In response to a teacher who is trying to teach others how classroom time can be used to train students in using preferred pronouns in discussion by Stephen Lafer

Here is my terribly insensitive response:

I am all for doing all that is possible, in a sensible way, to accommodate for the needs, desires, wishes of others, even, yes, for how they wish to be understood, known, acknowledged and have most always been willing and able to make the properly sensible accommodations. That said, I find the pronoun thing to be an obfuscation of meaningful human relationships and a hindrance to meaningful communication of the kind that allows people to come to know one another in truly meaningful ways. 

To spend time getting pronouns right, as is done here, wastes valuable time that could and should be used for discussing the ideas a course is about, hearing what all have to say about it, and coming to know one another through that kind of discourse. I also find it a factor of confusion in using the plural for the singular, in any discourse. I look for the other, another when "they" is used and a bit pissed off when language use has tricked my brain …

Sorry, if I step on sensitivities but sometimes in our modern cultures the latitude given sensitivities makes difficult the more productive kinds of good sense, good faith communication that, allowed to shape itself naturally in the context of the quest for shared meanings, leads to understandings of one another that go considerably deeper than jerking away from the topic at hand to recall a desired pronoun. …

Pronouns are a very different thing.  They are functional in the sense that they make meanings possible. Invent a new one if gender marking is a problem.  But sometimes it is necessary to know gender, to distinguish he from she, yes?  If we want to recognize that there are genders other than male and female, we need new pronouns.  …

Whether or not people come to use them naturally, so that thought is not interrupted by need to find the right pronoun, such pauses known to interrupt thought, is a possibility.   There is a syntactical issue with repeating a name rather than using the pronoun.  Read any long passage where Ruth is repeated Ruthlessly! …

So, I look over at a car and want to reference it in a sentence to explain something to another, and I refer to the single car as "those."  Pronouns are marked for number for a reason, and misuse of number is a problem because it misdirects and confuses. …

I totally agree with "feeling safe" too, and I, who has always had short term memory problems—like to think it is caused by a propensity to think too fast—have always had a hard time remembering students' names.  After a bit, I knew character, even some history and conceptual understanding of person easier than a label … 

If I treated a person as an individual, respected them for what they showed themself to be, we came to have a relationship that grew as we came to know more about one another.  If a person who looked like a woman turned out to be a man, interaction led to that discovery, that same person revealing that he drove a cement truck and sang in a choir…

And, when I could, I would try to personalize the discourse to take advantage of the knowledge I had acquired of people. I cared not about academic formality, never insisting that I be called doctor or professor.  Many liked to call me Lafer after they got to know me, and I had let them know that I was 99.9% a regular human being and a bit professor because of life experience. …

Okay, some have come to be sensitive about gender identification.  Perhaps some always were and this was not recognized.  I easily adjusted to Ms. and I gave into the demise of the Oxford comma.  None of these adjustments made for confusion.  I am not rigid and never ever wish to be disrespectful, unless someone earns disrespect.  …

Sorry, but calling one "they" is ridiculous.  Language does change but usually to improve clarity, not to muddle.

If you hate me for it, well ....

-Stephen Lafer

(from a Facebook discussion)

The Silver Lining of the Supreme Court’s Next Harmful Religious Liberty Ruling (Slate)

 

The Supreme Court took up a case that could grant special privileges to religious employees at the expense of their coworkers; it would also legalize discrimination within the workplace. Groff v. DeJoy is a frightening case because this court, and much of the federal judiciary, simply cannot be trusted to adjudicate sensitive disputes about religious accommodations on the job.

The current state of the law is biased against religious minorities with legitimate claims of mistreatment, especially Muslims and Sikhs. But the remedy may be worse, favoring conservative Christians who wish to discriminate against colleagues and customers. Groff shows what we lose when we cannot rely on the Supreme Court to handle difficult matters of faith without favoritism toward one particular vision of Christianity.

It was only a matter of time before SCOTUS heard a case like Groff. The plaintiff, Gerald Groff, is a postal carrier whose religion requires him to observe the Sabbath every Sunday. After USPS ordered him to deliver packages on Sundays, he resigned and sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law bars employment discrimination “because of religion” and directs employers to “reasonably accommodate” workers’ religious observance. It adds, however, that employers can refuse to provide accommodations that would place “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” Groff lost in the lower courts.

