…and I can take you out of it.” Remember that old parent’s words of…well, if not wisdom, certainly effectiveness? Well, it may turn out that an asteroid brought dinosaurs into being. Guess it just shows that, either way, you shouldn’t mess with Ma Nature.

I’ve observed before how insular paleontology and geology can be, and how hard it was for Alvarez to get his theory accepted, because earth scientists couldn’t (or didn’t want to) imagine extraterrestrial events having such an impact (literally) on the evolution of the planet and his life. The fact that this theory seems to be taken seriously shows that we’ve started to get over that.

Oh, and because I’m reading an interesting book on the subject, extra points to anyone who knows who Wilkes Land is named after, without looking it up (and no, “Wilkes” is not a sufficient answer).