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🗓️ 30 October 2014
⏱️ 1 minutes
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0:00.0 | This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute. |
0:07.0 | You'd think that the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago with enough force to wipe out the dinosaurs |
0:15.0 | would be a tough thing to sleep through. |
0:17.0 | But a new study suggests that the ability to engage in extended hibernation |
0:21.0 | might be what saved ancestral mammals from extinction at the end of the |
0:24.1 | Cretaceous. The hypothesis is in the proceedings of the Royal Society B. It's thought that |
0:29.4 | global wildfires engulfed the planet for a year or more after the Chixiloop impact. |
0:34.6 | That's a long time to stay out of harm's way. |
0:36.9 | Small mammals most likely burrowed underground, but could they last that long without coming |
0:41.3 | up for air? |
0:42.3 | Yes, if they were hibernating. We know |
0:44.8 | that bears can sleep through winter, but bunny-sized Madagascar mammals called |
0:48.7 | 10 wrecks have got that beat. Researchers tag two dozen 10-rex with devices that recorded their body temps and then released them back into the wild. |
0:56.0 | Most of the Tenerks got killed by dogs or snakes or poachers, but a couple tunneled into the sand where they proceeded to snooze until the researchers dug them up, |
1:04.8 | nine months later. |
1:05.8 | Wake up! |
1:07.7 | The findings reveal that on occasion, the best way to make it through a crisis is to just take a long nap. |
1:14.0 | Thanks for the minute. |
1:16.0 | For Scientific Americans, 60 Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkins. |
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