That’s because, in 1977’s Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, the Supreme Court substantially weakened Title VII’s accommodation requirement. Hardison involved an employee who sought to take off Saturdays to observe the Sabbath, as required by his religion. Granting this accommodation would have cost Trans World Airlines just $150 over three months.

Still, the airline refused. By a 7–2 vote, the court sided against the employee, rewriting Title VII in the process. The majority declared that an employer suffers an “undue hardship” when a religious accommodation would impose “more than de minimis cost.”

Yet those two standards are not the same, as Justice Thurgood Marshall pointed out in a furious dissent joined by Justice William Brennan. An “undue hardship” implies significant expense. A “de minimis cost” implies, well, a minimal one.

So the Hardison test let employers refuse an accommodation as long as they could cook up some hypothetical reason why it might cost them any real money. “Despite Congress’ best efforts,” Marshall lamented, “one of this nation’s pillars of strength—our hospitality to religious diversity—has been seriously eroded. All Americans will be a little poorer until today’s decision is erased.”

A funny thing happened between 1977 and 2023: The politics of religious accommodations flipped. Marshall and Brennan, the Hardison dissenters, were the Supreme Court’s liberal lions in their time. Today, it is the three most conservative justices who have called for Hardison’s erasure: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. Now the court is set to hear Groff, a direct challenge to that precedent, and these justices are nearly certain to get their wish. It is unlikely that this trio shares Marshall and Brennan’s vision of religious tolerance.

The politics of religious liberty have shifted significantly over the past half-century. Decades ago, these cases typically involved petitioners from minority faiths, like Indigenous religions, requesting accommodations that would harm no one.

Today religion cases more frequently involve conservative Christians’ right to discriminate against others. Look at a few of the Supreme Court’s recent religious freedom cases: Christian schools that mistreat LGBTQ students and disabled teachers. Christian foster care agencies and commercial businesses that won’t serve gay couples. Christian corporations that won’t let employees access contraception. In each case, Christians’ religious freedom to discriminate trumped others’ freedom from discrimination.

In past decades, the Supreme Court guarded against such injustices. It held that the First Amendment’s establishment clause forbids the government from imposing religious accommodations that place “significant burdens” on third parties. And it recognized that people of different faiths, or no faith, have a compelling interest in avoiding discrimination that’s motivated by religion. This approach balanced respect for free exercise with an acknowledgment of everyone else’s liberties.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the court has abandoned this balance. Instead, the current conservative supermajority has greenlighted or mandated accommodations that directly injure other people. And it has exacerbated third-party harms by prioritizing religious freedom over everybody else’s interest.

Such are the sorts of special rights that Groff is designed to require. How do we know? The law firm that brought Groff to the Supreme Court is a far-right firm called the First Liberty Institute. It represents litigants who oppose LGBTQ equality, reproductive rights, secularism in public schools, and a host of other conservative bugaboos. At the same time that First Liberty is litigating Groff, it is suing on behalf of J. Robyn Strader, a CVS employee who seeks the right to not prescribe contraception. Strader demands a religious accommodation under Title VII because her religion opposes birth control.

Under the old Supreme Court’s doctrine of third-party harm, her argument would be a nonstarter. The accommodation would clearly hurt customers, whose ability to obtain medication would be delayed or denied. And it could hurt employees, whose workload could balloon as they covered for Strader. At this ultraconservative Supreme Court, though, that principle is no longer good law. First Liberty knows that. And it wants to knock out Hardison so that clients like Strader can discriminate on the job.

It’s easy to envision what those cases will look like, because plenty of them have already arisen. A Walmart employee who repeatedly told colleagues that gays are going to hell. An HP employee who posted Bible verses on his cubicle calling for gays to be executed. A Cox employee who continually told a gay subordinate that homosexuality was wrong and sinful. A Walmart pharmacist who refused to fill birth control prescriptions. All lost under Hardison. All might prevail at this Supreme Court after Hardison is overturned. And it won’t stop there.

Imagine a manager who refuses to hire a transgender applicant. Or an employee who won’t work with a client who’s had an abortion. Or a cop who won’t patrol an abortion clinic. These are not the people whom Marshall and Brennan sought to protect. But Groff could grant them all a religious accommodation under Title VII.

