​We are not far from chaos from which there is no return ● Mammals did not appear in the Jurassic period, as was believed ● And yet life on Venus could be

We are not far from chaos from which there is no return

Although it is currently only published on the preprint platform arXiv, pending permission from other researchers, the research of some physicists from the University of Porto has already gone around the planet. And no, it’s not exactly new either, although the approach is a bit more radical than in the past.

Portuguese researchers have created several computer models to analyze the impact of resource consumption and human action on the environment. And the results offered by them are not entirely satisfactory.

In the most optimistic scenario, the Earth will know the point when the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stabilizes. Yes, the temperature will be higher than today, the population of the planet will decrease sharply, the level of the seas and oceans will rise, and extreme events will become the norm. But part of the planet’s population will be able to get used to it. And the fact that there is a certain cyclicality, stability of atmospheric phenomena, would be an indicator of the drama of normality. Again, this is an optimistic scenario.

According to the second scenario, humanity will have such a strong impact on the environment and the Earth system that weather phenomena on Earth will have a chaotic character. This means that there is no equilibrium left, and temperatures and extreme weather events will fluctuate wildly even from year to year. Almost no one can predict what will happen next. And what’s worse, there are already signs that we seem to have begun to cross the red line.

What would be interesting to add to this study is that such anomalies have also been reported in the past. I am not new to Terra. They often precede major climatic changes, such as the entry or exit of an ice age. But now, no, with human actions it is more difficult to say in which direction we are moving.

Mammals would not have appeared in the Jurassic period, as was believed

The Yanliao Biome, a name used to describe several fossil complexes in northern China, some of the richest in the world, recently provided evidence that challenges one of the theories that seemed to be proven. Namely, the origin of the ancestors of modern mammals, an origin that could be determined in the middle of the Jurassic period, about 160-180 million years ago.

At least this is what a group of researchers from the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China claims in a study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. In short, the researchers discovered traces of a former lake environment, from which they found numerous fossils belonging to creatures approximately 160-168 million years ago.

Among the life forms of that period, Chinese paleoanthropologists discovered the fossilized remains of some dinosaurs capable of gliding, the oldest dinosaurs of this species, several species of salamanders, but most importantly, they discovered the fossilized remains of some of the earliest ancestors. of modern mammals, some belong to the Euharamiyida family.

Lead-uranium dating of 129 zircon crystals found at the same site revealed the previously mentioned age, meaning that the site is mid-Jurassic in age. And then, how do the Chinese rewrite the hypotheses about the origin of mammals?

According to the study’s authors, they applied a Bayesian model in which they introduced characteristics of the protomammals found in northern China, as well as similar traits found in even older life forms, which yielded a general pattern of evolution.

The result was that the origin of the ancestors of mammals can be traced back to the end of the Thracian era, at least 208 million years ago. This is not an entirely new idea. Such a hypothesis was put forward earlier, but it caused sharp disputes. Thus, the scientific world had only two options for the appearance of proto-mammals.

The first, who claimed that they appeared in the Jurassic period and underwent rapid diversification. The second, the one originally disputed, which states that the ancestors of mammals appeared in the Triassic, from which point they underwent a slow evolution until the mid-Jurassic period, when they underwent a strong diversification. From what the Chinese researchers are saying, it seems that the least likely hypothesis will also be true.

And yet there may be life on Venus

Speaking of hypotheses that were not first published or even in their first youth, we could say that related to the existence of life on the planet Venus is re-emerging after it was first launched in the 19th century, and after which was debated and renegotiated every decade.

This time, the information comes not from one study, but from two, published in the journal Astrobiology, respectively PNAS, by a group of Anglo-American researchers from Cardiff University, UK, and MIT, USA. And their hypothesis, while not new, this time uses laboratory tests that have never been done before.

In particular, the researchers started from the idea that arose from the 50s of the last century, according to which microbial life could flourish in the atmosphere of Venus. At least on the surface of the planet, with an average temperature of 464 degrees Celsius, it is clear that there can be no powerful solvent necessary for the chemistry of life…water. In fact, no liquid is compatible with such temperatures. But the situation is different in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, where, by the way, clouds are composed of sulfuric acid.

The aforementioned experts propose that in the absence of water, sulfuric acid can act as a solvent in what is meant by the equation of life. They proved it. In short, they placed all the ingredients that make up DNA and RNA into a container of 81 to 98% sulfuric acid.

Surprisingly, adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine and uracil remained stable for several weeks at a temperature of 18-21 degrees Celsius, the same as the atmosphere of Venus. The same thing happened with purine and pyrimidine, compounds that some viruses use to replace adenine. And this means that, at least theoretically, life can exist there.

But because it doesn’t stop there, the writing team also discussed a host of life forms, namely gravity and the possibility that hypothetical microbial life could remain in the atmosphere without ending up in the hell below. And the tests again showed that they can stay in the atmosphere indefinitely thanks to gravitational waves.

In conclusion, yes, we could hope to find some life forms on Venus. But they will in no way resemble what we know about life on Earth.

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