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 .p122 Large bat colonies roosting deep in caves produce toxic amounts of ammonia
 .p122 if oxygen drops below 19% or CO₂ rises above 0.6%, drowsiness, headaches, fuzzy thinking
  . [[ https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA235531.pdf#page=169 | Submarine atmospheres, Knight Tappan 1989 ]]
 .p122 ISS standards 3x worse than submarines
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 .p123 [[ | ]]
 .p123 [[ | ]]
 .p123 Mole rat burrows can be 6% oxygen and 10% CO₂
 .p123 they can survive 3% oxygen and 80% CO₂
 .p123 author hypothesizes links between CO₂/O₂ tolerance, cancer resistance, and longevity
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 .p125 [[ | ]]
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 .p125 reproductive adulthood 16 years, 12 years between clutches of 35 eggs, survive a year without food.
 .p126 70 year lifetimes in zoos, models suggest 102 years possible
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 .p129 plant-eating [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanosauria | titanosaurs ]], 50-100 tons, 30 meters length
 .p129 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium | Paraceratherium ]] probably largest mammal, 15 tonnes
 .p130 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeoloxodon_namadicus | Palaeoloxodon namadicus ]] largest elephant, 4x larger than modern elephants, extinct for more than 25,000 years
 .p130 Three species of elephant; Asian, African savanna, African forest (recognized separate from savanna in 2021 )
 .p131 Indian emperor Chandagupta vs. Alexander? Citation Needed
 .p131 African elephants have two trunk-tip "fingers" that can grasp like a mittened hand. Asian elephants only one
 .p132 tusks also tools, one tusk favored like human "handedness"
  . or is that actually favored eye? the right eye can only see 35 degrees to the left, and vice versa, but it can see 160 degrees backwards.
 .p132 African females have tusks, Asian females do not
 .p132 ivory can be carved without splintering, but not without hunting elephants to population collapse
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 .'''p147 ch10 Big Brains (Nonhuman Primates)'''
 .p133 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Hyatt | John Wesley Hyatt ]] Celluloid = hardened [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose | nitrocellulose ]] 1869
 .p133 [[ https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1321543111 | Elephants can distinguish hunting tribes by voice ]]
 .p134 Elephant females fertile for 3-6 days every 3-9 years
 .p134 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musth | musth ]] 60x-140x testosterone increase, aggressiveness
 .p135 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_Zoo_and_Botanical_Garden#Famous_animals | Tusko ]] elephant 1962, injected with 300 mg LSD (human recreational dose 300μg), died
 .p141 African elephant bulls grow, increasing dominance and musth, reproductive peak 50 yo
 .p141 male life expectancy at birth 37 y, 30% survive past 50 yo, none past 65 yo
 .p142 skewed downwards by infant mortality
 .p144 elephants grow through six sets of teeth, four sets lost by adulthood. Tooth wear may limit lifespan.
 .p144 largest mammalian genome is the [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_viscacha_rat | red vizcacha ]] rodent of Argentina, three times human size
 .p145 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P53 | TP53 ]] cellular tumor antigen
 .p145 more than half of all human cancers have mutated TP53; we have one copy from each parent, Asian elephants have 13 to 18 copies
 .p146 Whales do '''not''' have extra copies of TP53

.'''p147 ch10 Big Brains (Nonhuman Primates)'''
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 '''III. LONGEVITY IN THE SEA''' '''III. LONGEVITY IN THE SEA'''
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 .p198 .http://wiki.keithl.com/StevenAustad
== Steven Austad Books ==
 .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_N._Austad
 .https://www.uab.edu/cas/biology/people/faculty/steven-n-austad
 .https://www.stevenaustad.com/
 .The University of Alabama at Birmingham
 . College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology
-----
== Methuselah's Zoo ==
=== what nature can teach us about living longer, healthier lives ===
 . 2022 Beaverton Lib 571.879 AUS
-----
 .'''Preface'''
 .pxii [[ https://jp.senescence.info/ | Joáo Pedro de Magalháes ]] maintains website [[ https://genomics.senescense.info/species | AnAge ]]