So, it’s difficult to get too excited for the Supreme Court to overturn Hardison. And yet it is also impossible to defend Hardison itself.

The “de minimis” test enshrined in that case has a disproportionate impact on religious minorities like Muslims and Sikhs, whose religious garb and observances are met with suspicion in Christian-dominated workplaces. Civil rights groups have identified a shocking number of cases in which courts have let employers deny accommodations for hijabs, brief prayer breaks, and faith-mandated beards.

These accommodations would harm nobody. Still, federal courts routinely hold that accommodating such beliefs would impose a “more than de minimis cost” because customers and colleagues might react negatively. As the courts interpret Hardison, customers’ bigotry against Sikhs is good enough reason to fire an observant Sikh. That’s ridiculous, and it cannot be squared with the text or history of Title VII.

If only we could trust the Supreme Court to replace Hardison with a responsible standard that weighs respect for religion against genuine burdens on the rest of the workplace. The facts of Groff itself show how hard this task can be, even when there are no lurking culture war issues. Gerald Groff’s post office employed just four people, and when he took off Sundays, his colleagues had to take on extra work. This led to “resentment toward management” and “morale problems” that created a “tense atmosphere” in the workplace. It seems unfair that some postal carriers had to take on additional duties because they practice a different religion from Groff.

A better court could sift through these competing interests to identify what sort of compromise Title VII requires. The court we have is more likely to put its thumb on the scale in favor of religious employees every time. Swinging the law of accommodations from one extreme to another will only create more discord and generate endless litigation. That’s good for business at law firms like First Liberty. But it is not a recipe for the kind of religious tolerance that Marshall and Brennan demanded.

-Mark Joseph Stern, Slate

 

George Santos

…Are Santos’s lies, after all, any more far-fetched than Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him via a vast, undetected conspiracy? Are his lies about where he worked and went to school any more nefarious than the claim that Covid vaccines kill people, or that drag queens are scheming to molest children at public libraries?

“Perhaps Santos’s real sin is not in lying, but in telling the wrong lies. He didn’t regurgitate the same fabrications as the rest of his fellow Republicans – the ones about marginalized others. Instead, he merely lied about himself. And crucially, he lied about the one thing that seems to really matter to Republican leadership: he claimed to be a member of the monied elite, when he wasn’t…

“And indeed it’s hard not to suspect that there might be something wrong with the man, aside from the moral turpitude – a delusional tendency or break with reality that precipitated all these fictions. But it would be a mistake to think that George Santos’s pathologies are his alone. His lies are the product of a [Republican Party] that incentivizes dishonesty, punishes sincerity and is rife with opportunities for petty crooks...”

-Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Mind-Blowing Facts About The Earth That We All Take For Granted (Science Sensei)

 

When it comes to our planet known as Earth, it seems we take everything we see for granted. Some of this wasn’t always here and we were not always able to live, as humans, on the planet. It took billions of years to get us to this position in time. There are some absolutely mind-blowing facts about the Earth that we overlook.

It’s understandable that we appreciate it, as we’ve never known any version of the Earth that isn’t what we see today. Therefore, we cannot really imagine how things could be different. The human brain, for example, cannot possibly imagine a world or period where it does not exist. It is physically impossible to imagine not existing.

This is one of the prime reasons why overlooking amazing things about the Earth is so common. Yet we’ve seen a growing interest in the Earth the last decade or so due to science becoming “cool” again. The talk about nature and climate change has only intensified this interest too.

Yet at the end of the day, even those that care about the Earth and love to know about it will not know or overlook major things about it.

Today, we’re here to help educate the masses on Mother Earth and how many things came to be. These mind-blowing facts about the Earth will be known by some, but others will likely only be known by a fraction of humans today. That said, sit back and relax as we take a journey to inform you of the most amazing facts about our Planet today. Enjoy!

How Long Could A Human Last Outside Earth’s Atmosphere Unprotected.

Hanging out unprotected in space isn’t that hard, right? Sure it’s cold, but the sun comes out each day and heats the Earth, so it could clear heat you up too, right? Actually, that is not how this works. The average time a human can last in space unprotected is after about 2 minutes. This is not just because space does not contain oxygen but also because it’s incredibly cold.

