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When Microbes Ate the Ocean
museumpeace writes "When /. discussed a story about microbes that could break down water as a hydrogen source, many commentors went off on a tangent joking about runaway germs eating the oceans. Now, prof Joe Kirschvink and students at CalTech propose that indeed, the worst iceage ever, which nearly ended life on earth 2.3 billion years ago, was the result of algae evolving the ability to break down water and flooding the atmosphere with oxygen. The absence of oxygen consuming organisms at that time is said to have lead to destruction of atmospheric methane which had hitherto warmed the earth. The professor concludes: 'We haven't had a Snowball in the past 630 million years, and because the sun is warmer now it may be harder to get into the right condition. But if it ever happens, all life on Earth would likely be destroyed.'"
Not true. Some Slashdot Janitors and Crack-addicted Mods have modded down posts of mine that were posted with a default '-1'. Jamie was made aware of this according to these journal entries. Don't even get us started on unlimited editor mod points and the Janitors that abuse those rights.
Michael Loves Me!
You mention how negative moderations are done more frequently than positive. Well, I certainly would like to observe that this is a bad thing. It seems that michael had to come in and shoot the notion down. Perhaps the editors realize that negative moderations are a bad idea and are too arrogant to change it? You'll notice that other news sites tend to follow the path of public, positive-only moderation. I guess that would be like giving in.
Negative moderation has got to stop. It only hurts the forums and does absolutely nothing to encourage intelligent posting. If anything, it only encourages more trolling as trolls giggle with delight when some jackass gives them a negative score.
Change the system.
Why bother.
Can you quantify what you mean?
Offtopic, I guess so, but anyone could point out hundreds of (+5) comments on slashdot that are offtopic, but get (+5) because they bash Micro$haft.
In the posts favour, it is very interesting and well written.
I want this to be taken in zero offense whatsoever, but the fact that your post is currently at a +3 is testament to the inherent flaws of the /. moderation system.
Which, in the current light of this thread, is quite ironic. And humorous.
It didn't end all life on Earth, and it probably wouldn't if it happened again.
When are we going to realize that humans infest this planet like mold infests cheese? Sure, we make the milk into a nice, homey swiss. But after a while, even cheese rots, taken over by the critters more comfortable than are we in our own poisonous byproducts. We're not keeping the place tidy enough already, and the plants that will survive us are probably slavering at the chance to feed on our rotting corpses. What lovely mulch we'll make.
--
make install -not war
Did you study arts at college? Whether something burns depends on the heat you expose it to, the type of material itself, and also (yes) the availability of oxidiser (O2 in the air). Methane gas, coal, and all your other favourite fossil fuels will burn in 19%-O2 air just fine. They might produce marginally more carbon monoxide, but they wouldn't just stop.
If combustion was that sensitive, I think most candles wouldn't burn because they'd use up the oxygen around them to quickly. And blowing gently on a flame would always put it out rather than increase it, because there's less O2 (about 16%?) and more CO2 in your exhaled breath.
This is not a sig
It's been known for a long time that the oxygen in earth's atmosphere first arose as the result of microbial action. It's pretty self-evident that that must have gone along with major climatic changes. What appears to be new about this story is that they link a particular glaciation event to this change in the planet's atmosphere.
The scientific details aside, this story is an important reminder: our global climate is not necessarily stable. Earth could become a frozen snowball again, or it could become like Venus. Furthermore, we don't know what would trigger either transition (it's possible, for example, that short term global warming leads to long-term freezing).
The best way of preventing that for the time being is to drastically reduce our changes to the planet's atmosphere because we know that, without human intervention, the global climate has at least supported higher life forms for hundreds of millions of years.
I think that it is more likely that Mars was doomed by its relatively small mass. Its escape velocity is only 5 km/s, and it doesn't have a strong magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. This means that the atmosphere will rapidly leak into space.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
is that these organisms, being carbon-based lifeforms, consist of more than just water, so they need to consume nutrients besides water to multiply, and probably just to survive at all.
As long as those nutrients remain available, the organisms can go on converting water, but as soon as the available amount of nutrients starts falling, the population growth will decrease as well.
Even if we suppose for the moment that the organisms are immortal and are able to survive on water and solar energy alone, they can never multiply beyond a certain point, at which the nutrients required to multiply are exhausted. The water conversion rate will then be proportional to the size of the (stable) population. It is not hard to imagine a process countering the water conversion taking hold at that time.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Why are you so quick to denounce researchers investigating global warming? Why would they not have paleoclimatologists among their numbers?
In the past 30 odd years that I'm running around on this globe, this planet has been threatened so often with destruction that I'm not remotely worried about it anymore.
o re folks - really can't get excited about it. And don't want to get excited about it, frankly. If we got up in arms about this crap half as often as all these chicken littles wanted us to be each and every one of us would've dropped from stress-induced heart failure years ago.
The alarmists aren't happy unless they're running around screaming "the sky is falling!". They're only really satisfied if they can convince you to do the same. Of course, if you don't they can always take the consolation prize of claiming that you're morally bankrupt for not panicking in the manner in which they approve.
Thing is, it's so bloody common for little groups here and there to make a fuss about the sky falling that the rest of us - the calm, the sane, the rational, and the just plain tired-of-this-shit-and-don't-want-to-hear-it-anym
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?