 .'''p001 ch01 Doctor Dunnet's Fulmar'''
 .p005 Cancer death rate doubles every 8 years, 300x more likely at age 85 than age 25
  . ln(300)/ln(2) = 8.23 doublings, 60 y / 8.23 = 7.23 years per doubling
  ... with a survivor bias
 .p011 metabolism, growth, reproduction, aging, physiology faster in small animals
 .p012 note 5 [[ https://academic.oup.com/ilarjournal/article-pdf/52/1/78/6763947/ilar-52-78.pdf | Longevity Quotient paper 1991 ]]
 .p013 [[ | ]]
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'''I. LONGEVITY IN THE AIR'''
 .'''p019 ch02 The Origin of Flight'''
 .p020 [[ | ]]
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 .'''p031 ch03 Pterosaurs: The First Flying Vertibrates'''
 .p039 [[ | ]]

 .'''p041 ch04 Birds: The Longest-Lived Dinosaurs'''
 .p041 [[ | ]]
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 .'''p059 ch05 Bats: The Longest-Lived Mammals'''
 .p059 [[ | ]]
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 .p076 n9 [[ https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_3326925_6/component/file_3356153/content | Large‐scale genome sampling reveals unique immunity and metabolic adaptations in bats ]] 2011

'''II. LONGEVITY ON THE EARTH'''
 .'''p081 ch06 Tortoises and Tuataras: Longevity on Islands'''
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 .'''p101 ch07 Queen for a Lifetime'''
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 .p111 "Biology is complicated. If it were simple, it would be physics"
 .p112 [[ | ]]

 .'''p113 ch08 Tunnels and Caves'''
 .p113 [[ | ]]
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 .p119 n6 [[ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3743245/pdf/nihms246501.pdf | Resistance to experimental tumorigenesis in cells of a long‐lived mammal, the naked mole‐rat (Heterocephalus glaber) ]] 2010
 .p120 [[ | ]]
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 .p123 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olm
 .p123 [[ | ]]
 .p123 [[ | ]]
 .p124 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olm | olm ]] blind white cave salamander 70 to 102 years
 .p125 [[ | ]]
 .p126 [[ | ]]

 .'''p129 ch09 The Behmoths (Elephants)'''
 .p129 [[ | ]]
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 .p133 [[ https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1321543111 | Elephants can distinguish hunting/non-hunting tribes by speech PNAS 2014 ]]
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 .'''p147 ch10 Big Brains (Nonhuman Primates)'''
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 '''III. LONGEVITY IN THE SEA'''
 .'''p177 ch11 Urchins, Worms, and Quahogs'''
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 '''IV. HUMAN LONGEVITY''' '''IV. HUMAN LONGEVITY'''
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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---- ------------------
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 . 1999 Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body's Journey Through Life----


 .'''p199 ch12 Fishes and Sharks'''
 .p199
 .p205
 .p206
 .p206
 .p209
 .p210
 .p210
 .p211
 .p215

 .'''p219 ch13 Whales Tales'''
 .p219
 .p221
 .p227
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 .p228
 .p238
 .p238
 .p240
 .p241
 .p241

 '''IV. HUMAN LONGEVITY'''
 .'''p245 ch14 The Human Longevity Story'''
 .p249
 .p250
 .p252
 .p255

 .'''p269 ch15 Methuselah's Zoo Moving Forward'''
 .p272 one in ten cancer therapies effective in mice also effective in humans
 .p272 colleague won Nobel for the only part of his research rejected by a government review group
 .p273 whale cells in lab
 .p273 2012 Nobel Shina Yamanaka transformed skin/liver/blood/other cells into stem cells
 .p273 we can grow replacement human parts from our own cells
 .p274 treat aging itself as a disease
 .p275 [[ https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/geroscience-intersection-basic-aging-biology-chronic-disease-and-health | geroscience ]]

----
 . '''How many atoms in human body?'''
  . Total Earth biomass 550 GT carbon 5.5 x 1e2 x 1e9 x 1e6 (tonnes per gram) = 5.5e17 grams
  . carbon is 12 amu and 12% of the atoms in human body
  . Avogadro's number 6e23, hence one gram of human carbon is 5e22 atoms
  . Associated with (100/12)*5e22 ≈ 4e21 total atoms per gram of human carbon
  . Fermi estimate: Total Earth biomass 5.5e17 * 4e21 atoms = 2e39 biomass atoms ''if humans representative''
  . There are 1e22 to 1e24 stars in the universe
  . Thousands of asteroids and trillions of comets and icy bodies orbit the Sun
  . Perhaps 3e12 comets per star times 1e24 stars is 6e36 icy bodies in the universe, not counting unbound bodies
  . that's a LOT of physics
  . Both biology and physics are complicated ... or simple, if one is a simpleton
----

