Adding all of that coal and limestone trapped a lot of carbon underground. If that carbon was CO2 instead, the Earth would be much hotter. Perhaps hotter than the boiling point of water and thus there would be no ocean between the continents, like Venus.
Metal ions can perform interesting chemical reactions that organic molecules cannot. A positively charge metal ion can also naturally bind to negatively charged proteins. So the organisms that more successfully took advantage of these chemical reactions reproduced more effectively than the organisms that didn’t.
I came across David Sinclair and his research into reverse aging. Especially, I came across this video by Veritasium with Sinclair. Apparently his team has managed to reverse aging in mice in a lab? Has this been peer reviewed?...
David Sinclair is an interesting person. I’ve seen him present his research in a professional setting and he does some really interesting science. He is also very enthusiastic at selling his story.
There’s likely no amount of supplement and drug cocktails that will undo the damage of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Best case scenario is this research could be on to something that significantly augments a healthy lifestyle, or worse case it could be wasting a lot of money on something that potentially ends up being harmful a few decades from now.
I’ve looked at the list of supplements and drugs Dr. Sinclair takes and there is mechanistic rationale from cell culture and animal experiments behind the ones I’m most familiar with. But it is a big leap to go from cell culture and animal models to human health on a much longer time span. The clinical trials needed to really demonstrate a lot of these claims are incredibly expensive and would take decades. Drug companies in the anti-aging field tend to focus on older patients to start with and earlier endpoints like lower cancer, Alzheimer’s, or heart disease incidence. They also tend to be funded by silicon valley tech executives.
If life never emerged on Earth, would the continents still be more or less the same today? In other words, does life affect the formation and movement of continents significantly?
Do we have any theories as to why complex life eventually started requiring various metal elements as micronutrients?
For example, why did zinc, of all things, start getting utilized by brain and prostate tissue in humans?
How far is reverse aging tech?
I came across David Sinclair and his research into reverse aging. Especially, I came across this video by Veritasium with Sinclair. Apparently his team has managed to reverse aging in mice in a lab? Has this been peer reviewed?...