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> Well, they seem to be doing allright for the past 65,000 years... They've survived. Humans can survive terrible things. > I'm assuming that, because they ha
by derleth 13y ago
> Well, they seem to be doing allright for the past 65,000 years...
They've survived. Humans can survive terrible things.
> I'm assuming that, because they have lived in such a closed ecosystem for so long, they have different diseases than we have.
Not really, because their ecosystem is not closed. Birds and fish and so on still bring parasites, insects fly around, and malaria is malaria wherever you go.
> I'm also assuming that for the diseases and medical conditions they have, they probably can find medicinal plants in the forest.
But not good ones. We've never once found plants which make anything nearly as good as penicillin, and there's no reason to expect that we ever will.
> I doubt however they have the same life expectancy as we do!
And they may well have to practice infanticide, and/or go on bloody campaigns to keep the population down low enough they don't starve.
- Kliment 13y agoPenicillin is made by mold. I'm not sure if molds count as plants, but it's definitely not a synthetic substance.
- dmayle 13y agoYes and no. It's not synthetic, but it's not naturally occurring, either (at least, not at levels that are useful). A lot of work went into the production process before penicillin actually became viable as an antibiotic (hence the 16-year gap between discovery and first wide scale use): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production
- jeltz 13y ago> And they may well have to practice infanticide, and/or go on bloody campaigns to keep the population down low enough they don't starve. Looking at their advanced weapon technology I would guess that they are very warlike, and have regular tribal wars.