Since the beginning of the solar system, the Moon has helped create life on earth, and evolved to advanced species. The EThe science and myths of moon
Since the beginning of the solar system, the Moon has helped create life on earth, and evolved to advanced species. The Earth-Sun-Moon-Jupiter functions as a unit in this corner of the cosmos where the life was not only created but evolved that required a suitable cosmic environment for sustained evolution. This partly explains why there is no evidence of sustained evolution elsewhere in the solar system despite the fact that some of moons of Jupiter and Saturn show promising geological features for the birth of life. The Moon stabilizes Earth's tilt toward the Sun, making the Moon the captain of our seasons, and the consistency of this tilt stabilizes life and provides a habitat for a sustainable biological evolution. The Moon's unusually large size, one quarter of the size of earth, and its distance from Earth are ideal for sustained life with Jupiter watching out for mother earth from harmful collisions with cosmic bodies like comets and asteroids. And the sun providing the energy needed for life including the bountiful of water in liquid form.
As the first civilizations arose in Indus Valley in India, and other parts of the Middle East, Moon took on importance as more than a marker of time. It became a recorder of events; a predictor of fates; an instrument of might. The Moon laid the foundations of philosophy and religion and set the course of history. Recent studies have demonstrated that certain aspects of mental health and the general well-being of a person are affected by the moon. The Vedic astrology and the deities of Navagraha have also been implicated to have impacts on the life of a human being.
This book is a disorganized jumble of news, science and human culture associated with the moon. The writing is not focused, and readers may find the book boring. ...more
This is a personal reflection of the arctic explorer Marco Tedesco and his tribute to Greenland, an inspiring place that is aThe planet in transition
This is a personal reflection of the arctic explorer Marco Tedesco and his tribute to Greenland, an inspiring place that is affected by the environment. This is not so much about the impact of the climate but an exploration of the beauty of Greenland formed largely by ice. Greenland is a vista of whiteness interrupted only by scattered ponds of azure-colored melt water. 90 percent of the land is covered by ice sheet that is the largest outside Antarctica. Some of the green color is due to the large number of icebergs that are calved as the result of glacier retreat and ice cap melting. The bottom of the ice sheet was formed 130,000 years ago, before the start of the last ice age. In places like Canada, Scandinavia, New England, and the upper Midwest, the ice melted away at about 10,000 years ago. In Greenland, it remained and in addition, thousands of years of snowfalls, year after year, never melting in the summer, becoming buried under yet more layers of snow.
The moulin, the technical name for the hole in the ice through which the lake has vanished is another geological phenomenon in this part of the world. Underneath ice sheets there are numerous highly efficient drainage system that empties into the sea and raises sea levels. The water in the underground tunnels flows and change direction and size constantly. Cryoconite holes are another interesting feature of ice sheets that have microbial oases within the extreme environment of a glacier's surface ice. These holes form when sediment is blown onto the ice and is heated by solar energy, causing it to melt into the glacier's surface. This has micro animals like tardigrades, the water bears or moss piglets. Their genome contains more extraneous DNA than any other animal species known. To put it simply, instead of inheriting its' genes from its ancestors, part of the tardigrade's genetic makeup may come from plants, bacteria, and fungi!. There is also a different kind of life that depends on a process known as bacterial chemosynthesis. Unlike photosynthesis, it exploits the energy generated in chemical reactions to produce organic substances. These creatures are completely autonomous and self-sufficient, living their peaceful existence in complete isolation. The environmental factors in these landscapes of Arctic and Antarctic territories are considered as the closest to what life would be like on other planets like Mars, and icy moons like Europa, a satellite of Jupiter.
