9 Science Facts That Will Ruin Your Day

7. The Earth Has Lost 50% Of Its Wildlife In The Last 40 Years

Since the 1970s, 50% of the world's animal species, both on land and sea, have gone extinct.

In order for an extinction to count as a "mass extinction", this figure has to reach 75% ... which is predicted to occur in the next 200 years or so, putting humans on the same level of destruction as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The difference is that it took the dinosaurs 33,000 years to die out after the impact, so we'll have done it 165 times faster than a giant space rock.

This ongoing extinction event is known as the Holocene extinction, but some scientists refer to it as the Anthropocene due to the massive influence of human activity.

It is estimated that we'll lose at least 200 species in the next year alone.