Hacker News Reader

Comment by elil17 | Hacker News Reader

I’m thankful for yeast. It’s so, so convenient that we have a non-pathogenic bacteria which will eat pretty much any simple sugar, can be found on the surfaces of most fruits, and is essentially effortless to cultivate, which also does a bunch of useful things like leaven bread and make a bunch of delicious short chain fatty acids (both in bread and on their own, like in marmite) and make alcohol (although that one maybe does more harm than good)!

View on HN

I'm thankful for oxygen because we can breathe it! And it can be found pretty much everywhere in the atmosphere of planet Earth. And I'm thankful for all the other elements that I'm composed of. They can even be used to do other miraculous things. Wonderful!

Nestle is fighting over control of freshwater sources. I reckon oxygen is next.

In the future, be thankful with your wallet.

You don't have to wait. Oxygen bars are already a thing, and have been for quite a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar

For a moment, I thought it was going to be an empty chocolate bar wrapper. I wonder how much better this actually is.

Nestle uses 0.003% of humanity's fresh water consumption, so I'm sure you're properly allocating your worry budget there.

I'm thankful for mitochondria which allows us to use the oxygen to perform aerobic respiration, enabling more complex forms of life. It seems they were once bacteria which were somehow absorbed by eukaryote cells and turned into an organelle, an hydro-eletro-chemical power plant. Thanks bacteria!

Be careful with certain anti-bacterial drugs, they might affect your mitochondria.

Yeast are not bacteria. They are eukaryotes.

I‘m thankful for nerds who make corrections so I can learn some interesting fact.

Actually, yeasts are unicellular fungus. I believe that fungus are the most important life-form in this planet by far.

Pretty cool, huh? :)

> unicellular fungus

Belongs under the Eurkaryote heading, no?

yes

Fungi, like plants and animals, are eukaryotes. However, eukaryotes and bacteria occupy the same rung in the taxonomic divisions (they are domains), so it's the more appropriate correction. The third domain is prokaryotes.

My wikipedia fact checking tells me that the third domain is archaea which together with the bacteria are prokaryotes. Or did I read sth wrong?

Oh, sorry, you are correct. I remembered that archaea had gotten changes and misremembered them.

That is pretty cool! Paul Stamets is worth mentioning here. One can find a ton of media presence, books and projects from him. Very interesting stuff!

For a second I thought you were referring to Stamets on Star Trek. Stamets, mycellium... tribute or coincidence?

> Stamets is inspired by a real-life mycologist of the same name.[1]

Thanks - just saw his wikipedia page - very interesting.

>I believe that fungus are the most important life-form in this planet by far.

Would love to hear more about this!

I'm thankful for wikipedia which has probably taught me more biology than my professors ever did. So many detailed articles, and it's actually fun to read them because they contain so many details that never seem to get mentioned in school. The abundance of links lead to a fun exploration of the subject and a massive respect for nature and its designs.

Well to be fair the poster was referring to starters for bread which contain natural populations of both yeast and bacteria. So really we should be thankful for both yeast and bacteria. :)

That said, just as the other poster I'm also thankful for pedants like yourself. This is a mistake I probably make myself all the time.

Alcohol definitely does more good, just consider the uses it has aside from being ingested.

Also, consider how many flights went smoothly because of alcohol.. I mean, outing myself as British here but (every flight) without a stuff gin or three, that woman in-front of me would have had a stern talking to I can tell you! :}

I wonder if British are more reserved because they’ve evolved to have about a unit or two of alcohol in the blood stream at all times at which point it’s the sweet spot. I jest of course. Also I’m a Brit.

Well, we certainly developed an effective preventative against malaria... And that's before we get to the ballmer peak [0], which I think many of us experienced at one point ;)

0: https://xkcd.com/323/

I suppose that I have to put this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4 here. Many a true word…

> alcohol (although that one maybe does more harm than good)!

Alcohol in the medical field is critical in doing good. A lot of harm has been prevented by alcohol.

Alcohol let our ancestors survive. Weakly alcoholic beer was far healthier than water because its production likely killed germs in the water.

I recently read that that’s a myth, unfortunately.

Brewing typically involves boiling. That can kill a germ or two, or so I've read. That's true for brewing tea as well.

Edward Slingerland Haha written about a hypothesis that beer was the major reason for inventing agriculture. I don’t know how well received that theory is, but it was an interesting and unique take

> Alcohol let our ancestors survive.

Only true in dense cities and perhaps onboard seafaring vessels. Most of humanity could find unpolluted sources of water.

You could also say that, without the crutch that was small beer, humanity might have been motivated to learn and implement water treatment/purification techniques and proper sanitation systems centuries earlier.

I had this same exact thought the last time i was making bagels. What an absolute miracle it is! And whoever came up with using it to fluff and soften bread through some natural symbiotic reliance of raw nature is just such an incredible step it seems utterly designed from above.

Yes, I’m saying maybe a god exists and loves us because they gave us bread.

Benjamin Franklin thought beer was enough proof that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be happy :-)

https://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/say-what-says-who-benjami...

He never said that.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Interesting, thanks!

Looks like he actually said something similar about wine though:

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy! (from a 1779 letter from France to his friend André Morellet)

“Every good quote eventually gets attributed to Lincoln, Wilde, Churchill, or Jobs.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Yeast is a type of fungus.

True lol thank you. Meant to say “microbe”

I like this and totally agree! I baked two naturally leavened loaves of bread this morning for thanksgiving and am currently drinking a beer. On a regular day I would eat some form of yogurt as well. It really is an amazing little part of life. :)

Also yeast is used frequently in medical and biological scientific studies, and helps us learn more about the role of DNA, aging , and certain kinds of cancer.

Thankful for marmite :)

Damn right. Vegemite isn't even shiny...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com