The author presents an interesting description of how sea levels rise differently in different parts of this planet when Greenland ice melts. The author wrote a similar book about Greenland in 2022 entitled “Ice: Tales from a Disappearing World,” and a related review article in Guardian Newspaper in 2020. This is a short book of 153 pages which read flawlessly. ...more
Humans and dinosaurs co-exist in the cartoon world of the Flintstones. In a similar fashion, the mammalian ancestors shared their The extinct mammals
Humans and dinosaurs co-exist in the cartoon world of the Flintstones. In a similar fashion, the mammalian ancestors shared their history with the Tyrannosaur Rex and related dinosaurs before the K-Pg mass extinction sixty-six million years ago. Some of these mammalian species included placental mammals that survived the catastrophic extinction. The surviving mammalian species, after the catastrophic event, rapidly diversified which was spurred on by the death of dinosaur predators, and emerging environmental factors that offered new opportunities.
Two groups of animals existed in the late carboniferous period, between 320 and 315 million years ago, they were synapsids and sauropsids. The sauropsids are ancestral reptiles and some of these species evolved into birds. and synapsid evolved into mammalian species. The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event is the mass extinction of most plant and animal species on the planet about sixty-six million years ago when the Chicxulub impactor, a plummeting asteroid or comet, seven miles long, hit the planet that brought an abrupt and calamitous end to most species. The evolution of mammals’ centers on the shapes of the teeth, the evolution of the middle ear bones, fur, hair, warm-bloodedness, and proportionally larger brains than reptiles of similar size. Mammals could chew food, and hunt carefully. They had mouse-like earflaps for detecting sound that provided advantage, helping them avoid predators and communicate with one another in new ways for competing and caregiving. These changes increased brain size. Not only did more grey matter help them learn information from the senses, but they could also compute emerging behaviors. Their teeth also helped in digging. The mammalian ability to feed underdeveloped offspring on milk increased the survival of litter.
Bipedalism is the basic adaptation of the hominid which is responsible for skeletal changes. The earliest hominin species, and non-bipedal knuckle-walkers (the gorillas, and chimpanzees), evolved from a common ancestor, Sahelanthropus or Orrorin species, about six million years ago. The bipedal hominin species underwent further evolution into the Homo Sapiens who are around 250, 000 years.
The author briefly discusses the revolution in methodologies and new techniques in the field of paleobiology that estimated the origins of ancient mammalian species. Fossil records and ancient skeletons are the principal sources for studying the history living species, but now they compute enormous datasets of bone shapes, and estimate the form and function mathematically, similar to the methods used in evaluating the strength of building materials. This technique has helped paleobiologists learn the evolutionary history of mammals. There has been a radical transformation in the science of extinct life. The anatomy of various species is put together and predicted how animals emerged into distinct groups. My only gripe about this book is that discussions in some chapters are not stimulating, and there are no photographs and few illustrations....more
Many wonderful books have been written on what migrating birds do and how they do it, but if you dig a little deeper, you wSurvival of migratory birds
Many wonderful books have been written on what migrating birds do and how they do it, but if you dig a little deeper, you will find another story that is equally fascinating. The environmental impact on the survival of migratory birds. For example, many birds seek out similar climates year-round in the Americas, they spend the summer in drier parts of North America, and the winter in drier parts of Central and South America. Recent studies suggest that we are the sixth mass extinction on this planet. Approximately 3 billion fewer birds are living in North America today than there were in 1970. This is a staggering 29 percent decline. The volume of annual bird migration to the Americas alone has dropped by 14% in just the last decade. The causes are habitat loss, impact of pesticides, collisions with human-made structures, predation by outdoor cats, and climate change.
This book focuses on how to fight the extinction of migratory birds with modern tools. The radar gathers data on migration patterns, the use of miniaturized tracking devices tracks the movements of individual bird, and the machine learning and high-volume genetic sequencing examine migration in finer detail. Instead of relying on trackers, we can now follow their journeys using information already encoded in their feathers, their blood, and their DNA (intrinsic markers). Birds’ feathers carry crucial information about where they've been and what's happening in their habitats, which can help with much-needed conservation efforts. In addition, the mercury concentrations in historical versus modern feather samples gives a sense of environmental effects. North American Breeding Bird Survey, an annual volunteer effort in which bird-watchers comb established roadside routes in spring and report what they find have been significant in understanding human impact of the habitats of migratory birds. This book is written for all readers interested in bird migration, and what one can do to minimize the extinction of birds. ...more
The author uses a term “Rescue Effect” to describe the fate of endangered species and how humans could assist them to evolvReshuffling the environment
The author uses a term “Rescue Effect” to describe the fate of endangered species and how humans could assist them to evolve naturally under renewed environmental conditions. The author cautions that humans need to diminish the destructive aspects of the fossil fuel burning, loss of forests and raising sea levels. This could transform habitats, offer opportunities to for endangered species evolve, or move species to new locations. He observes that this will engineer the reshuffling of species on the planet that is honed to evolutionary processes under new challenges and opportunities. The author uses examples of Bengal Tigers in India, Cichlid fish in the great lakes of Africa, Coral Reefs in the Caribbean, and the Mountain Pygmy-Possum in Australia to illustrate his theory.
