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Discussion » Questions » Life and Society » What interesting fact(s) have you recently discovered about some aspect of the natural world?
rattbagge

What interesting fact(s) have you recently discovered about some aspect of the natural world?

that commanded your attention for, at least, a few brief moments. 

Posted - March 3, 2018
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Responses


  • 5391
    Last week, in the dead of winter, the North Pole was warmer than was most of Europe.

    More species went extinct in the last 50 years than in the previous 5000.  

    There are at least 400,000 types of beetles. Noah’s Ark, anyone? 


      March 3, 2018 8:23 AM MST
    3

  • 343
    When I was a kid there was a news item that said around 50 new species of beetles were being reported every year (at that time). The notion has occasionally arisen over the decades that (outright silliness aside) the more unlikely a claim to do with the natural world, the more it requires further investigation for its possible likelihood. 
      March 3, 2018 9:03 AM MST
    2

  • 5391
    The nature of the scientific method:
    Gather data, pose a hypothesis, work to see if it is falsifiable. 
      March 3, 2018 9:37 AM MST
    0

  • 5354
    Beetle Baily is not really a beetle.
      March 3, 2018 9:52 AM MST
    0

  • 5391
    Duly noted. 
      March 3, 2018 10:10 AM MST
    0

  • 10052
    I can't remember. 

    There was something, very recently, that I was super excited to learn. I've completely forgotten now. 

      March 3, 2018 8:37 AM MST
    2

  • 343
    Don't concern yourself Savvy. Continue to move confidently, unobtrusively and without attracting scorn or derision, among the vast sea of suchlike somnolent humanity. The more you think, the more you want to know, the more you know the more dangerous you become.
    'Let me have men about me that are fat,
    Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
    Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
    He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.'
      March 3, 2018 8:55 AM MST
    1

  • 10052
    Thank you, rattbagge. I really enjoyed your response. 

    I'll remember it eventually. In the meantime, I'm excited to have learned new things about lichen (which I really like), thanks to Tonealone. 


      March 3, 2018 6:56 PM MST
    0

  • 72
    OK - have trouble sleeping? Or alternatively, always seeking out stuff you never knew before?
    Some of this is new to me, almost like back to school, and I thought this curious, little-known corner of Earth-life could just conceivably generate a spark of interest in someone out there in Muggerland, someone else who didn't know it before, either. 

    Different kinds of lichens have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth: arctic tundra, hot dry deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps.

    It is estimated that 6% of Earth's land surface is covered by lichen. 

    There are about 20,000 known species of lichens.

    Some lichens have lost the ability to reproduce sexually and yet continue to speciate. 

    Lichens can be seen as being relatively self-contained miniature ecosystems, where the fungi, algae, or cyanobacteria have the potential to engage with other micro-organisms in a functioning system that may evolve as an even more complex composite organism.

    Lichens may be long-lived, with some considered to be among the oldest living things. They are among the first living things to grow on fresh rock exposed after an event such as a landslide. The long life-span and slow and regular growth rate of some lichens can be used to date events.

    Lichens can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains.

      March 3, 2018 8:40 AM MST
    4

  • Well, here in a little I need to get off my oss and mow part of nature, and then water some of it.
      March 3, 2018 9:20 AM MST
    0

  • 5354
    And Wiki have a page about 'jakoba'. I am so proud  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakoba
      March 3, 2018 9:56 AM MST
    0

  • 5835
    Something about tying buttered toast to a cat's back. I was never clear about that experiment.
      March 3, 2018 9:57 AM MST
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  • 423
    There's the old ploy of smearing butter on a cat's toes, or on its feet, to keep it busy and out of mischief until you have a chance to catch your breath.
      March 3, 2018 10:07 AM MST
    0