Mass Extinction, Peopling Of America, Tale Of The Horse

 Sharing some interesting items:

1) What was the impact of Deccan Volcanism on the end-Cretaceous mass extinction? Improved dating of the timing of volcanism shows that volcanism spanned the mass extinction. But what changes occurred to marine environments because of the outgassing wasn't well documented. A new study uses the oxygen isotope ratios in foraminifera shells to estimate ocean temperature changes before and after the mass extinction. The finding is that the oceans warmed well before the extinction but cooled back again. The warming event doesn't appear to correlate with marine extinctions. Rather the mass extinction coincides with evidence for a meteorite impact. 

Here is a figure from the paper on the estimated temperature changes collated using a variety of proxies:

Source: On impact and volcanism across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

Joshua Sokol has written a good summary of the paper:

A Rapid End Strikes the Dinosaur Extinction Debate.

2) Anthropological geneticist Jennifer Raff has pieced together the genomic story of the peopling of the American continents in this really insightful article. Do read it!

Genomes Reveal Humanity’s Journey into the Americas.

3) And next, onwards to a bit of Indian history. A very interesting conversation between Live History India editor Mini Menon and author Yashaswini Chandra on Ms. Chandra's new book, The Tale of the Horse: A History of India on Horseback. Fascinating story of the horse trade from Central Asia into India and its assimilation as a war animal and into Indian society. 

The Tale of the Horse (video).