African cichlid fish have tremendous morphological variations that allow them to live in niche habitats. Some fish have adapted to eat the scales of other fish. Others have adaptations that allow them to live among rocks. Several species adapted to reproducing in turbulent waters by carrying fertilized eggs in their mouths until they hatch. More than 50% of all coral species in the Caribbean went extinct between one and two million years ago, probably due to drastic environmental changes. But one group of corals in the genus Orbicella adapted to these climate changes because of their high genetic diversity and prospered.
This book is a collection of essays that does not provide the ecological or biological or statistical data that supports his hypothesis. He merely offers narratives but doesn’t get to the core issues with scientific data that would be helpful to readers who are interested in protecting the environment and the preservation of endangered species. ...more
The last day of the dinosaurs began as any morning during the Spring season 66.043 million years ago in the Northwestern statesThe day dinosaurs died
The last day of the dinosaurs began as any morning during the Spring season 66.043 million years ago in the Northwestern states of the Unted States. Tanis is part of the heavily studied Hell Creek Formation, a group of rocks spanning four states renowned for significant fossil discoveries from the Upper Cretaceous (Cretaceous era;100.5–66 million years ago) and lower Paleocene (Paleocene era; 66-56 million years ago). Tanis is a significant site because it recorded the events 15 minutes after the impact of the giant seven-mile-wide Chicxulub asteroid in palaeobiological detail. This impact which struck the Gulf of Mexico wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.
Tanis resides in the state of North Dakota about 2,000 miles from the impact site in the Gulf of Mexico. The globe burned with wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and seismic waves ravaged life at Tanis. The life at Tanis was entombed in sediment by seismic waves that was travelling at 11,000 miles per hour. These fossils were recently discovered and first reported in New Yorker Magazine in March 2019. The fossils of sturgeon and paddlefish hold the key which had small particles stuck in their gills. These are the glass spherules of molten rock kicked out from the impact site in the Gulf of Mexico that then fell back across the planet. The Tanis fishes breathed these particles as they were thrown out of the river as the big surge dismantled and disoriented the entire ecosystem with tens of miles on the land from the river. On this Earth-shattering day, sulfur ejected by the asteroid blocked all sunlight. The atmosphere turned acidic due to sulfuric acid and the oceans became unhabitable. The planet was plunged into darkness for decades, and temperatures dropped dramatically.
The Western Interior Seaway was a large inland sea that existed from the early Late Cretaceous to earliest Paleocene, splitting the continent of North America into two landmasses, Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. Tanis in North Dakota was the northern end of the seaway where the catastrophic events occurred.
The author is a well-known journalist covering the paleontological significance of the death and destruction caused on the same day of the asteroid impact. There are numerous blogs and even discussions on TV about fossil evidence on the last day of the dinosaur. This book reads effortlessly despite the lack of illustrations and photographs in this book. Parts of book material has already appeared in Smithsonian Magazine. ...more
In this dazzling rehash, author Stephen Brusatte tells the story of dinosaurs; their origins, evolution, diversity, habitaDino’s in the Jurassic park
In this dazzling rehash, author Stephen Brusatte tells the story of dinosaurs; their origins, evolution, diversity, habitats and their cataclysmic extinction. This is a captivating narrative that engages the reader till the end of the book. Highly readable and well researched about dinosaurs, and life in late cretaceous era (100 – 66 million Years). The book investigates the events after planet was hit by 6.5-mile-long asteroid (Chicxulub meteorite) at the speed of 67,000 miles per hour, 65.5 million years ago. The fossils from this event are preserved all over the planet, and the author is one of the leading paleontologist in this field.
