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Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#71

Post by est31 »

dekhn wrote: post #31
jonplackett wrote: post #29

Weirdly, there was actually a period of history where this was normal. During the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago trees just fell over and lay there because nothing had evolved to decay them yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

That didn't sound too right for me (but my biology knowledge is dated at this point) so I read the relevant section from that page. It concludes wiht: """The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical con…

Yeah the snippet of the wikipedia page that you link is citing the paper that put the final blow to the fungal lignin breakdown hypothesis. It points out (the last point is particularly strong):

* there is evidence for partial lignin breakdown in existing deposits, so we know it was a thing back then

* if it were just lignin breakdown, then we'd see orders of magnitude more deposits. that is, if you look at the per year deposit rate, you'll see only a small fraction of lignin being deposited.

* a large fraction of deposits doesn't even contain lignin, often below or above deposits with lignin, but without there being a different rate of depositions between them.

(copying my earlier comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654837 )

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#72

Post by gambiting »

digging wrote: post #54
dekhn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't sound too right for me (but my biology knowledge is dated at this point) so I read the relevant section from that page. It concludes wiht: """The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical con…

In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?

I think it's almost guaranteed that bacteria eating plastics will proliferate globally at some point, we've put so much of this stuff in the environment and it's just free energy ready to be consumed if your digestive system knows how.

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#73

Post by Aperocky »

digging wrote: post #54
dekhn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't sound too right for me (but my biology knowledge is dated at this point) so I read the relevant section from that page. It concludes wiht: """The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical con…

In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?

Natural selection are now slower than artificial ones except on the microbial levels.

So maybe extinctions after extinctions for animals that are visible to us, and then bunch of new superbugs.

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#74

Post by Etrnl_President »

gambiting wrote: post #72
digging wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?

I think it's almost guaranteed that bacteria eating plastics will proliferate globally at some point, we've put so much of this stuff in the environment and it's just free energy ready to be consumed if your digestive system knows how.

https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/articles/2021/reed-biolog...

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#76

Post by fallingfrog »

jackmott42 wrote: post #32
jonplackett wrote: post #29

Weirdly, there was actually a period of history where this was normal. During the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago trees just fell over and lay there because nothing had evolved to decay them yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

And when that huge pile of trees finally started to burn, we got our first case of rapid global warming from burned carbon. The second one is done by humans right now.

This doesn’t sound right. Iirc there have been many periods in earth’s history warmer than today, and carbon was part of the climate feedback for all of them, but this is the first time that warming is coming from direct forcing via co2.

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#77

Post by irrational »

gambiting wrote: post #72
digging wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?

I think it's almost guaranteed that bacteria eating plastics will proliferate globally at some point, we've put so much of this stuff in the environment and it's just free energy ready to be consumed if your digestive system knows how.

Where did the Tupperware go?!

Will we have to develop antibacterial plastics to combat this for stuff we don’t want eaten, yet?

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#78

Post by peteradio »

gambiting wrote: post #72
digging wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?

I think it's almost guaranteed that bacteria eating plastics will proliferate globally at some point, we've put so much of this stuff in the environment and it's just free energy ready to be consumed if your digestive system knows how.

I used to entertain this idea but I'm somewhat skeptical such a thing could proliferate, there is just not that much plastic relative to the other sources of energy an animal can evolve towards. I'd be interested to hear otherwise though.

Re: Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)

#80

Post by tharkun__ »

meschi wrote: post #68
whoopdedo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably a good thing that the exclusion zone hasn't become a breeding ground for mutant radiation-resistant bacteria.

I was wondering why that would be a bad idea and how much radiation sterilization is used today. Apparently about 40-50% of medical single use products are sterilized beforehand using radiation. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/goronzy2/

See if you can find numbers for food irradiation. Depending on country o ly a small number of foods is permitted to get that treatment but they're usually the large volume ones like wheat or flour.
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