Although the sun comes out, it does not warm space, but rather, the Earth warms itself from the sun’s rays. We have an atmosphere and so much that is responsible for this. Plus, the whole breathing thing is useful for humans too. We are incredibly lucky to live on a planet that can do all of this for us, providing the key ingredient for us to breathe and remain warm in spite of the cold space around us.

There Are Not 24 Hours In An Earth Day.

Outside of the Earth on other planets, the days could be longer or shorter. In the movie Interstellar, there was a moment when some of the characters were gone for what amounted to a few hours on a planet. It turned out that compared to the Earth’s time, this had been several years. This is incredible but possible to see depending on the size of the planet visited.

Yet we should not measure our Earth’s time as we know it when trying to compare it to other planets. There are not 24 hours in an Earth day. Our actual Earth day is actually 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. We simply rounded it out to a 24-hour day because it is easier to remember. Therefore, we’ve been stealing time from various Earth days for centuries.

Earth Is The Only Planet In Our Solar System With Plate Tectonics.

One of the most forgotten parts about the Earth is how perfect it is for human life or, well, a life of any kind. If you wanted to thank your lucky stars for this, it might be better to thank the plate tectonics beneath you. Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has them. For those unaware, any planet that does not have them cannot recycle carbon correctly.

These plates consume the carbon for us and then send it out to the Earth to properly make everything work. Without them, this does not occur and planets simply overheat as a result. Venus is a perfect example of what happens when planets overheat. If the Earth was like Venus, human life could never exist here…

The Sun Is Pretty Massive And The Earth Is Nothing In Comparison.

For centuries, people thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. It turns out, that the sun is a very important part of our lives each day, and it’s the technical center. Planets rotate around it and we luckily have managed to live today as a result of the sun’s heat. The sun is actually a star and on top of this, it happens to be one of the smallest stars we know of today.

Yet the sun is absolutely massive. The Earth happens to measure out at 3,958.8 miles in size.

Meanwhile, the Sun measures out at 432,170 miles. Scientists say to understand this, think of the typical front door at your home. The Sun is the door while the Earth is a nickel sitting outside the door. That is the size difference!

75% Of Earth’s Animal Species Could Be Extinct In A Few Hundred Years.

With changing climate and evolutionary issues, animals have gone extinct for several reasons over the years. Sometimes, poaching did them in or simply an animal was hunted for food by humans until there were no more. Then you have some animals that were very dumb and died off for several ignorant reasons.

Whatever the reason for extinction, several animals are already gone. However, more are set to go too. It is said that with the pattern the Earth is going on today, up to 75% of the world’s known animal species will be gone in the next 300 years. This is likely due to all the aforementioned reasons above. However, there are some animals we do know of yet that very well could survive. On top of this, some animals could very well evolve into another type of animal by that point too…

The Sahara Helps The Amazon Rainforest Every Day.

In one of the weirdest parts about our Earth, we somehow have it helping itself from two places thousands of miles apart from one another. The Sahara Desert, known for being a dry and hot place where people beg for water happens to be the very reason the Amazon Rainforest can still operate the way it does to this day.

The way the Sahara does this is by supplying nutrient-rich dust. In fact, each year the Sahara provides 40 million tons of this dust to the Amazon. It is transported there across the ocean via the wind. It ends up in the Amazon where it helps the Amazon continue to grow. Without this dust, we would not have the Amazon. Without the Amazon Rainforest, we would not have the world’s largest supplier of oxygen.

 

The Temp At The Earth’s Core Is Almost As Hot As The Surface Of The Sun.

We’ve already mentioned key connections the Sun has to the Earth, in particular, the size differences. The surface of our Sun is incredibly hot and helps to make Venus and Mercury hundreds to thousands of degrees. Yet the Earth can get incredibly hot the closure you get to its core. The center of the Earth reaches the temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius, which is 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The surface of the sun measures out to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 5,600 degrees Celsius. This is only 100 degrees difference. Of course, the Sun reaches much higher than this the further in you go. Such as 27,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the center. Thus, we’re lucky that the whole “dig to the center” thing did not happen.

90% Of All Volcanic Activity Happens In The Ocean.

While there are several volcanoes all around the world, most of them are not active. However, there are several that are still going off to this day. Yet most of those volcanoes are actually in the Earth’s oceans. That’s right, most of the world’s active volcanoes go off underwater and you rarely, if ever, hear about it.

