3 ms·

During those times, land was a barren desert. No soil, no crawling things, no plants, just barren sand and rock. If you left an apple out in the dirt, it would

by iwwr 15y ago

During those times, land was a barren desert. No soil, no crawling things, no plants, just barren sand and rock. If you left an apple out in the dirt, it would grow no mold and probably just dry out. It's hard to imagine a world like that.

sigzero 15y ago
But imagine it you would have to. You can only speculate what it was like anyway.
rglovejoy 15y ago
If you went back in time to that era with an apple from 2011, it would still have bacteria and fungi on its surface and inside. The rotting might be slowed by a possible higher intensity of ultraviolet light from the Sun, which would kill any microbes on the surface.
- throwaway32 15y ago
  What i have always found fascinating is how the biology of macroscopically large beings is so intimately intertwined at so many levels with that of the microscopic. For instance, the average human contains/carries 10x more nonhuman cells than human ones.
  - sosuke 15y ago
    Do you have a source for the nonhuman cell count? That would be an excellent water cooler topic to read up on.
    - throwaway32 15y ago
      I managed to find this http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/840131722.Dv.r.html http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/840131722.Dv.r.ht... but unfortunately it also does not cite a source :)
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      See the second paragraph of this Wikipedia article: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Intestinal_flora https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Intestinal_fl...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
VladRussian 15y ago
c'mon! while it is understandable that we all paid attention only to one lecture in the middle-school biology class - the one on human reproduction - one still is expected to remember that the life is almost 4B years old on our planet and 750M ago where would be various cell piles around thankful for the apple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution
- iwwr 15y ago
  Still, land was not being colonized at least until 500m years ago and substantial biomass had not accumulated until around 400 or so million years. 750m years ago there was probably not much microbial life on the continents (outside water holes or rivers, or near shores).

by iwwr 15y ago

sigzero 15y ago

But imagine it you would have to. You can only speculate what it was like anyway.

rglovejoy 15y ago

If you went back in time to that era with an apple from 2011, it would still have bacteria and fungi on its surface and inside. The rotting might be slowed by a possible higher intensity of ultraviolet light from the Sun, which would kill any microbes on the surface.

throwaway32 15y ago
What i have always found fascinating is how the biology of macroscopically large beings is so intimately intertwined at so many levels with that of the microscopic. For instance, the average human contains/carries 10x more nonhuman cells than human ones.
- sosuke 15y ago
  Do you have a source for the nonhuman cell count? That would be an excellent water cooler topic to read up on.
  - throwaway32 15y ago
    I managed to find this http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/840131722.Dv.r.html http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/840131722.Dv.r.ht... but unfortunately it also does not cite a source :)
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    See the second paragraph of this Wikipedia article: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Intestinal_flora https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Intestinal_fl...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

VladRussian 15y ago

c'mon! while it is understandable that we all paid attention only to one lecture in the middle-school biology class - the one on human reproduction - one still is expected to remember that the life is almost 4B years old on our planet and 750M ago where would be various cell piles around thankful for the apple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution

iwwr 15y ago
Still, land was not being colonized at least until 500m years ago and substantial biomass had not accumulated until around 400 or so million years. 750m years ago there was probably not much microbial life on the continents (outside water holes or rivers, or near shores).