Category: Climatology

The Fallacy of Snowflakes Being Perfectly Symmetrical

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The 6 sided geometric symmetry observed within snowflakes is governed by the rigid molecular structure of hexagonal ice, which is the only crystalline form water can adopt within the Earth’s atmosphere, and the reason snowflakes always have 6 dendrites (points) like a hexagon. It is a common misconception that all snow crystals (snowflakes) exhibit perfect symmetry, as most often they do not possess this characteristic. It is true in the sense that at the microscopic molecular scale, snow crystals form perfectly, but it is untrue because at the macro, real world scale, anomalies virtually always form. This occurs because as the snow crystal becomes larger, water molecules no longer attach to develop and maintain a uniform orientation. Additionally, as the snow crystal grows and expands, factors of the ambient environment begin to influence it (e.g. effects of humidity and temperature etc.) causing the snow crystal to grow one way whilst in one position of a cloud and then grow in a completely different orientation once having been forcibly moved to a different spot within that same cloud. Because of this, it is rare but still possible to find a perfectly symmetrical snowflake. This explains why despite the complex and random nature of snow crystal growth, all 6 arms must align in every case and grow along the same 6 fixed 60 degree axes. If this does not occur, the snow crystal would violate the fundamental laws of energy minimization (to become most stable) dictated by the hydrogen bond lattice (framework connecting atoms within water), which would cause the structure of the snow crystal to become thermodynamically unstable and therefore highly prone to fracture

The Origin of Life Upon Earth

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Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is most likely not the first building block of life because of its complicated double helix pattern. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is also statistically unlikely because although it is only half as complex as deoxyribonucleic acid being that it does not resemble a double helix structure, but rather a single helix structure, it would have required 5 specific sugar molecules to spontaneously bind together, one by one, in a very specific order. Threose nucleic acid (TNA) however, would only require 4 identical simple sugar molecules to spontaneously, come together. This is theoretically the most probable candidate for being the first spark of life. Threose nucleic acid can easily base pair and exchange genetic information with ribonucleic acid making it the best blueprint which would have shown up long before the complex cellular machinery, which is found within all living cells today

The Fallacy of the American Cowboy Dueling at High Noon

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The classic cowboy motif of two gritty outlaws squaring off at high noon in the middle of the street is a fallacy. Street duels directly related to the American West have only occurred 5x – 10x from 1860 – 1900. The most well renowned high noon dual and the inspiration for much of the cowboy genre aesthetic within Hollywood cinema was in 1865, a standoff between Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt in Springfield, United States of America. This particular dual inspired over a century of cinematic exaggeration and hyperbole within the film genre. In reality, most gunfights within the American West during the 19th century were spontaneous, chaotic, and rarely honorable (e.g. ambushes from behind saloon doors or shootouts from areas with ample coverage etc.). Whilst Hollywood would later romanticize these rare dual encounters, the cowboy lifestyle day to day was far more rugged and utilitarian than it is depicted within media. Cowboys were working class laborers, much like agricultural workers of the modern day, they were often young, diverse in background, and driven by necessity of survival rather than personal glory. These men and women spent long days upon horseback herding cattle across a vast and unforgiving landscape, contending with harsh weather cycles, animal stampedes, and the constant threat of injury via animal or human being. The cowboy period of American history, although brief, played a vital role in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of the American frontier

The Reason Human Beings Evolved to Become Bi-Pedal

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There is evidence that between 6,000,000 – 10,000,000 (6 million – 10 million) years ago, grasslands expanded across landscapes, creating vast open savannas, whilst tall grasses continued to remain dominant within wetter environments. These novel environments influenced the movement and adaptation of early human beings. It is theorized by scientists that human beings walked out of these evolving landscapes and adapted to the ground as humans were not evolved and/or adapted to take advantage of tall grasses the way other species are (e.g. snakes, mice, large cats etc.). It is also theorized by scientists that human beings needed to stand upright because the forests around them were thinning and with that, the canopy disappearing, making it virtually impossible to move from treetop to treetop as time moved forward. With the discovery of the hominid Anamensis, it is now clear to scientists that the tree of human ancestry follows its evolutionary order from Australopithecus Anamensis 4,200,000 (4.2 million) years ago, to Kenyanthropus Platyops, to Homo Habilis within the past 2,300,000 (2.3 million) years, to Homo Erectus, and finally to Homo Sapiens, the species to which modern day human beings belong to. Anamensis allows scientists to definitively state that bipedalism occurred 500,000 years earlier than what was previously believed as the tibia bone from Anamensis clearly demonstrates that Anamensis walked upright on both legs

The Reason Europeans Began Consuming Coffee During the 16th Century

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Coffee was initially referred to as a drink only consumed by the devil and frowned upon until Pope Clement VIII tried it and changed his opinion which changed Rome, Italy’s stance. Coffee was seen as the devil’s drink because it was the drink of the Muslim and therefore by default the infidels with whom Christians had been at war for centuries. Pope Clement VIII famously stated that coffee was so delicious that Christians should cheat the devil by baptizing the beverage