Some could be erupting this very second! Most of them do not cause any earthquake issues or problems in the ocean, so it is rare that you’ll see an underwater volcano eruption make the morning news. However, they do create new formations due to the water helping to cool the lava once it comes out…

There’s A Lot Of Active Volcanoes.

While it is true that most active volcanoes are underwater, there are several volcanoes that are active all over the world today. At last count, the number was a little over 1,500 actives. Some go off all the time while others may do so every few months, a few years, etc. The big ones, known as super volcanoes, are the ones scientists truly worry about.

They actually have the power to shape the Earth and cause various problems. Some could flood the world with ash and send us into a new Ice Age. 6 of these super volcanoes are currently “sleeping.” However, scientists monitor these regularly to see if a change is coming…

Dinosaurs Could Never Exist Today And Humans Couldn’t Exist In Their Time.

Millions of years ago when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, something very special was happening on our amazing planet. We were actually getting an immense level of oxygen. The Earth’s atmosphere was not really affected by humans or even random fires. Therefore, the climate could contain far more oxygen. This special amount allowed reptiles and amphibians to go to larger sizes, as well as many birds.

Today, the oxygen is nowhere near what it was back then, thus keeping them much smaller. Humans, however, could not live among the dinosaurs at all. Our bodies struggle with oxygen levels at the 0.1 to 0.5 bar and up. Oxygen levels were much higher during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Mesozoic periods. Humans in this level would experience massive lung damage and pressures like this could possibly make our heads explode.

Tons Of Meteorites Hit The Earth Every Single Day.

You may assume when we say “tons” that it is being used in the conversation or colloquial sense. However, we’re actually using literal terms here. It is confirmed that meteorites come into the Earth’s atmosphere every single day. Sometimes we have government officials who take care of them before they reach us. Most of the time, however, the Earth handles this without human interaction.

We see around 100 tons of meteorites enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Out of these, most end up being dust by the time they make it here. Some small meteorites may make it through, yet they don’t tend to do much if any damage. Despite this, you may have heard of stories where people reported a small meteorite hit their home or car. It’s not really easy to control where the things land sadly…

Look Out For Space Junk!

Due to all the things we put in space combined with the already problematic contents of space itself, NASA has managed to look into this. They were able to check all of the contents that either entered or re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and found that at least one piece of Space Junk comes down to Earth each and every day.

Of course, this is a law of averages. There very well could be zero on a certain day and two of them on the next day. However, the fact that we have to watch out daily for space junk is a bit weird. It’s one of those mind-blowing facts about the Earth that we should probably work to fix…

Don’t Be So Salty.

While we all know that the Earth is quite massive and contains a ton of water on it, do you know how much is considered saltwater vs freshwater? To help you out, every single Ocean fall under saltwater. This also involves several “seas” and partially even includes lakes & rivers.

Meanwhile, streams, as well as many lakes and rivers, fall under freshwater. Despite this, the salt vs fresh ratio is not even close. Currently, the Earth is made up of an impressive 97% saltwater versus 3% freshwater. Mind-blowing facts about the Earth like this show why it is so important for humans to take care of these freshwater places around the world.

Humans Cause More Extinctions Than We Think.

It is quite clear that humans are the very reason why so many animals are gone today. Mass extinctions of major animals, as well as those that will one day die as a result of humans, are quite vast. However, the same occurs with plants too. While these things are caused by hunting, removing, or cutting down these living beings…it’s also due to clear climate change.

Due to all these acts by humans, it is estimated around 2 to 4 species of either animal or plant go extinct every single hour of the day. These animals or plants could be on land, in the sea, and may not even be some we actually know about…

We’re All Born Stars.

Humans are made of the stars, essentially. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a brilliant way of telling people about this. He is quoted so eloquently saying: “The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

Gravity Isn’t The Same For All Of Us.

The Earth is always on the move, which causes some technically weird situations. As a result of the move, you can and likely will weigh a bit more at the poles of the Earth than you would weigh at the Equator. This is not just because at the Equator line you’ll be sweating off a lot of water weight either. This is one of the craziest, mind-blowing facts about the Earth we found.

Scientists have looked into this and believe they have the answer as to why weight and ultimately gravity differ in these spots on the Earth. It is said that convection currents from Earth’s mantle and/or the Earth reacting to the pressure of eliminating ice on its surface after it melts is the root cause of the gravity difference.

