Little Things Producing Big Changes in the World
Small things by themselves may be unnoticeable, but the aggregation can be important. If one honeybee died, it is not likely that anyone would notice. However, if they all died, the world would notice. I'll allow that the analogy is flawed, but I reckon you get my point.
Just last week, I was talking with Rusty Swingset, the foreman of the Darwin Ranch. (They rode into town for supplies, and I happened to be there.) He was saying that little things like brine shrimp and krill do not have much biological turbulence to affect ocean life. He admitted that the oceans need mixing so that living things could get nutrients and such. Then he had to go back to Deception Pass and I was left to do some woolgathering.
Just after this, I learned that research indicates that those brine shrimp and krill (possibly others as well) are probably doing quite a bit at stirring the oceans. Of course, the author of an article gave misguided credit to Darwin (blessed be!) by referring to the effects of earthworms. Non-Sequitur City, as his reference had nothing to do with the issue of oceans.
In a similar bit of research, it was learned that microbes and such are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Has anyone notified the global climate change alarmists like Bill Nye the Pseudosciences Guy? (If so, let him know about the study that reveals, "It's not as bad as we thought". Just like climate changes skeptics have been saying for years.) Nye probably has enough sense to not set himself on fire in protest like this guy in New York.
It occurred to me that since the rate of oxidation from these microbes increases erosion, it may have a negative effect for proponents of deep time. Let's see what happens.
The Charles Darwin Club Secret Decoder Ring™ invariably gives the explanation that "it evolved that way", whatever "it" is. Instead of that non-science, how about starting in the opposite direction? The Master Engineer put things where they are for a purpose. The little things are adding up to benefit our lives on Earth.
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| Antarctic krill image credit: NOAA NMFS SWFSC Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) Program (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) |
Just after this, I learned that research indicates that those brine shrimp and krill (possibly others as well) are probably doing quite a bit at stirring the oceans. Of course, the author of an article gave misguided credit to Darwin (blessed be!) by referring to the effects of earthworms. Non-Sequitur City, as his reference had nothing to do with the issue of oceans.
In a similar bit of research, it was learned that microbes and such are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Has anyone notified the global climate change alarmists like Bill Nye the Pseudosciences Guy? (If so, let him know about the study that reveals, "It's not as bad as we thought". Just like climate changes skeptics have been saying for years.) Nye probably has enough sense to not set himself on fire in protest like this guy in New York.
It occurred to me that since the rate of oxidation from these microbes increases erosion, it may have a negative effect for proponents of deep time. Let's see what happens.
The Charles Darwin Club Secret Decoder Ring™ invariably gives the explanation that "it evolved that way", whatever "it" is. Instead of that non-science, how about starting in the opposite direction? The Master Engineer put things where they are for a purpose. The little things are adding up to benefit our lives on Earth.
If minerals, gases and nutrients had to mix by diffusion, the process would be very slow. Wind and currents could help somewhat. Now, Houghton et al., publishing in Nature, have added a lively solution that is potentially big and reliable: tiny planktonic crustaceans provide a world-wide benefit by mixing the waters for the creatures of the sea. They swim down at night tens of meters, then come back up in the daytime. This diurnal activity could have a profound influence on the ocean environment, causing ocean mixing three times more powerful than diffusion alone.To read the entire article, click on "Tiny Life Benefits the Whole World".
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A new paper in Science Magazine by Hemingway et al., though, says that microbes “eat rocks” and release a lot of that CO2 back into the atmosphere.