51–60 of 77 posts
"The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, ni…
I'm especially interested in the proto-life molecules. How close do we get to e.g. proteins without having life?
I’d never appreciated before how much nitrogen was taken from the air to support agriculture. I wonder if this has a direct impact on climate change. Does reducing nitrogen in the air necessarily increase the proportion of the other gases including carbon dioxide?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly not the same particles, though. Baryonic matter condenses and undergoes nuclear transformations in the stars. But if our feelings and memories are electrical phenomenon then they were not formed in stars.
Obviously, the patterns weren’t formed in stars. My point is, if you are admiring the body being a pattern formed of particles coming from the stars, realize that the admiration is itself also just such a pattern (as is that realization).
> In turn, most rain comes from water evaporated from surface water This is true over the whole Earth , but if you look only on land (which is what matters in this case) roughly 80% of rainfall comes from plant transpiration, not evaporation from open bodies of water. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11983
Trees are self-reproducing solar-powered water pumps.
> In turn, most rain comes from water evaporated from surface water This is true over the whole Earth , but if you look only on land (which is what matters in this case) roughly 80% of rainfall comes from plant transpiration, not evaporation from open bodies of water. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11983
Trees are self-reproducing solar-powered water pumps.
We're mostly made of the water our mothers drank before and during pregnancy. So I'm mostly made of coffee then.
Is that so? Then what constitutes the roughly 25x weight increase between infants and adults?
Bad ideas.
"The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, ni…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process