There is no holocaust, no natural disaster, no great terror in the history of humankind that can compare with the apocalypse we call Chicxulub. It’s fair to say that it’s unimaginable. We know that there was ash. We know, for many years, it was very cold. And we know that there, somewhere in the ashfall, is the reason women have periods. In the middle of one of life’s worst disasters, the placenta took hold. Ancient mammals gave birth to live young.[*1]
