' Class Stand, Good Morning teacher'
'Good Morning, sit down'
'Thank you, teacher'
*All sitting down*
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When's the very last time we heard these lines? A very long time ago dears. I have been stopping by this blog, but haven't been signing in for ages. It's because I don't know how and what to write. And I know the possibility of us viewing this blog is getting smaller and smaller. But signing in here and blogging here bring back lots and lots of memories back :) I know it might sounds cliche, but we had went through so many things together. How we planned for this blog, class t-shirt, pranked on teachers, wore our class t-shirt together for the very last time and our battle with SPM. All these are good memories. Memories that bring us all together.
Gosh, I miss how Ming Shu and Ying Dieh both sat on my left and right. I miss the way Qinyi burped. I miss the way Ain walked by to my place and said' Hey sha, panaslah, nak pinjam kipas'. I miss the way we looked at Melvin's back and praised him for being so tall when he cleaned the blackboard. I miss the way Afiq talked. I miss how funny Badrul and Nurrudin were. I miss Amanda's laughter. There's so many things I remember from our past.
Moving on in our lives without getting touch with you guys is the last thing I want in my life. I really hope we can use the POWER OF FRIENDSHIPS to bring back this blog ALIVE. You know, we can't do this alone, but TOGETHER WE'RE STRONGER!!!
Last but not least, I miss, I love you, members of 5 Science 1!!!!
X,
Shasha
LONDON (Reuters) – A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.
A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a "hellish environment" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet.
Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years.
The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit.
"We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis," said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review.
The asteroid is thought to have hit Earth with a force a billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
Morgan said the "final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs" came when blasted material flew into the atmosphere, shrouding the planet in darkness, causing a global winter and "killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment."
Scientists working on the study analyzed the work of paleontologists, geochemists, climate modelers, geophysicists and sedimentologists who have been collecting evidence about the KT extinction over the last 20 years.
Geological records show the event that triggered the dinosaurs' demise rapidly destroyed marine and land ecosystems, they said, and the asteroid hit "is the only plausible explanation for this."
Peter Schulte of the University of Erlangen in Germany, a lead author on the study, said fossil records clearly show a mass extinction about 65.5 million years ago -- a time now known as the K-Pg boundary.
Despite evidence of active volcanism in India, marine and land ecosystems only showed minor changes in the 500,000 years before the K-Pg boundary, suggesting the extinction did not come earlier and was not prompted by eruptions.
The Deccan volcano theory is also thrown into doubt by models of atmospheric chemistry, the team said, which show the asteroid impact would have released much larger amounts of sulphur, dust and soot in a much shorter time than the volcanic eruptions could have, causing extreme darkening and cooling.
Gareth Collins, another co-author from Imperial College, said the asteroid impact created a "hellish day" that signaled the end of the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs, but also turned out to be a great day for mammals.
"The KT extinction was a pivotal moment in Earth's history, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth," he wrote in a commentary on the study.
(Collins has created a website at http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/Chicxulub.html which allows readers to see the effects of the asteroid impact.)