During the cretaceous period, the planet was largely one supercontinent called Pangea, but it had started to split into several fragments. Europe and Asia were still globed together, and they were linked to North America by a series of islands. But what made dinosaurs big? They had to eat and digest vast quantities of food, they had to grow fast, must be able to breathe very efficiently, and shed excess body heat. This process was enabled by their unique anatomy and body plan that included a highly efficient lung more related to a birdlike lung because many bones of the chest cavity had big openings. There were many air sacs that extended throughout their body that helped lungs to take in enough oxygen to stoke their metabolism.
During the final 20 million years of the Cretaceous era, tyrannosaurs flourished, ruling the river valleys, lakeshores, flood plains, forests, and deserts of North America and China. Colossal tyrannosaurs never seemed to gain a foothold in Europe or the southern continents, where other groups of large predators prospered, but in North America and China, species of tyrannosaurs were unrivaled. They had become the transcendent terrors that fire our imaginations. The species of Tyrannosaurus Rex was not a global but existed only in North West of United States. On that fateful morning 66 million years ago, when a pack of T. Rexes woke up on what would go down as the final day of the Cretaceous Period, all seemed normal in their kingdom, the same as it had been for two millions of years but ended in a cataclysmic event. ...more
An interesting perspective for the future of the planet
The author offers an interesting view for the future from a variety of catastrophes; asteroid An interesting perspective for the future of the planet
The author offers an interesting view for the future from a variety of catastrophes; asteroid impact, volcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, diseases, biotech, artificial intelligence, and aliens. He articulates these world-ending apocalypse with passion. It's not just the rising tide of climate change and the deadly natural disasters that seem to be piling up with each passing year. Our very future is in danger as it has never been before, both from an array of cosmic and earthbound threats and from the very technologies that made us prosperous.
We know how bad it can get; the two world wars; the Black Death which killed 200 million people in the fourteenth century; the biggest hurricanes and most devastating earthquakes. These risks are darker than the darkest days humanity has ever known. Our species has always lived under the shadow of existential risk we just didn't know it. At least five times over the course of our planet's 4.5-billion-year history, life was wiped out completely, but each time it was reborn with vengeance. It is good to know that life regenerates itself when the planet offers interesting possibilities. Solar system has another 4.5 billion years to go and earth may shape into new future. ...more
Life moves fast; but the biological evolution is slow. Small anatomical changes have occurred in the last 250,000 yeClimate Effects on Human Evolution
Life moves fast; but the biological evolution is slow. Small anatomical changes have occurred in the last 250,000 years of human history, but they are insignificant and marginal. But technological advancement has significant impact on the behavioral adaptation that has progressed rapidly on evolutionary scale towards transhumanism. By the time genetic evolution that would be reflected in thickening of tooth enamel and our back-bone structure because of our diets and sedentary life styles, other non-biological events will impact the future of human beings. The artificial intelligence (AI), brain-machine interface and quantum realities would have taken over body and mind. Species of Transhumanism would have adapted to life in alien worlds such as Mars, and moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The genus Homo, to which our species belongs, had the capacity to adjust to a variety of environmental conditions, and Homo sapiens were able to cope with a broad range of climatic conditions, hot and cold environments, arid and moist ones, and with all kinds of varying vegetation like expanding dry grasslands or thick forests. The adaptations that typify Homo Sapiens were associated with the largest oscillations in global climate: (a) hominin origins, (b) habitual bipedality, (c) first stone toolmaking and eating meat/marrow from large animals, (d) onset of long-endurance mobility, (e) onset of rapid brain enlargement, (f) expansion of symbolic expression, communication, discovering, and the ability for learning and innovation.