That’s A Big Mountain Range.

We may see massive mountains all over the world with Mount Everest being the believed tallest. However, it’s actually not the tallest rather, more of it is on land. There are underwater mountains that are quite tall. When it comes to a mountain range, however, that is another story entirely. The largest was assumed to be the Andes in South America, which is 4,350 miles long.

However, the longest mountain range is much bigger than this and runs 40,389 miles around the world. Yet again, it has to do with an underwater situation. We call it the Mid-Ocean Ridge, which was formed by magma that rose to fill gaps that formed as the Earth’s plates shifted over the years. The mountains here have a depth of 8,200 feet below the water’s surface.

You’re Moving Through Space Incredibly Fast.

The Earth is moving quickly and we mean VERY quickly. Currently, we’re moving through space at around 66,000 miles per hour around our sun. While this could be seen as incredibly fast, it has nothing on the speed of our solar system. It’s actually moving at a rate of 560,000 miles per hour.

This begs the question if we’re moving so fast here on Earth and our solar system is also moving so quick…how do we never feel this? The Earth has moved like this for a long time and our bodies have gotten used to it. Yet this movement is key for the solar system. We’re in a constant state of motion, so we do not feel our solar system’s speed through the universe…

We’re Also Spinning Incredibly Fast Too.

After centuries of study on the Earth, scientists have now been capable of finding out that the Earth spins a little over 1,000 miles per hour. However, the speed the Earth spins at may differ depending on where you’re located on the planet. For example, if you’re located on one of the poles then you’re basically rotating in place.

This is similar to spinning a basketball on your finger. Notice how your finger can remain in place and it’ll always keep to the area it first began spinning on. Since the Earth has a bulge around the Equator, the people here are spinning the fastest of everyone on the planet. It’s also common to see the mid-section of a ball moving the fastest too…

The North & South Poles Switch Places Every 200,000 To 300,000 Years.

We all know about the North and South Poles, right? While both are cold places to be, the locations of the poles actually trade places more often than you might think. These magnetic poles move thanks to Earth’s magnetic fields pushing against each other. Scientists found that these poles will usually switch up every 200,000 to 300,000 years.

It’s sctually been more than twice as long since the Earth’s most recent switch, however. The reason(s) for the trading not taking place are debatable but what this does mean is that a switch could cause some weird issues. Some believe it’ll be Doomsday. However, if nothing else, you’ll at least need to get another compass. Someone should also alert Santa!

The Earth Is Made Up Mostly Of Water, But How Much?

A lot of people wonder how, when looking at the Earth, we could possibly be made up of more water than land. In reality, we do have a lot of land on the planet. Even if it’s underwater at times, it’s still there. Thus, the world is completely made up of land too. The thing is, we tend to go with what takes over. If the land is underwater, the water now takes top billing essentially.

How much of Earth is water versus land, in this case? 

The answer is 71%. Seawater rising around the world has led to the 1% rise since we were kids. Eventually, the Earth may be more than 80% water! While not considered among the mind-blowing facts about the Earth, it is impressive to see how many humans can live in a world where we have less land compared to the fish to live on.

The Earth’s Rotation Has Slowed Down, Eliminating Some Possible Age.

We now know that the Earth’s rotation has been slowing down but it’s certainly not by much. In fact, we as humans could not tell at all really. It is simply impossible for us to do so. The question is, why? Apparently, it has a lot to do with the tides interacting with continents and their shores. It somehow creates friction and has been changing up the speed of our rotation.

As an added benefit to the Earth, she has not aged the amount she would have if the Earth remained at the speed it used to be at. In total, the Earth has seen 2,740 years and 6 hours eliminated from our gradually slowing rotation. This factors out to about 1.78 milliseconds per day each century…

The Hottest & Coldest Temperatures On Record.

While the Earth has been both severely hot and severely cold, humans have not been around when the world was in these developmental periods. We also were not alive during the mass extinctions, at least in the form we’re in today. However, we have been around and put through some absolutely insane conditions.

The hottest day on record occurred in Death Valley and reached a temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913. However, the coldest day on record occurred in Antarctica where the temperature reached -135.8 degrees Fahrenheit in 2013. Both temps may never be beaten, at least, we hope they aren’t.

