Enjoy It While You Can: Dropping Oxygen Will Eventually Suffocate Most Life on Earth

For now, life is flourishing on our oxygen-rich planet, but Earth wasn't always that way – and scientists have predicted that, in the future, the atmosphere will revert back to one that's rich in methane and low in oxygen. This probably won't happen for another billion years or so. But when the change comes, it's going to happen fairly rapidly, a study published in Nature Geosciences earlier this year suggests. That study was co-authored by Chris Reinhard, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.