Environmental biologists are too hung up on the Armageddon that would be created by climatic effects of excessive fossil-fuel usage, deforestation, and the lack of clean-air acts. Environments have changed dramatically too many time in the past 3.9 billion years of life forms on this planet. Complete destruction of life occurred a few times, but life came back with vengeance and evolved successfully. What lies ahead is that technology will take over biology. Climatic effects would be bad and so is nuclear proliferation and the willingness of United States and Russia to sell nuclear technology to Islamic countries in the Middle East which would make threat of nuclear war more of a reality. This would make climatic effects due to human involvement much more dangerous than mere fossil-fuel usage. ...more
Scientific evidences in support of climate changes on earth
This edited book is a collection of scientific facts providing evidence for climate change.Scientific evidences in support of climate changes on earth
This edited book is a collection of scientific facts providing evidence for climate change. There are 25 chapters and the first five focuses on the possible causes of climate change. As anticipated, the most obvious are due to; burning of fossil fuel and coal that increases the atmospheric carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. There is no clear experimental evidence that shows that the rising global temperature is due to increasing atmospherics green house gases but the correlations obtained in the last 100 years points in that direction. The remaining 20 chapters describe the impact on the planet due to climate change. The strength of the book is due to its reliance on experimental evidence rather that computer modeling and predicting possible scenarios.
In addition to Greenhouse gases other effects that may produce global warming such as; space weather, cosmic radiation, surface solar radiation, changes in volcanic activity on earth, earth's orbit characteristics, etc., have also been considered and discussed.
Several interesting indicator's of climate change have been discussed, this includes changes in; mammalian ecology, bird ecology, insect ecology, plant ecology, ecology of aquatic animals, coral reef ecology, marine biodiversity, intertidal indicators, agricultural impact, rising sea levels, changing sea temperatures, changing ocean currents, ocean acidification, effect on polar ice sheets, impact on plant lichens, plant pathogen biodiversity, and coastline degradation. For example, on page 257, there is an interesting Table that shows how much of coral reef is destroyed in various parts of the world. There is a minimal loss in the pacific area, but significant erosions in the Gulf, and Asia. The recovery of lost reef is quite significant in Asia but minimal in the Gulf. The Table on page 183 indicates how the borders of bird species have moved North from South of selected regions of the world.
This book is well written and it is intended for all readers; academics, policy makers, government, and general readers. The book has lot of statistical data and sometimes it could be boring but this is certainly a useful reference book for an enthusiastic reader.
Is the end of the world nearer due to uncontrolled population explosion?
Author Alan Weisman makes a rational argument in favor of lowering the birthraIs the end of the world nearer due to uncontrolled population explosion?
Author Alan Weisman makes a rational argument in favor of lowering the birthrate so that the planet can survive with a livable environment and a long and healthy population. At the current growth rate of one million people every 4.5 days, we are going to be ten billion by the year 2100. Will there be sufficient resources on the planet to support us? Will global warming leave the planet in disarray with much of coastal cities like New York and much of state of Florida under water? The climate change's 2007 inter-governmental report says that in a worst case scenario of less than two feet rise in water level by the year 2100 will be catastrophic for our world. Hurricane Sandy riding into New York City is a grim reminder of what would happen if the polar ice melts at the current rate, thawing of methane deposits resulting in a global climate change.
The earth can't sustain our current numbers, and that must come down. The author offers a few basic ideas to combat this crisis. How about adapting one child per family policy across nations? There will be only 1.6 billion by the end of this century; the same as in the year 1900. The author has travelled extensively both in United States and foreign countries talking to people about the need to curb birthrate, and surprisingly a large number of people he met or spoke to agree with the problem but disagree with his method.
This is not to cull anyone alive but we need to take control of ourselves, and humanely bring down our numbers, otherwise nature will hand out a pile of pink slips. Watching survival of fittest on Nat Geo channel is interesting, but if it happens to your own species, especially for our grandchildren or great grandchildren, it is not pretty. Television reality shows showing survivalists who hoard food, medicine, clothes, and arming themselves to the teeth in anticipation of full economic/political demise are looking more and more like realists. ...more
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