MarcusForrest

MarcusForrest t1_jc60wty wrote

Reply to comment by Kiflaam in Cancer researchers show introducing bacteria to a tumour’s microenvironment creates a state of acute inflammation that triggers the immune system’s primary responder cells to attack rather than protect a tumour. by unswsydney

Cold Virus is a Virus, this is from Bacteria

 

(Also, IIRC the Cold Virus one was only related to Skin Cancer, so very specific)

 

According to this study, they basically changed the behaviour of Neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that helps against infection) - while they usually and unfortunately promote cancer growth, in this case, they managed to change the behaviour to perform the opposite!

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MarcusForrest t1_j9t12y4 wrote

Reply to comment by yirush in this bread bag tie is made of cardboard. by yirush

> Definitely not here. Quebec.

My bread bags have had cardboard/carton bag ties for at least 2-3 years - also Québec, Montréal - so definitely here, Québec too

 

Haven't bought bagged milk for a while though, not sure about those bag ties

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MarcusForrest t1_j9mawu5 wrote

Reply to comment by senorbolsa in TIL - That avocado seeds are so large because they depended on extinct megafauna to eat and disperse them. by byronhadleigh

> It's just a well considered hypothesis for why the seeds are so large.

Actually, it isn't even related to the method of distribution, but the direct competition they face in jungles and forests - for a plant to grow amongst multiple rivals, the seed needs to be pretty big to contain enough nutrients so the plant has a chance to grow over/before its rivals, and then live off the soil, sun light, water, air and all

 

Also, although they were still pretty big back then, big seeds were not as large as they are today - they are this large today due to human interaction and selection - the seeds are bigger, but the proportion of flesh vs seed is also growing bigger, too! Because that's what we like

 

Modern avocados are alive due to human efforts - fun fact: the most popular cultivar, the HASS AVOCADO is not even 100 years old yet!

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MarcusForrest t1_j9ma2e5 wrote

Reply to comment by Dirtroads2 in TIL - That avocado seeds are so large because they depended on extinct megafauna to eat and disperse them. by byronhadleigh

🖼️ Casteroides to scale

  • 2.2 m (7.2 feet) from tail to snout
  • 100 kg (220 lbs)
  • Teeth up to 15 cm (6 inches) long
  • Modern beavers have a major impact on forests due to their dams, imagine the impact the Casteroides left! How big their dams would be!
  • Could stay underwater for long periods of time thanks to its enlarged lungs
  • Interestingly enough, modern beaver brains are (proportionally) larger than Casteroides so it is theorized the ancient Casteroides had less complex thoughts and interacted with their environment a little less
  • They probably went extinct during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition (12,800–11,500 years ago)
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MarcusForrest t1_ixhf9qk wrote

Reply to comment by EnnWhyCee in TIL the Great Pyramid of Giza is not the largest pyramid in the world, Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as Tlachihualtepetl, is the largest archaeological site of a pyramid in the New World, as well as the largest pyramid by volume known to exist in the world today. by Mind-Matters-Not

This recent thread is an excellent start - as is this other thread and also this excellent thread

 

In short,

  • He doesn't really give any evidence for his claims, only a lot of "what ifs"
  • He doesn't seem to understand how science works. He claims archeologists oppose his theory, because it's "an attack against the current paradigm, and archeologists are reluctant to change the paradigm", but that's simply untrue. The paradigm changes constantly every time new evidence is discovered.
  • His formula is unscientific;
  • Hancock describes something cool in vague, romanticized terms. This is often done in the first person in a journalistic style to provide an air of legitimacy without needing to be thorough
  • Hancock asserts the thing's mysterious nature. He does this actively by showing how things archaeologists said 100 years ago (or never said at all!) fail to explain the thing, or passively by ignoring decades of research, positioning himself as the first person to ask these questions.
  • Hancock offers an additional, enticing observation that, having had all other context stripped away, functions as the single knowable fact
  • Hancock suggests his kooky hyper-diffusionist explanation for that observation that only makes sense if the handful of observations he's provided are the only ones you know

Because Hancock has stripped away all context for his observations, he can make whatever claims he wants. And because most readers have no familiarity with archaeological literature outside their high school history books, they don't know how much information Hancock is not telling them.

 

More recently, Hancock has shifted to theories that violate that first scientific fundamental. His book America Before is the culmination of his obsession with the Younger Dryas Impact Theory.

 

Sensationalized unproven claims while dismissing science is absolutely bad and should not be encouraged.

 

^(Note: 95% of this comment isn't my own stuff, but copy-pasted from the linked threads)

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MarcusForrest t1_iujukgq wrote

Reply to TIL that platypuses give off a biofluorescent green-blue glow under UV light and no one knows why... by Throwawayiea

Plenty of animals do - multiple reptiles fish, birds, mammals, insects, arachnids, other bugs

 

IMPORTANT DETAIL ABOUT THE ORIGINAL STUDY

The original study claiming platypuses are biofluorescent used dead platypuses (2020) - I couldn't find more recent research with live subjects

 

This can make a difference as various bacteria, fungi and other organisms are biofluorescent under UV, so a corpse could also be covered in those organisms. But again, some other mammals showcase Biofluorescence. Reasons are simply how the higher energy wavelengths of light is absorbed by the fur - it may not have an actual ''reason'' or ''use'' - it is probably just the way it is, but some experts suggest it might've been related to survival with a distant ancestor - it could've made predation from certain predators more difficult, a form of camouflage (but nothing really supports that theory)

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