Three People Have Visited The Deepest Part Of Earth Compared To 3,000 Who Have Visited The Highest.

It makes sense to assume that visiting either the highest or lowest part of our planet is not something most of us truly want to do. However, you’d be surprised to learn that thousands of people have managed to reach the top of our world. The tallest sits at the peak of Mount Everest. It has played host to about 3,100 climbers thus far. However, 220 died so far in the attempt.

Meanwhile, the lowest portion of the Earth is located in the Mariana Trench and is known as the Challenger Deep. It extends 36,000 feet below the surface of the Ocean. However, only 3 people have managed to get here with well-known movie director/writer James Cameron being one of those three.

A Single Glacier Is Responsible For Contributing 10% Of All Earth’s Meltwater.

As it currently stands, the world’s fresh water is contained in a slew of places with glaciers being the most common. Ice caps and glaciers melt due to climate change, which results in sea levels rising. The biggest is known as the Canadian Arctic Glacier and is technically the size of New York City. This is the glacier that contributes the most meltwater annually.

From 2004 to 2009, studies by scientists were able to discover that the water this one glacier lost was equal to nearly 75% of the water volume of Lake Erie. Understand that for just a second. One glacier contributed enough to fill an entire great lake…

Earthquakes Can Technically Produce Gold.

We all know that Earthquakes can be destructive and break the very foundation of Earth beneath us. However, they can also technically make you rich too. This sounds confusing, but we’ll explain ourselves here. Several elements are inside the Earth, rare elements combined with commonly seen ones. One of these happens to be gold.

It is usually located about six miles below the Earth’s surface. When earthquakes happen, water inside faults will vaporize and mix with silica to form gold. However, you should not try to just cause an earthquake as a get-rich-quick scheme. This process takes 100,000 years to create gold worth mining for you…

How Small We Really Are.

When you start to think about the Earth, truly think about it, you’ll find that we as human beings lucked out a lot. Start to compare us with the overall universe, however, and you’ll realize just how small we truly are. However, in a somewhat fun cosmic win, we now know that the Earth has more trees than there are stars in the overall Milky Way Galaxy.

This is where our winning ends, sadly. Outside of our galaxy, several more stars exist. There are so many that you could count up every possible grain of sand on Earth. Even though this would likely be impossible. Pretending you did, you’d still be seeing a number dwarfed by the number of stars in the overall universe.

The Great Barrier Reef Is The Largest Living Structure On Earth, For Now.

While it is sad to say that various coral reefs have changed over time, with many even dying from multiple issues, nothing beats the Great Barrier Reef. When you talk about things you can see from space, this very Reef is one of those things. It is absolutely breathtaking in person but the images of it are amazing too.

Located right off the coast of Queensland, Australia, this Reef measures around 1,429 miles long. To equate this size, it is the same as the state of Texas or the country of Japan fully put together. The wildlife here is absolutely amazing as the Great Barrier Reef hosts 1,625 types of fish, 100 species of jellyfish, and 600 types of both soft and hard corals. All of this is inside a Reef composed of almost 3,000 smaller reefs.

The Earth Isn’t Perfectly Round.

Don’t assume we’re somehow in support of the infamous Flat-Earth Theory. At Science Sensei, we base our views on the current evidence and it has been known for a long time that the world isn’t flat. However, it might be more recent that we’ve found that it also isn’t perfectly round either. Currently, the Earth is spinning at about 1,000 MPH which gives the planet a somewhat “oblate spheroid shape,” if you will.

This is not a perfect sphere because of a clear bulge around the Equator. It looks perfectly round from space in the images. However, when the distance from the sea level to the Earth’s core at the Equator was measured, it was found to be 13 miles greater than at the Earth’s poles. In layman’s terms, Earth’s belly is sticking out like your uncle’s on Thanksgiving.

Antarctica Contains 90% Of The World’s Ice And 70% Of Its Water.

We all know Antarctica is unbearably cold and obviously known as the continent of ice. To no one’s shock, this continent is home to 90% of the world’s overall ice. This is a massive thing to consider in that just one place contains so much. Due to this, it should also not be a shock that the continent also contains 70% of the world’s water too.

