Facts about Animal

Facts about earth part 4

41. Your identity is in the genes

Just think about it. Your very own identity is decided by combinations of 4 letters of DNA (A, T, G, and C). There’s so much DNA in your body that it can stretch all the way to the moon.

The truth is: We don’t know the origin of DNA. And we don’t even know if RNA came before. In primordial soup, this is where organic compounds and amino acids had the right conditions to synthesize from inorganic matter.

In hydrothermal vents beneath the ocean floor, this is where it’s believed to have the necessary building blocks for life.

42. Complex life from endosymbiosis

Endosymbiosis is the origin of complex life on Earth. It’s the idea that prokaryotic cells become eukaryotic from a symbiotic encounter. It starts with a mitochondrion latching onto a prokaryote.

In turn, the mitochondrion leverages the nutrient-rich surroundings of the prokaryote. And in return, the prokaryote energizes from the mitochondria during its residence. As both symbiotically gain from the encounter, they asexually multiply and evolve in this configuration.

In conclusion, mitochondria once lived free but are now part of complex cells through endosymbiosis.

43. Cambrian explosion and life diversification

The Cambrian explosion was the largest diversification of life in Earth’s history. In this remarkable evolutionary event, new life started in the ocean then moved to land.

This was the first time in geologic history that we could identify life from fossilized animals. Everything else before this era was Precambrian without hard body parts.

The Cambrian explosion was the roots of life that sparked a colossal amount of diversity in oceans and land.

44. Fossil records are like frozen photographs

Fossils are preserved remains from past living things such as bones, shells or exoskeletons. When you unveil a fossil, it’s like a spyglass into the past.

Every fossil was living before our time untouched for centuries. Like frozen photographs in the past, we piece together the geologic past with fossils.

Every fossil is like a puzzle piece that we link to the evolution of life. By examining a simple imprint in rock, we understand ancient supercontinents and continental drift.

45. Fossils don’t exist in 88% of Earth’s history

Only primitive life forms like bacteria and archaea lived on early Earth. It wasn’t until the Cambrian explosion that complex life finally began to thrive.

This marked a time when a wide array of life forms evolved. For example, we’ve uncovered fossils with shells or exoskeletons during this era.

This means that if you look at Earth’s geological timeline, complex life did not exist for more than 88% of it.

46. Water covers 70% of the planet

Earth is nicknamed the blue marble because water covers 70% of it. The vast majority of water is in our oceans.

While 3% is freshwater, 97% is salted. Of the 3% freshwater, most are locked in glaciers in the polar regions or groundwater.

Water is essential for us because it drives the hydrologic cycle, weather patterns, and all life on Earth.

47. Water changes states from gas, liquid and water

Because water is extremely versatile, it can transform phases from a gas, liquid and solid.

We have so much water on the surface that it’s incorporated in the water cycle, weather, and biology. From a liquid state, water evaporates into a gas or freezes into ice.

Like water dripping down a chilled glass of water, condensation goes from a gas to a liquid state. Finally, melting is when the sun beams down on ice converting it to a liquid.

48. Water is on the move in the hydrological cycle

From reservoirs to the air and back to surface water again. Water is always in motion. It’s the hydrologic cycle that describes how water moves on, above and below the surface.

And it’s all driven by the sun’s energy. The main focus is how water is stored – in the atmosphere, glaciers, oceans, plants and humans.

Most evaporation takes place in oceans. It’s the Coriolis Effect that moves it.

49. The Coriolis Effect drives air circulation

When a pocket of air heats up, it causes that hot air to rise. Other air rushes into the space to replace the risen hot air.

This phenomenon is “wind”. If Earth didn’t rotate, warm air at the equator would simply transfer to the poles. But because the Earth rotates, air starts to swirl like a merry-go-round.

This is the Coriolis Effect that causes storms to veer counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

50. A weather-driven atmosphere

Weather patterns have tremendous impacts on people and ecosystems on Earth. Clouds are like floating reservoirs of water.

Like squeezing a sponge, it redistributes water in the form of rain, sleet, and snow. This has influenced migration patterns and the type of vegetation that grows.

One billion tons of water falls every minute on Earth. Severe weather like tornadoes, hurricanes and flooding have displaced people from homes costing billions in damage.

51. A layered atmosphere

We categorize the atmosphere as separate layers. Air thins out as you go up in space.

In general, the atmosphere is thickest closer to the surface. If you go upwards of 5,500 meters, air pressure is half that at sea level. So this means you have to breathe about twice as much to get the same amount of oxygen. We live in the troposphere where all weather occurs.

Next, the jet stream and airplanes fly in the stratosphere at 12-50 km altitude. The mesosphere is the coldest layer extending from 50-85 km upwards. Finally, the thermosphere is where UV radiation heats up.

52. Groundwater as a hidden freshwater supply

Despite the popular belief that groundwater exists as a huge lake underground, water actually exists in tiny pore spaces within rocks and soil.

Groundwater has more than 100 times the amount of freshwater than lakes and streams combined. Groundwater is hard to get out of the ground, slow to recharge, and is easily contaminated.

That’s why groundwater is a delicate resource that we use as a rainy-day fund and draw in times of need. Pardon the pun.

53. Ocean currents push water across the globe

Ocean circulation currents are like a global conveyor belt exchanging warm and cool waters. At the equator, the sun is strongest heating water mostly there.

From the equator, hot water pushes outward to the south and north pole. At the same time, cold water from the north and south poles collide with this warm water. Because the Earth is rotating, water flows in a circular pattern.

This is why ocean currents move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. While wind drives surface ocean currents, temperature and salt gradients mostly influence deep ocean currents.

54. Earth’s background noise

Even without earthquakes, seismometers constantly record seismic energy. It records periods of oscillations about every 6 seconds as background noise.

These oscillations are due to ocean waves constantly crashing into continents. Earth’s constant hum is because masses shake back and forth like a metronome.

And during storms, it worsens as the reverberations are amplified.

55. Photosynthesis and food synthesis

The main idea of photosynthesis is that it takes in carbon dioxide and uses that carbon with water to convert it into a chemical form like glucose. Without light, you cut the plant off from the energy needed to produce photosynthesis.

Without water or CO2, you choke the plant from the essential building blocks that are the plant’s structure. So water is H2O which provides oxygen and hydrogen. Carbon dioxide is CO2 which provides carbon and oxygen.

The plants use solar energy to break apart the carbon dioxide in the air, and use the carbon for plant material in turn releasing the oxygen. This cycle is the short-term carbon cycle.

56. The short-term carbon cycle

In the short-term carbon cycle, carbon is always in flux. It cycles through the environment in various forms. From the small amount of carbon dioxide in the air, plants and algae convert it to food using water and light.

In turn, this produces O2 back into the air. Carbon fuels all living things. For example, animals consume food for energy using O2 and giving off CO2.

Then, it goes back again through the same process again. So the short-term carbon cycle describes how carbon goes from an inorganic compound like CO2 into an organic compound like C6H12O6.

57. The long-term carbon cycle

Carbon is in motion again in the long-term carbon cycle. But the distinction between the short-term carbon cycle is that this cycle takes millions of years to come full circle.

Instead of carbon converting into sugars, carbon is re-purposed into fossil fuels like coal. When plants are buried and compacted over millions of years, they become hydrocarbons.

When you drive your gas-powered car, you tap into Earth’s carbon reserves deposited hundreds of million years ago.

58. Coal reserves from buried plants

The Carboniferous period laid down gigatons of hydrocarbons. When plants were compacted and buried for millions of years, they couldn’t decompose naturally. Eventually, they became methane, coal and oil reserves all stored underground.

As we unlock these reserves, they hold incalculable worth. We harness their power and release it into the atmosphere. After usage, it becomes part of the short and long-term carbon cycle again.

From here, it takes millions of years to become a fossil fuel again or just several to take part in the photosynthesis of a plant.

59. The greenhouse effect is essential to life

I’ve got good news and bad news. Because greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, this helps regulate temperature. Without greenhouse gases, we’d live in an icebox.

Now, the bad news. Because we put too much of it in the air, it amplifies the greenhouse effect and less solar radiation is radiating back to space.

Too much of a bad thing can leave everlasting consequences for our planet.

60. Trees grow from the top down

For the most part, trees grow using carbon dioxide and rain from the atmosphere. Plants use sunlight to undergo photosynthesis.

Then, it produces sugars to create the trunk and other structures of the tree. The nutrients that plants get from soils mostly aren’t used as part of the main body and structure of a tree.

Plants use these nutrients for the more complex structures within plants, such as functional proteins and enzymes. This means that most of the dry mass of trees is made from the contents of the air.