Category: Natural History

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 Hottest Natural and Artificial Temperature in the Universe

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The hottest temperature ever measured and/or observed was within the Large Hadron Collider located on the border of Switzerland and France. When lead particles are smashed together within this particle accelerator, for a split second the temperature reaches 4,000,000,000,000 (4 trillion) degrees Celsius which is hotter than a supernova explosion, albeit the theoretical maximum possible temperature of the universe is believed to be 20 orders of magnitude greater. Contemporary models of physical cosmology postulate that the highest possible temperature is the Planck temperature, which has a value of 1.416785(71)×1032 kelvin. Temperatures above this are believed to be physically impossible because as particle energies become larger and larger, the gravitational forces between them inevitably become as strong as the other 3 fundamental forces which essentially boils and breaks down both the universe and space time. Outside of laboratory conditions however, the hottest naturally occurring place within the universe is the quasar 3C273 (the 273rd entry in the Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources), a blazing region surrounding a supermassive black hole approximately 2,400,000,000 (2.4 billion) light years away from the Earth, with matter within its accretion disk being measured at temperatures of approximately 10,000,000,000,000 (10 trillion) kelvin, making it far hotter than the core of any star, and 400,000x hotter than the core of the sun, rivaling the conditions of the universe right after the Big Bang

The Coldest Natural and Artificial Temperature in the Universe

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The coldest temperature ever measured and/or observed was within a controlled laboratory experiment in Germany; an experiment entitled “Time‑Domain Matter‑Wave Lens System for Atomic Clouds”. During this experiment, physicists cooled a cloud of rubidium atoms to 0.000000000038 (38 trillionths) of 1 degree above absolute zero which is -273.15 degrees Celsius, colder than the vacuum of space, slowing these atoms to a near motionless state for a very short period of time which created a fleeting state of matter existing closer to perfect stillness than anywhere or anything else within the universe. This experiment was the closest scientists have come to achieving complete absence of motion within a controlled setting. Contemporary models of physical cosmology postulate that the theoretical minimum possible temperature is absolute zero, which has a value of 0 kelvin. Temperatures below this are believed to be physically impossible because particle energies become so tiny that all molecular motion ceases to continue functioning, allowing quantum effects to dominate, and producing exotic states of matter (e.g. Bose-Einstein condensates in which matter behaves as a single quantum entity etc.). The coldest naturally occurring place within the universe is the Boomerang Nebula, a dying star cloud located approximately 5,000 light years away from the Earth. The Boomerang Nebula has been measured at 1 degree above absolute zero, making it even colder than the faint afterglow of the Big Bang itself, yet the Time‑Domain Matter‑Wave Lens System for Atomic Cloud experiment is 26,000,000,000x (26 billion) colder and closer to absolute zero than the Boomerang Nebula or any other naturally occurring region with low heat

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 Mercury’s Orbit Around the Sun Appears Retrograde From Earth

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Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity can be proven because of how Mercury orbits the Sun. Isaac Newton correctly explained how and why planets orbit the Sun, but because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it orbited its center star 7% faster than it should have therefore Mercury is close enough to the Sun that its space-time path is warped because of the mass of the Sun and this warping causes Mercury to orbit faster than planets further away. For many decades scientists hypothesized there was another planet, unseen yet, which gave Mercury an extra push. This additional planet was prematurely named “Vulcan”, which was in vain because no such planet ever existed. It was also theorized that cosmological dust gave Mercury its extra boost or that an unseen asteroid or asteroid field was helping Mercury along. It wasn’t until Albert Einstein proposed that all matter cuts through both space and time, following a curve, that the catalyst could be definitively proven. If a sphere rolled along a table and suddenly hit a dip, it would speed up and change its trajectory. This is essentially what occurs within space-time and is the reason Isaac Newton’s Universal Laws of Gravitation don’t quite fit with Mercury. Mercury is close enough to the Sun that its space-time path is warped because of the mass of the Sun and this warping causes Mercury to orbit faster than planets further away. It is not only Mercury which does this; any planet or body near its host star will orbit slightly faster than planets or bodies further away. Although it is impossible to visually see the curvature and bending of space-time, it can be definitively proven because of the way large bodies of matter affect smaller bodies of matter due to the mass of each body

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 Problem With Super Massive Black Holes

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Super massive black holes have a fundamental problem in that not enough time has passed since the creation of the universe to account for their massive size. This acute time crunch is because the universe has a finite value of only 13,700,000,000 (13.7 billion) years. It is theorized that the reason super massive black holes can become larger than what time permits is because they have a colossal head start due to the fact that they may be birthed directly from a cloud of gas, a phenomena referred to as “direct collapse”. These molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity, and as they collapse, fragmentation occurs as more densely packed areas collapse more quickly. Nuclear fusion begins next and a star is thus created. If a giant gas cloud collapses without making a star, it would form a gas disc instead, allowing the mass to flow into the center very rapidly, creating a black hole instead which is essentially a vortex upon an immense scale

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