Post Axry1bl8KNtIaCoVv6 by argonaut@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by argonaut@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #AxrS4W9gQHHRXPdlNw by futurebird@sauropods.win
       2025-09-04T11:30:55Z
       
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       Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants. The period of time where plants could produce lignin, but fungi couldn't break it down resulted in the massive coal deposits found in the earth. Some bacteria can break down lignin, but they require wet conditions to do this. This is what happens in the gut of termites. So, of course, we can imagine an alternate history where termites rule the earth.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrWIw5JDL89pMj0PQ by funkula@goblin.camp
       2025-09-04T12:18:17Z
       
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       @futurebird I remember some years back seeing that proposed as a Great Filter (for anyone unfamiliar, the unknown reason that the galaxy isn't full of interstellar civilizations) candidate. If nothing figures out how to digest it, all your carbon gets sequestered and your biosphere collapses. On the other hand, if you don't have that long gap between synthesis and decomposition, you don't build up a big reserve of easily extracted fossil fuels to kickstart industrialization with
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrcRHAzHO5fHdk0ci by hanktank61@NerdJoy.social
       2025-09-04T13:27:01Z
       
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       @futurebird  In a logical way, no problems to image a future where termites, fungi etc rule again. No, not joking about JFK jr.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrnF6XE7IgWIiXfSS by llewelly@sauropods.win
       2025-09-04T15:28:05Z
       
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       @futurebird 1/5I will confess that even though the idea that fungi took tens of millions of years to evolve a complete lignin breakdown process is widely accepted in paleontology, I have some issues with it.First, once you get away from Europe and eastern N. America, there is an awful lot of coal that is younger than the carboniferous; Wyoming has whole mountain ranges of Paleogene coal, and Colorado and Utah also have huge amounts of coal younger than the Carboniferous.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrnoVWlBfXfwuCmyO by RustedComputing@discuss.systems
       2025-09-04T15:34:30Z
       
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       @futurebirdtermitids.win ?
       
 (DIR) Post #Axrqcsk1LurAKiYX5M by Uair@autistics.life
       2025-09-04T16:06:00Z
       
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       @futurebird If it wasn't for, like, two species of bacteria and one beetle, the Earth would by now be choked with undecomposed mammal hair.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrvbIjUFIO48TN73I by jredlund@social.linux.pizza
       2025-09-04T17:01:21Z
       
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       @futurebird Termites are enemies of ants though. I thought you would favor the ant side.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxrwveMfd022yJxzNY by argonaut@mastodon.social
       2025-09-04T17:16:37Z
       
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       @futurebird and more, and therefore cheaper for longer, coal, which may be the most nightmarish part of it—albeit a better option for centuries of very cold peasants—compared to which termites ruling the earth don’t seem that terrible
       
 (DIR) Post #Axrx3raQLyTMINJez2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
       2025-09-04T17:18:09Z
       
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       @argonaut From what I know there isn't any chance of running out of coal and it would be hard for it to be any cheaper than it already is. It's not hard to find.
       
 (DIR) Post #Axry1bl8KNtIaCoVv6 by argonaut@mastodon.social
       2025-09-04T17:28:56Z
       
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       @futurebird thought: closer to the surface if plants have lasted longer without being part of a food chain, then lodes be closer to surface and prob also much more widely available in the middle ages and before, and if closer to the surface it be somehow easier and cheaper to extract and very importantly, transport which was the main price riser, and then easier for less capital-rich people to extract it and sell it at more accessible prices. but maybe i’m wrong anyway.
       
 (DIR) Post #Axs15TdMmMOWP5iXB2 by qurlyjoe@mstdn.social
       2025-09-04T18:03:13Z
       
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       @futurebird There is a book by Lewis Thomas called Lives of a Cell , Notes of a Biology Watcher. It’s a collection of essays he wrote for NEJM 1971-1973. In one of them he talks about the bacteria that live in the gut of termites that does the digesting of lignin. He suggested that biological research as a whole be put on hold and redirected to figuring out how it works. Big recommend to anyone interested in biology. #bookstodon #Science #biology
       
 (DIR) Post #AxusEA4QZKM2DnJxa4 by fbobraga@mastodon.social
       2025-09-06T03:08:03Z
       
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       @lffontenelle conhece esse inseticida?