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Both climate change and humans were responsible for the extinction of some large mammals, like the musk ox in this photo, according to research that is the first of its kind to use genetic, archeological, and climatic data together to infer the population history of large Ice-Age mammals. The large international team's research, which will be published in the journal Nature, is expected to shed light on the possible fates of living species of mammals as our planet continues its current warming cycle.

Gray whales survived many cycles of global cooling and warming over the past few million years, likely by exploiting a more varied diet than they do today, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Smithsonian Institution paleontologists.

Plunge in CO2 put the freeze on AntarcticaAtmospheric carbon dioxide levels plunged by 40% before and during the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet 34 million years ago, according to a new study. The finding helps solve a long-standing scientific puzzle and confirms the power of CO2 to dramatically alter global climate.

According to a paper published in Science, models of how animal and plant distributions are affected by climate change may also explain aspects of human evolution. The approach takes existing knowledge of the geographical spread of other species through the warming and cooling of the ice ages to provide a model that can be applied to human origins.

A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate.