Except for the dinosaur one they keep going on about. But the 16 other mass extinction episodes appear to be a result of volcanoes and floods (symptoms of a pole shift...)

Read this excellent article (with diagrams). Author Norman MacLeod boldly states:

"it’s worth noting that the three largest extinctions of the last 250 million years took place during times of combined sea-level fall and flood-basalt eruption"

A disturbing report of how an immense asteroid, dubbed 2001 YB5, passed us by at only twice the distance of the moon. At a size of 1000ft it could have taken out a country the size of France...

According to the Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia) it is orbiting our sun every 1321 days, meaning 3 more orbits from now it will pass on Nov 14, 2012. Not exactly the solstice, but perhaps the cause of a cataclysm in 2012??

More at NZ Herald and SlashDot

A team of archaeologists and scientists has discovered that Neanderthals, thought to have first appeared around 230,000 to 300,000 years ago, were capable of a sophisticated tool manufacturing process using prehistoric superglue that had to be made at a precise temperature.

This story from the Independent also dares to ask "why we are here and not them", and suggests that the only differences are physical.

Could it be that we modern humans are just physially mutated Neanderthals??