The ice measures out to 15,748 thick in certain places. On top of this, if the entire place were to melt somehow, the world’s oceans would end up rising around 187 feet. We’d truly be a blue planet then. Funny enough, this place is also the home to Drys Valleys, where it has not rained in 2 million years…

The Magnetic Field Aid.

Most of the time, when you think about mind-blowing facts about the Earth, you don’t really consider the magnetic field that the planet has. However, this very field is a major reason we’re still alive today. It helps us keep a lot of things away from the Earth itself and works as shielding of sorts to protect us.

One of the biggest things it does is protect us from solar storms or solar winds. If you were in space at the time of one, you’d likely be dead or end up dying from radiation poisoning eventually. We’re helped in that our magnetic field reflects this and keeps us safe from them. It aids us much more than this, but we’d need an entire article on the magnetic field to tell you about it all.

We’ve Only Explored 5% Of Our Oceans And Its Contents.

It has long been said that we know more about outer space than about our own oceans. This is not entirely inaccurate if we’re being fair. We do know a lot about space but it would be hard to say we know more than 1% of it due to the vastness of it all. Yet our time on Earth with the oceans has not fared much better. We only know 5% max about our world’s oceans.

This involves not knowing about things like land and contents under the sea as well as multiple sea creatures. On top of this, it’s actually hard to map for us. While we can create maps of up to three miles in resolution, we can’t go further due to radio waves that interfere with documenting things via scan. This means we have a better map of Mars & the Moon than our own oceans.

Our Moon Gave Up Quite A Lot, It Appears.

We all know now that, according to the Big Bang Theory, the universe was formed through everything shaping itself over billions of years. During this, we saw planets colliding, which also included moons. During one of these encounters with our own moon, we were given a few gifts. First, it gave us a little bit more mass as we took a part of the moon with us.

Yet we also took some of its magnetism to add to our own magnetic field. This is a major reason the Earth’s magnetic field is so impressive. It’s not entirely shocking to see gifts through colliding, as asteroids gave us part of our water too Science has found that we may have once had two moons too. The two collided and now we see what we see today. Could our Moon also have an actual atmosphere if not for us and other collisions? Perhaps.

The Only Tolerable Atmosphere.

Looking at how lucky we became; it is not a wonder why some alien species may not consider us worth visiting. They may assume we did not have to do much at all to live. To be honest, they would not be that far off. The Earth, as well as everything that happened to it, gave us this amazing planet that eventually became possible for human life. The biggest of all of this is our atmosphere.

It is so thick that outer space and its nothingness cannot randomly take away our precious oxygen resource or cool the Earth to a ball of ice. Mars and the Moon apparently at one point did have a true atmosphere before collisions with the Earth. We took a little from everyone to eventually form a planet that can sustain life, with an atmosphere type found nowhere else in our solar system.

There Are Actually 8 Continents, Not 7.

Growing up in school, we were always taught about our major continents. This involved North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, and Europe. However, we were not taught correctly. You should not get mad at your Elementary/Grade school teachers or science teachers from high school. To be fair to them, they didn’t know this either.

For some time, the 7 continent theory held perfect ground. That was until the discovery of an eighth that science is trying to officially recognize as a Continent. Known as Zealandia, most of the continent happens to be submerged in the ocean. However, a tiny part of it managed to survive the ages to become the New Zealand we know today. We feel Zealandia should certainly be recognized as the eighth continent on Earth, despite its underwater status.

There Have Been 5 Mass Extinctions And Somehow We’re Still Here.

Mind-blowing facts about the Earth like this make you truly consider if you’re worthy of such an honor. However, it is completely true that the Earth has suffered a mass extinction 5 times now. While there have been several extinction-level events beyond this, the major 5 are our big focus, of course. The first happened 440 million years ago called the End Ordovician where 85% of species were killed.

The next up is the Late Devonian (365 million years ago, 75% of species lost), End Permian (253 million years ago, 96% marine life; 70% terrestrial life species lost), End Triassic (201 million years ago, 80% of species lost), and the End Cretaceous (66 million years ago, 75% of species lost). As weird as it might be, if not for these extinctions and the world-changing events that came with it, we would not be here today. Consider yourself lucky…

 -by Joe Burgett, Science Sensei  

from 40 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Earth That We All Take For Granted

https://sciencesensei.com/40-mind-blowing-facts-about-the-earth-that-we-all-take-for-granted/