painful to hear. The point is, quit loving him and quit hating him. Just IGNORE HIM!!!

[panzerfausto]

@vgman94 what??!!!

[vgman94]

@starstarstar42 He's just a damned overrated singer! He's not bad enough to destroy other species for! If you hate him so much, shoot him yourself. Jeez...

[microland]

H2S sounds like it could be a gateway to hyper-sleep

[electronfun]

@Skandalos The situation is that you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. If the worst never happens, well, then fine and dandy. But if it does happen, then you're not left looking and feeling like a total dingaling. And, unfortunately very bad things DO happen every now and then.

[Skandalos]

This whiney scare mongering drives me off. Catastrophism *always* kills science and turns it into religion.

[starstarstar42]

Nobody ever brings up the POSITIVE aspect of an extinction level event.... no more Justin Beiber. Sure we lose the majority of non single-cellular life, but technically it's a wash, am I right?

[auroraglacialis]

I think this theory holds a lot of truth. Hydrogen Sulfide is indeed a grave danger. Thinking of the ocean currents slowing due to ice melts of the northern ice cap, a stratification and deoxygenation of parts of the ocean may very well occur. I do not see the "Gaia Theory" threatened by it though - it did never state, that the conditions are always ideal, just that they always return to a favourable state - and that they did.