31–40 of 73 posts
The more I learn about ants, the more it seems to me that they are the ones who will take over the world. I'm starting to fear them.
I'm not sure they need to take over the world - it looks like it is already theirs.
Yet another science piece that perpetuates the misconception that “the mass extinction killed the dinosaurs”. The clade of dinosaurs is not extinct and it bothers me that science writers don't seem to learn this fact and keep getting it wrong.
'The extinction of non-Avian Dinosaurs' just doesn't roll off the tongue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evolution, like geology, tends to happen in fits and starts - yes, it happens over very long timescales as a general phenomenon , but significant changes tend to happen in very short timescales, before then annealing over a population and finding equilibrium over a longer timescale. Take lactose tolerance in humans, for instance. That happened almost spontaneously in Northern European populations 6kYa, as it was such…
If there are bacteria that can feed on plastic (not saying there aren't), wouldn't they have essentially no competition and thus thrive in plastic polluted environments?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evolution, like geology, tends to happen in fits and starts - yes, it happens over very long timescales as a general phenomenon , but significant changes tend to happen in very short timescales, before then annealing over a population and finding equilibrium over a longer timescale. Take lactose tolerance in humans, for instance. That happened almost spontaneously in Northern European populations 6kYa, as it was such…
If there are bacteria that can feed on plastic (not saying there aren't), wouldn't they have essentially no competition and thus thrive in plastic polluted environments?
Human cells can also (mostly) function anaerobically (aka in low-oxygen environments). It’s terribly inefficient though, and we can only do it for limited periods of time before something bad starts to happen to the overall organism.
So we prefer oxygen, and as long as we have oxygen rich environments, we’re never going to get that much better at being anaerobic eh?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
'The extinction of non-Avian Dinosaurs' just doesn't roll off the tongue.
I get the "everyone knows what was meant" approach... but not everyone knows.
While technically correct, it’s not useful nomenclature for public discussion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get the "everyone knows what was meant" approach... but not everyone knows.
What the general public considers dinosaurs has no overlap with the existing animals that scientists consider dinosaurs. While technically correct, it’s not useful nomenclature for public discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbbLCgh6sso
These termites are fungus farmers and feed the gigantic queen with it.
Unfortunately the fungus farming is not part of this clip, but it is also described the same program.
Edit: This is an older version of sir David Attenborough, revisiting another mound and talking about fungus farming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGaT0B__2DM