Financial Gazette
  • Science
  • Global

Plants survived the dinosaur-killing asteroid by duplicating genomes, study suggests

  • May 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM
  • 14 views
Plants survived the dinosaur-killing asteroid by duplicating genomes, study suggests
When an asteroid as big as Mount Everest struck Earth 66 million years ago, it wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs and roughly a third of life on the planet. But many plants survived the devastation. In a new study published in Cell, researchers reveal that the accidental duplications of genomes—a natural phenomenon—might have helped many flowering plants survive some of the most extreme environmental upheavals in Earth's history.

Originally published at Phys.org

Share: