
Fungi Saved the World (2014) - bentaber
http://feedthedatamonster.com/home/2014/7/11/how-fungi-saved-the-world
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mrob
>two glucose molecules make up sucrose, or table sugar

Sucrose is made from one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule. Two
glucose molecules mostly commonly make maltose.

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briga
Wouldn't the high oxygen concentration during that period have done something
to counteract the carbon-sequestering effect of Carboniferous trees? I imagine
the amount of wild-fires burning would have been significantly higher because
of the high oxygen concentration, thus burning off a lot of the dead trees.
One way or another the planet is going to maintain an equilibrium.

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mabbo
Maybe, but all evidence seems to point to the equilibrium being at a higher
oxygen rate, cooler temperatures, etc.

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megaman22
From what I understand, the prevalence of enormous invertebrates in the fossil
record points at a much higher oxygen percentage, since insect and arachnid
respiratory systems aren't efficient enough to support bodies that large
otherwise.

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everyone
Can someone recommend a good pop-sci book that summarizes all natural history?
tx!

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mr_overalls
"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson is really fantastic.

[https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-
Everything/dp/07...](https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-
Everything/dp/076790818X)

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Radim
What makes ASHoNE so fantastic is it doesn't shy away from "science is messy;
while there is a common quest for objective truth for the most part, it's
incredibly convoluted, random, non-linear, and in any case polluted by our
apish propensities".

That's what makes the book so relatable.

A fry cry for that worrying pop trend of "Science is so awesome, bro!" that's
been picking up lately (which I find superficial and cringy to the point of
being a cult).

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whatshisface
The people who say "science is so awesome," are usually looking at NASA
pictures and relatively long-known facts, in the tradition of Sagan's science
pubicization. I've never seen a "science is so cool," meme about loop quantum
gravity in 1D universes with the topology of a circle, or about a social
sciences pilot studies. So, in that sense it's fine that they're leaving out
the messy part; after all the entire point is to turn the messy into the
clean.

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autokad
i once found a piece of half wood half coal, it wasn't charcoal. I was young
and we moved around a lot, so it got los