How Plants Produce Food Via Photosynthesis

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If a leaf is magnified 1000x, green bacteria like structures can be observed, referred to as “chloroplasts,” which are packed into virtually every cell of a plant. These chloroplasts behave like bacteria, retaining their own deoxyribonucleic acid, and are only 5000ths of 1 millimeter (0.005 millimeters or 5 micrometers) in diameter. It is inside chloroplasts that photosynthesis occurs. Photons, which are tiny and rapid moving particles of electromagnetic energy (e.g. rays of light), are harvested upon the surface of the plant’s leaves, where they then enter the plant’s cells and are absorbed by the light harvesting complex located within the chloroplasts themselves. It is here that the photon is leveraged to drive the photolysis reaction, which is to split a water molecule and release oxygen, electrons, and hydrogen ions, fueling the energy transfer mechanisms that ultimately convert carbon dioxide into sugars for the plant’s growth and survival

The Lush Forests of Australia and Antarctica During the Mesozoic Period and the Reason Antarctica Became Cold

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Both Australia and Antarctica were once fused together as part of the supercontinent Gondwana, neither being an arid and hot landscape nor a cold desert but instead a vast and lush forest, larger than the Amazon Rainforest, spanning thousands of kilometers in size. The reason Antarctica is no longer temperate and forested is because in contrast to most shorelines which disrupt and disperse ocean currents upon contact with the coastline, the waters around Antarctica encircle it unobstructed, forming the Antarctic Circumpolar Current after the Drake Passage opened 34,000,000 (34 million) years ago. Because there is no land to stop this flow of water, it forces the current to become stronger and deeper over time. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current cut the continent of Antarctica off from the warm waters of the north, a thermal isolation further exacerbated by decreasing carbon dioxide levels over millions of years. In a mere 1,000,000 (1 million) years during a rapid cooling phase, although the full shift took tens of millions of years to complete, Antarctica transitioned from an appearance which resembled Australia during its wetter, forested period of the Cenozoic Era, to become a frozen tundra, virtually uninhabitable by humans until the mid 20th century, due to its subzero temperatures which consistently remain far below any other location upon Earth, as well as being locked in by vast ice sheets which formed 14,000,000 (14 million) years ago

The First Human Beings to Migrate to North America

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The first people to arrive in North America are suspected to have arrived 15,800 years ago. Sea levels were much lower because of polar ice caps being frozen, which allowed modern day Siberia and Alaska, United States of America, to be connected. How migration occurred is still debated, with some scholars hypothesizing that walking whilst hunting large mammals was the most likely way, while others propose that the indigenous people of North America hunted along the shoreline using maritime skill sets and travel vehicles. 10,000 years ago, the ice sheets receded northbound allowing for civilizations to domesticate northern British Columbia, Canada

The Reason Life Upon Earth Migrated From the Ocean Onto Land

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Billions of years ago when the first living organisms started harnessing the energy of the sun through photosynthesis, they began producing a waste product which was oxygen. When oxygen rises high up into the atmosphere, it transforms into ozone which is why the Earth has a thin protective layer of ozone which alongside the magnetic field, helps protect the Earth from the violent ultraviolet radiation spewed out by the sun. As plants, microbes, and fungi migrated from the water to land, even more oxygen was produced, extending the ozone layer to become much more formidable. This was the catalyst for life migrating onto dry land which occurred 450,000,000 – 500,000,000 (450 million – 500 million) years ago during the Paleozoic Era, specifically during the Ordovician and Silurian periods

The Condition of the Earth After the Chicxulub Asteroid Collision Which Caused the Extinction of Dinosaurs

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Immediately after the Chicxulub Asteroid collided with the Earth, heat from the fireball produced reached temperatures of 5500 degrees Celsius and produced a shockwave which broke the speed of sound, causing gale force winds equivalent to a hurricane. Everything within 965 kilometers was instantly decimated. Within 11 minutes of impact, the sky began to darken as debris which had been pushed up into the atmosphere started to settle back down. As these small spheres the size of a grain of sand descended back down to Earth, they heated up upon re-entry, identical to that of an asteroid, which provided the illusion of billions of simultaneous shooting stars. The energy produced during this re-entry barrage of heat was more intense than the sun for a brief period of time and made the sky glow red, as if it was comprised of liquid magma. This debris reflected heat back towards the Earth and effectively caused the Earth to act as an enormous radiator. To add to this damage, wildfires began sprouting up due to the intense temperature which caused heat and smoke to fill the atmosphere, compounding the damage already done. Strong winds helped perpetuate these fires and because so much of the Earth was affected, it only took a few hours to become globalized, engulfing the entire Earth in a mass fire which burned hotter than a regular fire due to the inability to dissipate heat sideways. In addition to this, gypsum which contains sulphur, blocked the sun and cooled the Earth over the long term. Gypsum had a seismic effect upon the world’s oceanic ecosystems as ocean acidification occurred due to sulphuric rain being produced by the gypsum within the atmosphere. The reflecting of the sun caused 75% of all plants to die as the Earth only received as much light during mid day as what is present during a cloudy, moonless night of the modern day