One of the most well-known global extinctions, made famous by numerous sci-fi novels and movies, would probably be the dying out of the dinosaurs more or less 65 million years ago.

Today, evidence suggests that the trend of another impending mass extinction is slowly becoming a reality. This is based from the fossil records examined by the universities of York and Leeds.

The matching data sets of marine and terrestrial against climate temperature suggests that global biodiversity is relatively low during warm "greenhouse" phases and more extinctions occur during those periods, while the reverse is true in cooler "ice house" phases.

The research was published by University of York student Gareth Jenkins and University of Leeds Professor Tim Benton in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Both researchers are noted population ecologists in their field. Dr. Mayhew had this to say about the results of their research:

Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase.

The current trend of global temperatures in the coming centuries suggest that such a possibility isn't as off as it seems.

It seems genetic modification may indeed be the way towards the future. The process is getting more popular (remember the HIV killing enzyme?), not to mention useful, as scientists have altered plants to suck up pollution and render it harmless.

Three groups of scientists have grown different mutant plants. A group from Britain developed plants to clean residues of military explosives from the environment. From the University of York comes plants that can degrade the explosive RDX which may cause cancer. A group from the University of Washington developed plants that can clean up contaminated ground water.

Of course normal plants do all the stuff the super plants do - only they're really, really slow. The plants from UW metabolized the toxins in the ground water 100 times faster than normal plants. Not only that but they cleaned up 91% of the toxins where normal, everyday plants only got 3%.

However, the plants are also considered a potential threat when they propagate. To address this the UW group chose poplars for their mutant plants because it can grow for years before flowering, which would allow them to be harvested before they can grow new mutant plants. (The X-Men will be furious.)

The process is environmentally sound and cost-effective: they are 10 times cheaper than other existing technologies. This is not to mention that they're prettier to look at than bulky machines. Perhaps Captain Planet can use a sixth planeteer: Jean, with the power of gene splicing.