Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb and mass-extinction authority Peter Brannen, author of Ends of the World, both ask is Mother Nature and COVID-19 teaching our “Anthropocene Epoch” a powerful lesson?
Like the Hindu god, Shiva, enigmatic viruses –not living, yet not dead–help create, protect and transform the universe. Viruses have had a huge impact on the history of all life on Earth. It was in the oceans that cover 2/3s of our planet, that life got its start. The oldest traces of life are fossils of marine microbes dating back almost 3.5 billion years.
100 million years ago, ferocious predators, including flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters, made the Sahara the most dangerous place on Earth, according to an international team of scientists, who have published the biggest review in almost 100 years of fossil vertebrates from an area of Cretaceous rock formations in south-eastern Morocco, known as the Kem Kem Group.
When Felix d’Herelle, a seminal figure in the history of molecular biology, discovered the first bacteriophage in French soldiers in 1917, writes Carl Zimmer in A Planet of Viruses, “many scientists refused to believe that such a thing actually existed. A century later, it’s clear that Herelle had found the most abundant life form on Earth. What’s more, marine viruses have a massive influence on the planet. Marine phages influence the ecology of the world’s oceans. They leave their mark on Earth’s global climate. And they have been playing a crucial part in the evolution of life for billions of years. They are, in other words, biology’s living matrix.”
“Planet Earth Report” provides descriptive links to headline news by leading science journalists about the extraordinary discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the future of the human species. Our caffeine-inspired curation team scours the world, doing your work for you –all in one place.
“Planet Earth Report” provides summaries of headline news by leading science journalists about the extraordinary discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the future of the human species. Our caffine-inspired curation team scours the world, doing your work for you –all in one place.
