i found out recently that the very first trees did not rot when they died because the microbes that decompose trees hadnt evolved yet…which makes sense but it’s weird to think about. this actually caused a huge change in the climate at the time and many of these trees turned into coal because of it…
like imagine a tree falling in the forest and the trunk just stays there for years and years with little change, and it only goes away when it is buried under dirt. that’s weird.
obviously they were still working on the worldbuilding back then
imagine all the lag from those trunks laying around. glad they patched those microbes in
So y’all talk about this like it’s a joke, but the exact same time is happening today with plastics, except today’s microbes are a bit quicker on the uptake. They’re still new at it, but Earth’s decomposers are hard at work learning how to eat polyester.
*ancient microbe voice* kids these days have it so easy. mutating to feed on new materials within a century? In my day it took us a millenium at minimum! we had to metabolize uphill in the snow both ways!
*even more ancient microbe voice* pfeh, typical oxygen-breather attitude. you think you had it rough but YOU have those fancy MITOCHONDRIA.
who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
okay i’m glad you mentioned the biologist nonsense bc their naming methods are the bane of my existence
I see your astrophysicists-are-shit-at-names and raise you Marine-Biologists-Are-Fucking-Maniacs.
See this beautiful creature?
It’s a carnivorous deep-sea sponge that lives off of Easter Island and never sees the light of day, as it’s about 9000 feet down. Those delicate-looking orbs are covered in millions of tiny hooked spines, which latch onto anything unfortunate enough to bump into it, and hold it in place as it is digested alive by the sponge’s skin. Amazing, beautiful and profoundly creepy. They could have given it so many cool names. Could have drawn on mythology (I think Scylla would have been an appropriate reference), the region it was found in, the textured skin, PHAGOCYTOSIS, anything!
That’s literally true. Mint and Spice are both “flavors” determined by a chemical reaction to the heat receptors of your tongue. One being cold and the other hot.
theproblemwithstardust 