Posted on 02/25/2014 10:11:29 AM PST by null and void
Actually, it's not so much bad math as bad reporting. In addition to the billion-year gap that the article is about, there's another two-billion-year gap.Then I said to myself, "That's not right..." so stopped and fact-checked myself with wikipedia. The "Proterazoic" era lasted for TWO billion years, and the earlier Archean period lasted only ONE billion years.
It might surprise you to know that plants require oxygen too. During the day there is generally plenty of O2 around as a byproduct of photosynthesis, but during the night they have to pull it in from the atmosphere to metabolize sugars.
Chuck Norris scared the evolution out of them.
Believers in abiogenesis have more faith than any creationist around.
The first life "developed" with the ability to process food, extract nutrients, and reproduce, all simultaneously! Incredible!
“Also, only a very small portion of plants respire oxygen at night.”
Interesting. That’s what I get for listening to science teachers as if they know what they are talking about.
then again there was an article yesterday - don’t know if it made it to FR - but a zircon crystal was dated to 4.4 billion years ago. To form, it meant that Earth was a fairly nice place then.
From the article:
— “To put that age in perspective, the Earth itself formed 4.5 billion years ago as a ball of molten rock, meaning that its crust formed relatively soon thereafter, 100 million years later. The age of the crystal also means that the crust appeared just 160 million years after the very formation of the solar system.”
— “The finding supports the notion of a “cool early Earth” where temperatures were low enough to sustain oceans, and perhaps life, earlier than previously thought, Valley said.”
If course, the classic sci-fi comedy is “Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (the BBC series, radio series, and book “trilogy”... NOT the dreadfully bad movie). Noteworthy for being very good science fiction, not just a comedy in a science-fiction setting. A former Doctor Who author finally just let the naturally humorous settings leap from mere camp to deliberate, biting satire.
With regards to the movie: You had to know the jokes to understand what was happening (”Why is the elevator sighing?”), and if you already know the jokes, why watch the movie?
Zircon crystallizes out at about 2500°C (about 4500°F) still a bit warm for oceans to form, doncha think?
Amen! Methinks the serious sludge is right now filling the cranial cavity of these “scientists.” I’ll take my chances with Genesis 1 and John 3.
Not my call - that’s what they said. It was some millions of years later - after the crystal formation - that the Earth cooled and the crust formed.
Article referenced:
Tiny Crystal Is Oldest Known Piece of Earth, Scientists Say
Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday, the researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth’s crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it.
John Valley, a University of Wisconsin geoscience professor who led the research, said the findings suggest that the early Earth was not as harsh a place as many scientists have thought.
HANDOUT / Reuters
A 4.4 billion-year-old zircon crystal from the Jack Hills region of Australia has been confirmed to be the oldest bit of the Earth’s crust.
To determine the age of the zircon fragment, the scientists first used a widely accepted dating technique based on determining the radioactive decay of uranium to lead in a mineral sample.
But because some scientists hypothesized that this technique might give a false date due to possible movement of lead atoms within the crystal over time, the researchers turned to a second sophisticated method to verify the finding.
They used a technique known as atom-probe tomography that was able to identify individual atoms of lead in the crystal and determine their mass, and confirmed that the zircon was indeed 4.4 billion years old.
To put that age in perspective, the Earth itself formed 4.5 billion years ago as a ball of molten rock, meaning that its crust formed relatively soon thereafter, 100 million years later. The age of the crystal also means that the crust appeared just 160 million years after the very formation of the solar system.
The finding supports the notion of a “cool early Earth” where temperatures were low enough to sustain oceans, and perhaps life, earlier than previously thought, Valley said.
The zircon was extracted in 2001 from a rock outcrop in Australia’s Jack Hills region. For a rock of such importance, it is rather small. It measures only about 200 by 400 microns, about twice the diameter of a human hair.
—Reuters
First published February 23rd 2014, 7:18 pm
how old is the slime??
I just did a search, and came up genuinely saddened.
That said, and just for snits and giggles:
Tongue-Tied, by Kat
It's available in America on Netflix streaming.
Perhaps The Crown doesn't want Canadians to view it?
I used to watch it whenever it was on KCTS9, which was carried on basic cable, but my search on Netflix was a rum go. I’ll try to find it again.
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