Visualising extinctions over the past million 531 years. The size of the circle shows how the biodiversity of the earth differs from the long-term trend. The resulting fluctuations seem to repeat every 62 million years or so, with 5 main extinction events in total. The most recent was of course the end of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Does this mean the Earth is due another?! [This follows the analysis of an interesting nature article] [more] [code]