-----
== To Err Is Human, To Admit It Is Not and Other Essays ==
 . 2022

-----
== Real People Don't Own Monkeys ==
 . 2022
-----
== Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body's Journey Through Life ==
 . 1999 Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body's Journey Through Life----
 . 1999

Steven Austad Books


Methuselah's Zoo

what nature can teach us about living longer, healthier lives

  • 2022 Beaverton Lib 571.879 AUS


  • Preface

  • pxii Joáo Pedro de Magalháes maintains website AnAge

  • p001 ch01 Doctor Dunnet's Fulmar

  • p005 Cancer death rate doubles every 8 years, 300x more likely at age 85 than age 25
    • ln(300)/ln(2) = 8.23 doublings, 60 y / 8.23 = 7.23 years per doubling
    • .. with a survivor bias
  • p011 metabolism, growth, reproduction, aging, physiology faster in small animals
  • p012 note 5 Longevity Quotient paper 1991

  • p013 farm servant Thomas Parr claimed to be 152 yo in 1635

    • Harvey's autopsy suggested less than 70 yo

  • p013 Austad's 1997 book Why We Age PSI $6.39ppb $6.81hard Amazon

  • p014 naturalist Stanley Flower supposed 157 yo elephant changed from African to Asian elephant ... or sloppy records

I. LONGEVITY IN THE AIR

  • p019 ch02 The Origin of Flight

  • p020 2.5 meter Arthropleura millipede 300 mya

  • p021 [ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane | J.B.S. Haldane ]] You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat would probably be killed, though it can fall safely from the eleventh story of a building, a man is broken, a horse splashes.

  • p023 sprinting up stairs 7x to 14x more energy expensive than sitting reading
  • p023 insect flight 100 beats per second, 50 to 150x more energy expensive than rest
  • p024 oxygen radicals accompany energy delivery
  • p025 juvenile mayfly nymphs molt in streams for years, minutes to days as a reproductive adult

  • p026 Cicada nymphs as much as 17 years feeding on root sap underground, synchronized mass emergence for weeks

  • p027 no insect species with documented adults living longer than 1 year in the wild
  • p028 Monarch Butterfly many generations per year, flying to southern Mexico in autumn, north in spring. The southern phase lasts as long as 8 months, migration and summer phases weeks

  • p029 insect flight wings fragile, covered by hard elytron/elytra when not flying

  • p031 ch03 Pterosaurs: The First Flying Vertebrates

  • p039 Pterodaustro Guinazui pterodactyl hundreds of fine teeth, probably filter-fed like a baleen whale

  • p041 ch04 Birds: The Longest-Lived Dinosaurs

  • p041 bar-tailed godwit flies nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand in nine days and nights

  • p042 wild house sparrows live at least 19 years, 3 years in captivity

  • p043 Archaeopteryx not a bird, no keeled breastbone. Probably extra boost for hops, like "flying" squirell

  • p044 true bird evolved before 66 mya, a few survived Chicxulub impact
  • p045 Fig 4.1 an 81yo Major Mitchell's cockatoo, the world's longest lived bird at Chicago's Brookfield zoo

  • p049 Albatrosses mate for life, 1 egg most years

  • p050 Albatross named "Wisdom" more than 70 years old
  • p051 current mate "Akeakamai", Hawaiian for "lover of wisdom"
  • p051 LQ (life quotient) of 5.2, 5.2 times longer than average same-size zoo mammal
  • p052 Manx Shearwater at least 55 years, LQ of 6, migrates annually from North Atlantic to Brazil or Argentina

  • p053 Turkey breast meat (flight muscle) adapted for energy bursts, "drumsticks" dark with myoglobin for running endurance
  • p054 ruby-throated hummingbird 40℃ 104℉ endothermic, 80 wingbeats per second

  • p055 twice fly 600 miles nonstop migrating across Caribbean, live more than 9 years
  • p055 broad-tailed hummingbird at least 12 years

