Ferns have staying power. The vascular plants have existed for about 350 million years, even surviving nuclear winterlike conditions — global dimming, cooling and acid rain — 66 million years ago that wiped out dinosaurs and 75% of other animals and plants on Earth. Jacquelyn Gill, a University of Maine paleoecologist, will explore fern resilience read more Gill to explore why ferns flourished after asteroid strike that doomed dinosaurs