gandalf_der_12te

German wikipedia defines a biological species as a group where individuals can reproduce offspring with other members of the group, but not with individuals outside of the group.

First of all, to the best of my knowledge, proper sexual reproduction only happens with Eukaryotes. Then this means that no bacteria ever reproduce offspring with other individuals, and therefore each bacterium is its own species.

But that is a meaningless definition. If each bacterium is its own species, then the categorization into species becomes meaningless.

On top of that, bacteria have "pseudosexual" horizontal gene transfer (HGT) which allows them to exchange genetic material with any other bacterium (if the circumstances are right; if i understand this correctly). So all bacteria are in a single species if you look at it that way.

I understand that bacteria normally don't undergo HGT with all other bacteria because some might only open up at hot temperatures while others only open up in cold temperatures - thus creating a natural barrier. But it is also my understanding that while such barriers exist, they're not permanent and can be overcome in nature (without human intervention) for example due to certain virus infections and similar circumstances.

Long story short:

Wouldn't it make more sense to just consider that the concept of "species" only apples to eukaryotes and not to bacteria at all? Wouldn't that save all of us a headache? Maybe we should consider bacterial species to be less strict that eukaryotic species. Maybe we should describe bacteria by their individual features and give that group a name, instead of expecting that diverging lines of evolution cannot ever come together again.

Toxic masculinity is a global phenomenon, but nowhere is it more virulent than in this hypermodern, connected society. What can other countries learn from this ‘ground zero’ of misogyny?

It takes a lot of parts that come from different sources and also sensitivity to place every screw correctly. It might be very difficult for a purely robot-run society to reproduce the robots themselves successfully.

You might have a factory that creates trucks, but who creates the robots that work in the factory? They're a different type of robot, and if you have a factory to produce them too, who produces the robots that work at that factory? The issue might be very difficult, and even if it's possible, you probably would need a very large industrial system to successfully and reliable reproduce every type of robot.

Meanwhile (biological) living beings can reproduce themselves successfully, especially plants, given nothing but water, CO~2~, some sunlight and some mineralic fertilizer (which might already be present in the landscape). That ability to self-reproduce is amazing and might be what makes life special.

These thoughts are relevant because it might mean that robots can never really get rid of humanity, i.e. overthrow humanity's rule and kill all humans. At least a few will be needed forever to ensure the robots can be reproduced. So you have something like: Humans reproduce themselves and also produce machines, which then do most of the hard work in the world. Kinda like DNA produces proteins, which then does most of the biochemical work inside a cell.

I've been studying a bit of human history recently and as many of you have probably heard, the worldwide population count increased sharply in the last century or so. link

the world's population was between 250 million and 500 million throughout the entire medieval age (500 AD to 1500 AD), so i assumed 330 million people on average (which it was around 1000 AD). 330 million people for a thousand years makes 330 billion human-years.

In the time period since 1970, approximately 6 billion people lived on earth on average, so that makes 55 * 6 billion = 330 billion human-years.

so, roughly speaking, as many human-years happened since 1970 than in the entire medieval history.

that might do a part in explaining why technological and societal progress has been so fast in the last couple of decades.

I've been studying a bit of human history recently and as many of you have probably heard, the worldwide population count increased sharply in the last century or so. link

the world's population was between 250 million and 500 million throughout the entire medieval age (500 AD to 1500 AD), so i assumed 330 million people on average (which it was around 1000 AD). 330 million people for a thousand years makes 330 billion human-years.

In the time period since 1970, approximately 6 billion people lived on earth on average, so that makes 55 * 6 billion = 330 billion human-years.

so, roughly speaking, as many human-years happened since 1970 than in the entire medieval history.

that might do a part in explaining why technological and societal progress has been so fast in the last couple of decades.

futurama s6e22

context is fry and leila (and bender) are going to a "local farmer's market"

(I moved this post over from !mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world because it fits better here)

I'm currently watching Futurama for the first time because i always kinda thought it was cool when i was younger.

I recognize now how much it sucks.

The major thing that annoys me is that it displays the world in the year 3000 as if people would still have to hold down a job to earn enough money to live. The idea of full-employment sickens me. In my mind, i exclusively do tedious things in the hope that some day, they won't ever have to be done again. Like software development. Linux only has to be written once. Once functional, it basically lasts forever, or at least close to (only minor modifications need to be made, like adaptations to a new protocol or sth).

The very idea that people will still have to work in the year 3000 is very repulsive. It shows that society hasn't matured enough yet. I hope this is not the future that we actually end up with.

Link to the article: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/spacex-notches-major-wins-during-tenth-starship-test/

Source

The community !mars@discuss.tchncs.de is hosting every kind of news, art and discussions about the planet mars. Everybody is welcome to participate, even if you don't know much about Mars. Feel free to ask questions, learn and have fun. Artworks are accepted if they're at least somewhat related to Mars. I post there regularly, to provide information and infographics, such as this one and this one, but i haven't had time yet to put these infographics into actual posts to explain what is shown on them. Forgive me for not having done so already.