  • p056 birds make fewer free radicals than mammals, can withstand more free radical damage
  • p057 Medical researchers study short-lived animals, author desires much longer studies
    • so we can live longer, so researchers have time for longer studies :-)

  • p059 ch05 Bats: The Longest-Lived Mammals

  • p059 Donald R. Griffin taught with Austad

    • found bat older than the grad student taking notes
  • p060 Major Mitchell's cockatoo

  • p061 bat genome: closest living mammalian relatives are horses
  • p062 bats can echolocate and avoid a piano wire (of course, it is a resonator)
  • p062 bats harbor more than 800 coronavirus species that have not become a problem ... yet.
  • p063 little brown bat longevity quotient ≥ 7.5

  • p064 vampire bats also die of rabies, few have it

  • p066 mice - six pups in 3 weeks, most bats one pup in 3 to 6 months, vampire bats seven months
  • p067 vampire bat longevity quotient 5.5
  • p071 Indian flying fox LQ 4.1
  • p072 6 gram Brandt bat 41 years, LQ 10.0
  • p074 hibernating bears reduce metabolism to 20% of normal
  • p075 Older people can lose 16% of lower body strength after ten days of bed rest, 30 days for younger people
  • p076 n9 Large‐scale genome sampling reveals unique immunity and metabolic adaptations in bats 2011

II. LONGEVITY ON THE EARTH

  • p081 ch06 Tortoises and Tuataras: Longevity on Islands

  • p082 shell and a beak = turtle, tortoise = slow moving terrestrial turtle
  • p083 Loihi seamount 3200 feet deep SE of Hawai'i island, could emerge 10k to 100k years from now

  • p084 Birds and insects evolve to flightless on windy islands
  • p084 Komodo dragon largest lizard, eats goats and attack humans

  • p085 Homo floriensis 1Mya to 50Kya, 105cm, 25kg (BMI 22.7)

  • p086 warmer buried turtle eggs more females, cooler males
  • p091 - p093 doubtful tortoise longevity stories
  • p094 Tuataras

  • p095 juvenile third eye on top of head, covered with scales later
  • p095 low temperature -> female, high temperature -> male . . / 500g females, 1000g males

  • p096 estimated age >110yo , longevity quotient 10.3

  • p097 heart rate 6BPM
  • p098 we may learn to reduce molecular damage and extend human life

.p101 ch07 Queen for a Lifetime

  • p103 ants churn and turn soil, fertilize it with material brought into their burrows
  • p103 DDT against SE U.S. fire ants damaged pets and wildlife, motivated Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring

  • p103 ant larvae grow and molt four times, make cocoons, emerge adults
  • p103 no molt as adults, very limited body repair
  • p104 winged female nuptual flight with males, stores sperm.

  • p104 land, dig nest, lays many generations of eggs.
  • p104 Females develop from fertilized eggs and stored sperm, males from unfertilized eggs
  • p105 Sisters share 3/4 of genes, 50% from mother and 25% with brothers
  • p105 Closer relatives with sisters than parents eusociality fosters complex societies

  • p105 termite detrivory, "premier recyclers"

  • p104 termite nuptial flight bonds partners, mate after landing and making nest
  • p104 termite nymphs have legs, grow and molt into adults

  • p104 termite XY genetics resemble mammals
  • p107 oldest verified termite queen 21 years or more in laboratory
  • p107 29 year old ant queen, H Kutter, R Stumper 1969 (entomology)
  • p108 Ant and termite queens produce 1 egg per minute for decades, high energy needs
  • p109 queens and nest-bound drones long lived
  • no cancer ... no need to repair damage, so no cell reproduction system to go haywire
  • p109 Florida State Walter Tschinkel fire ants

  • p111 Royal Jelly

  • p111 "Biology is complicated. If it were simple, it would be physics"
  • p112 ILP-2 resembles human insulin

  • p113 ch08 Tunnels and Caves

  • p114 Naked Mole Rats not moles or rats.

