From Yale Daily News:
... A new study by Yale geology and geophysics postdoctoral associate Nicholas Longrich suggests that the massive asteroid strike that wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago was also responsible for the deaths of many bird species. Longrich’s paper, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, asserts that the many thousands of bird species that exist today evolved from the few dozen that survived the event. Experts in the field said the findings shed light on more than just the history of birds: They expand understanding of extinction events for a wide range of species.
