41–50 of 54 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We think we only know about 10% of the species on the planet. We're a long way from archiving dna records of them all.
We know about all the ones that matter though. Like the keystones of the ecosystems.
Could you explain? Dow we know of all the viruses/ bacteria/ trees/ insects that 'matter'?
Currently reading The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson. Wanted to read his book about ants but it was not available/deliverable/ebook. So purchased this on kindle. Have read only about 30%. But some of the things are new. I expected it to be a refresher course after a few of David Attenborough documentaries. But some of the things are new. Like how do we define species. A lot of these things are available on wik…
The excellent youtube channel The Brain Scoop (from the field museum in Chicago) has a nice video explaining the basics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fOfFlMe6ek
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We think we only know about 10% of the species on the planet. We're a long way from archiving dna records of them all.
We know about all the ones that matter though. Like the keystones of the ecosystems.
As an analogy, if you knew the top 10% keystone chemicals that make up the human body but did not know the long tail of the other 90%, you'd likely miss out on a lot of the details that make it all work like immune system cells and vitamins. Just because a molecule (or species) is rare does not make it non-essential.
I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.
You should be praying to science. Last time he decided to make a full wipe, that god made a single backup (!), put it on a boat made by an amateur and then even forgot about it. I would trust him my data as much as the next google storage product.
Science is many things, and one of them is a not very clever child endlessly sticking a penny in a light socket and endlessly being surprised at the unpleasant result. The trouble is that we all participate in the unpleasant result.
I was just discussing blue bees with my friend--they're native to Australia. I had no idea they were in North America as well.
It's a different species though, this is the Australian one: https://imgur.com/X1vf3v4 Oddly enough they're solitary, rather than living in hives.
It's kinda weird to immediately jump to conclusion that a species is extinct after not seeing it for few years, when it's so rare that it eluded discovery until 2011.
even though the picture is not real, that's a truly beautiful creature! to be honest, i would personally prefer blue bees over yellow. there's just something about the color blue...
Why would you say that the picture is not real? That is a bold claim to make without any evidence, especially since you are incorrect. For anyone curious, image was originally published in the scientific journal ZooKeys. ( https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=2987 )
I was just discussing blue bees with my friend--they're native to Australia. I had no idea they were in North America as well.
It's a different species though, this is the Australian one: https://imgur.com/X1vf3v4 Oddly enough they're solitary, rather than living in hives.
https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.8725...
I pray to God that there's an Archive.org for biology somewhere, that scientists are trying to sequence the genome of every possible species that we can find, just so that we can give _something_ to the future before we wipe it all out. I'd even settle for the dystopian version where a biotech company does it just to patent all of the genes that nature has already paid the cost to evolve.
The happy news is that we're not nearly so powerful, as a species, as we fantasize ourselves to be. No more than a million or so years after we're gone, you'd never be able to tell by looking that we were here at all.