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Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

science.org

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Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#31

Post by Sharlin »

Y_Y wrote: post #24
nwatson wrote: post #15

What I'd really like to know: the approximate total mass of all the COVID-19 viruses/virii that have infected humans since the start of the pandemic; the volume (in a vacuum perhaps) these virii would take up if dumped into a container and given a few shakes. Would they take up a thimble? shot glass? coffee mug? liter bottle? drinks cooler? bathtub? car cabin? back yard swimming pool? olympic pool? Larger? (ChatGPT w…

Virus is uncountable in Latin, so you can pluralize it however you like. I prefer "viropodes".

"Poison feet"?

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#32

Post by JoeAltmaier »

h2odragon wrote: post #13

I still think we fail to perceive entire orders of life, in the air around and above us, in the earth below us; as well as having a very tenuous grasp of the mechanics of the ecosystems on our scales that we can observe and participate in. Surely if we're going by weight then the bacteria rule the earth, right?

Apparently its anaerobic bacteria in the crust below us. Because they don't just have the thin crust to inhabit, they have miles of 3D rock.

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#33

Post by jvm___ »

Mistletoe wrote: post #19
h2odragon wrote: post #13

I still think we fail to perceive entire orders of life, in the air around and above us, in the earth below us; as well as having a very tenuous grasp of the mechanics of the ecosystems on our scales that we can observe and participate in. Surely if we're going by weight then the bacteria rule the earth, right?

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/2... Looks like plants outweigh it all by a lot.

Lichen covers ~7% of the surface area of Earth.

"They can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains. It is estimated that 6–8% of Earth's land surface is covered by lichens. There are about 20,000 known species."

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#36

Post by delecti »

nwatson wrote: post #15

What I'd really like to know: the approximate total mass of all the COVID-19 viruses/virii that have infected humans since the start of the pandemic; the volume (in a vacuum perhaps) these virii would take up if dumped into a container and given a few shakes. Would they take up a thimble? shot glass? coffee mug? liter bottle? drinks cooler? bathtub? car cabin? back yard swimming pool? olympic pool? Larger? (ChatGPT w…

"Virus" kinda refers more to the phenomenon of the species as a whole (kinda like how "humanity" refers to all of us, plus people who came before, plus all the stuff associated with us). Likewise "COVID-19" refers to the pandemic, rather than the viral species.

Meanwhile "virion" is the term to refer to the virus particles, so I suppose the most precise/pedantic way to say it would be "all SARS-CoV-2 Virions"?

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#37

Post by chitowneats »

CalRobert wrote: post #26

We live in an empty, denuded world, a faint shadow of its former self. Even "green" Ireland which sells itself as a natural place is an ecological wasteland. From Whittled Away, by Padraic Fogarty https://iwt.ie/product/whittled-away/ """ In 1623 it was reported chat Ireland was exporting 20,000 tons of pilchard annually.4 To pm this figure in perspective, it is over four times the toal landings for all species from…

Ah yes. An empty, denuded world, with unprecedented flourishing for our friends, family, and fellow humans. This type of nostalgia for a wild world full of disease and dangerous predators fails so utterly to motivate me.

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#38

Post by ivraatiems »

jerf wrote: post #21
nwatson wrote: post #15

What I'd really like to know: the approximate total mass of all the COVID-19 viruses/virii that have infected humans since the start of the pandemic; the volume (in a vacuum perhaps) these virii would take up if dumped into a container and given a few shakes. Would they take up a thimble? shot glass? coffee mug? liter bottle? drinks cooler? bathtub? car cabin? back yard swimming pool? olympic pool? Larger? (ChatGPT w…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVgBjRFSMYs - All the World's Coronavirus fits in a Coke Can - Numberphile I was able to pull this up quickly because I remembered they used a Coke can specifically, which helped zoom in quickly despite the noise in the search results.

Wonder what it'd taste like!

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#39

Post by Pxtl »

This is why I always find pastoralists ridiculous. They fantasize about us returning to nature, thinking that you can swap out factory-farmed cattle with wild buffalo and support the same population.

Any greener way to eat involves a hard move away from animal agriculture altogether towards more veg-heavy diets, or mass death.

As always, people with Malthusian/Thanos ideas are cordially invited to go first.

Re: Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals

#40

Post by KronisLV »

Apparently mammals are a small percentage in general, I recall looking at the graph in the article: "The biomass distribution on Earth"

Have a look: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115

Seems like Earth belongs to plants, bacteria, fungi and so on.

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