Mar 102021
Feb 132021
It seems that Earth was a dull place from about 1.8 billion years ago to about 0.8 billion years ago. Mountain formation fell to nada, and over that time the mountains that had emerged prior eroded away. The land area of Earth was thus very flat. And seemingly along with that dull era of geology, biological evolution also seemed to stall out. There may be a link: mountain erosion leads to various mineral nutrients (such as phosphorus) washing out to sea… but as the mountains eroded away and weren’t replaced, the rivers of the time had less and less interesting stuff in them, and thus the single celled organisms int he ocean had less and less to work with.
But then the supercontinent of Nuna-Rodina broke up and mountain formation began again. In about 300 million years the Cambrian Explosion happened and the diversity of life expanded vastly.
Earth’s mountains disappeared for a billion years, and then life stopped evolving
As mentioned in a post about the Great Oxidation Event, the history of life on Earth is complex and deeply interconnected with the geology of the place. Life seemed to arise *very* soon after the planet got completely remade by getting plowed by a Mars-sized world, throwing off rubble that would become the moon; but even though there was life, for billions of years it remained very simple. complexity only came about quite recently. But it’s far from certain that that’s the way it has to be. there might well be worlds that have major civilizations partying down just a few hundred million years after the place cools enough for liquid water.
And of course there are also the many continents that have been subducted and are now floating around in the mantle, hiding forever the traces of the advanced reptilian civilizations that rose and fell on them.
Feb 092021
Sadly it has a Naughty Word (no, not “Trump”) in the title, so just cuz, it’s behind the “Continue Reading.”
Jan 222021
With all the burning last year, I missed this story. The next time you hear or read on one of those Antifa goons torching a place, and some oxygen thief defends their actions because “arson isn’t violence” or “it’s just stuff” or some such vacuous drivel, hit them with this story:
Fundraiser for beekeeper raises £24,000 after his life’s work was destroyed by arsonists
Now, the defender-of-arson will likely point out “but there was a funding effort and he got a lot of money” or “he probably had insurance” or some such nonsense. Never mind the emotional distress of having *your* *stuff* destroyed, there is also this:
Ron had spent 20 years breeding a super-bee that was able to survive attacks from a killer mite that destroyed millions of bees across the world.
The arsonists didn’t just take away a hobby or a source of income… they endangered the very existence of bees. And without bees, a lot of other species will suffer -including humans – due to bees being important pollinators. The arsonists can fairly be faulted for a mass attack on the environment, attempted (perhaps eventually successful) extermination of whole species, and genocide against large swaths of mankind.
No fundamental difference between these arsonists and those who burned Uncle Hugo’s science fiction bookstore… or anywhere else. That’s why I stand foursquare with those calling for the identification, arrest and charging with insurrection/domestic terrorism all those who set fires within the Capitol building earlier this month.
Jan 112021
Megalodon babies ate their unhatched siblings in the womb
And on top of the cannibalism, scientists estimate the cute lil’ buggers were more than six feet long at birth.
Jan 052021
This critter takes me back to the 90’s…
(after the break because it’s a loud auto-playing video)
Dec 312020
At a local gun shop…
Dec 062020
Cuz goin’ blind is high on my list of things to avoid.
Scientists Reverse the Aging Clock: Restore Age-Related Vision Loss Through Epigenetic Reprogramming
Harvard Medical School scientists (curiously, not gender studies majors) reversed age-related glaucoma and promoted nerve regeneration in rodents.
Another victory for STEM. I imagine those who oppose STEM as being part of White Supremacy probably protested the use of animals in these studies. ᚠᚪᚳᛖᛗ
Nov 232020
And…
And the reactions of these two fellers pretty much says it all:
Nov 172020
Scientists Create Meat from Human Cells But Claim It’s Not Cannibalism
Cells taken from a human are “lab grown” into a slab of meat. Is it cannibalism to consume that meat? How about if the cells are *yours* and the “lab” is a kitchen appliance in your own home?
Yick.
That said… if it becomes that easy to grow a slab of humansteak, then it should be that easy to grow a slab of, say, buffalo or tuna or bald eagle Siberian tiger or white rhino or any endangered critter that may in fact be tasty. In the end it *might* end up being easier to grow hamburgers at home in a machine than to grow cows; al you’d need are starter cells and the growth nutrients, which can probably be mass produced by the kiloton. And then at long last humanities great dream of the extinction of cow kind can come to pass… because if humans weren’t ranching them, cows and sheep would have long since gone the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon.
But, yeah,t here’s always gonna be some weirdo who grows himself to gnaw upon.