Post things that I find interesting & see if others think so too

“The short answer is we don’t really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance. That said, I think what we’re looking for is some kind of molecule that is simple enough that it can be made by physical processes on the young Earth, yet complicated enough that it can take charge of making more of itself. That, I think, is the moment when we cross that great divide and start moving toward something that most people would recognize as living.”

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/knoll.html

“After a billion years or so you’ve got an Earth with no atmosphere, no water and a surface temperature of hundreds of degrees, way above the boiling point of water,” Smith told SPACE.com. “The Earth will become dry basically. It will become completely impossible for life of any kind to exist. It’s a pretty gloomy forecast.”

Nonetheless, scientists are curious about the ultimate fate of our planet after we are gone (like all previous hominids and more than 99 percent of all species that have lived on Earth, humans will probably go extinct, and it will likely happen sooner than a billion years)”.

http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/080226-vaporized-earth.html

“Some rain dances don’t occur until showers begin, like the splishy-splashy tip-toe you do around the earthworms on your sidewalk and driveway. Rain causes the worms to leave their drenched burrows and swarm the pavement in order to help regulate their breathing.

It’s not that worms don’t like to get wet. On the contrary, they need to stay damp in order to breathe properly.

Earthworms don’t have lungs. They breathe through their skin. Oxygen dissolves into a mucous coating on a worm’s skin then passes through the skin and into blood vessels. The skin must be moist for the oxygen to pass. Special glands secrete the mucous to keep things consistently gooky.

Balance is the key. Too dry is bad: If worms dry, they die. Too wet is bad too: Worms can survive in water for two weeks, but they can’t absorb sufficient oxygen from water, and eventually they suffocate.

Why are there so many earthworms on your driveway? Because there can be as many as one million of them under one acre of soil. Step lively!”

SOURCE: http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080102-llm-earthworm-rain.html