Fungi Saved the World (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Fungi Saved the World (2014)

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95 pointsbentaber12 comments

>two glucose molecules make up sucrose, or table sugar

Sucrose is made from one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule. Two glucose molecules mostly commonly make maltose.

Wouldn't the high oxygen concentration during that period have done something to counteract the carbon-sequestering effect of Carboniferous trees? I imagine the amount of wild-fires burning would have been significantly higher because of the high oxygen concentration, thus burning off a lot of the dead trees. One way or another the planet is going to maintain an equilibrium.

Maybe, but all evidence seems to point to the equilibrium being at a higher oxygen rate, cooler temperatures, etc.

From what I understand, the prevalence of enormous invertebrates in the fossil record points at a much higher oxygen percentage, since insect and arachnid respiratory systems aren't efficient enough to support bodies that large otherwise.

The period lasted 90 million years, so an equilibrium was reached, or all plants would have died due to a lack of carbon in the atmosphere. The equilibrium was just very different from today

George Carlin had a great bit on equilibrium: "Plastic, Assholes!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tncnWp67wQI

There's no equilibrium or value judgement without specifying a time frame. The only absolute, timeless equilibrium is one that cannot sustain physical processes any more (known as the Heat Death of the Universe in physics).

With that in mind, is it surprising that there was such a thing as wood pollution? "Reduce the toxic oxygen, Kill the trees, Save CO2"?

Can someone recommend a good pop-sci book that summarizes all natural history? tx!

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson is really fantastic.

https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/07...

What makes ASHoNE so fantastic is it doesn't shy away from "science is messy; while there is a common quest for objective truth for the most part, it's incredibly convoluted, random, non-linear, and in any case polluted by our apish propensities".

That's what makes the book so relatable.

A fry cry for that worrying pop trend of "Science is so awesome, bro!" that's been picking up lately (which I find superficial and cringy to the point of being a cult).

The people who say "science is so awesome," are usually looking at NASA pictures and relatively long-known facts, in the tradition of Sagan's science pubicization. I've never seen a "science is so cool," meme about loop quantum gravity in 1D universes with the topology of a circle, or about a social sciences pilot studies. So, in that sense it's fine that they're leaving out the messy part; after all the entire point is to turn the messy into the clean.

It's not a book, but

http://palaeos.com/

has a lot of great material.

i once found a piece of half wood half coal, it wasn't charcoal. I was young and we moved around a lot, so it got los

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