    • p115 eusocial mammals, rare in vertebrates
  • p115 tunnels to large tubers, partly eaten and allowed to regenerate
  • p115 nest chamber as much as two meters underground
  • p116 Rochelle Buffenstein Aging studies in naked mole-rats

  • p117 Human mortality rate doubles every eight years over 40; in mice, every three months
  • p117 Naked Mole Rats don't appear to get cancer
  • p118 proto-oncogenes tumor-suppressor genes

  • p119 naked mole-rats have more oxygen radical damage than mice
  • p119 n6 Resistance to experimental tumorigenesis in cells of a long‐lived mammal, the naked mole‐rat (Heterocephalus glaber) 2010

  • p120 Spalax unrelated to naked mole rats, similar behavior and niche

    • p121 no naturally occuring cancer, Spalax cells die if slightly injured

  • p122 Large bat colonies roosting deep in caves produce toxic amounts of ammonia
  • p122 if oxygen drops below 19% or CO₂ rises above 0.6%, drowsiness, headaches, fuzzy thinking
  • p122 ISS standards 3x worse than submarines
  • p123 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olm

  • p123 Mole rat burrows can be 6% oxygen and 10% CO₂
  • p123 they can survive 3% oxygen and 80% CO₂
  • p123 author hypothesizes links between CO₂/O₂ tolerance, cancer resistance, and longevity
  • p124 olm blind white cave salamander 70 to 102 years

  • p125 reproductive adulthood 16 years, 12 years between clutches of 35 eggs, survive a year without food.
  • p126 70 year lifetimes in zoos, models suggest 102 years possible
  • p129 ch09 The Behmoths (Elephants)

  • p129 plant-eating titanosaurs, 50-100 tons, 30 meters length

  • p129 Paraceratherium probably largest mammal, 15 tonnes

  • p130 Palaeoloxodon namadicus largest elephant, 4x larger than modern elephants, extinct for more than 25,000 years

  • p130 Three species of elephant; Asian, African savanna, African forest (recognized separate from savanna in 2021 )
  • p131 Indian emperor Chandagupta vs. Alexander? Citation Needed
  • p131 African elephants have two trunk-tip "fingers" that can grasp like a mittened hand. Asian elephants only one
  • p132 tusks also tools, one tusk favored like human "handedness"
    • or is that actually favored eye? the right eye can only see 35 degrees to the left, and vice versa, but it can see 160 degrees backwards.
  • p132 African females have tusks, Asian females do not
  • p132 ivory can be carved without splintering, but not without hunting elephants to population collapse
  • p133 Elephants can distinguish hunting/non-hunting tribes by speech PNAS 2014

  • p133 John Wesley Hyatt Celluloid = hardened nitrocellulose 1869

  • p133 Elephants can distinguish hunting tribes by voice

  • p134 Elephant females fertile for 3-6 days every 3-9 years
  • p134 musth 60x-140x testosterone increase, aggressiveness

  • p135 Tusko elephant 1962, injected with 300 mg LSD (human recreational dose 300μg), died

  • p141 African elephant bulls grow, increasing dominance and musth, reproductive peak 50 yo
  • p141 male life expectancy at birth 37 y, 30% survive past 50 yo, none past 65 yo
  • p142 skewed downwards by infant mortality
  • p144 elephants grow through six sets of teeth, four sets lost by adulthood. Tooth wear may limit lifespan.
  • p144 largest mammalian genome is the red vizcacha rodent of Argentina, three times human size

  • p145 TP53 cellular tumor antigen

  • p145 more than half of all human cancers have mutated TP53; we have one copy from each parent, Asian elephants have 13 to 18 copies
  • p146 Whales do not have extra copies of TP53

.p147 ch10 Big Brains (Nonhuman Primates)

  • p149

  • p149

  • p150

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III. LONGEVITY IN THE SEA

  • p177 ch11 Urchins, Worms, and Quahogs

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  • p199 ch12 Fishes and Sharks

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  • p219 ch13 Whales Tales

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IV. HUMAN LONGEVITY

  • p245 ch14 The Human Longevity Story

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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  • p269 ch15 Methuselah's Zoo Moving Forward

  • p272 one in ten cancer therapies effective in mice also effective in humans
  • p272 colleague won Nobel for the only part of his research rejected by a government review group
  • p273 whale cells in lab
  • p273 2012 Nobel Shina Yamanaka transformed skin/liver/blood/other cells into stem cells
  • p273 we can grow replacement human parts from our own cells
  • p274 treat aging itself as a disease
  • p275 geroscience


  • How many atoms in human body?

    • Total Earth biomass 550 GT carbon 5.5 x 1e2 x 1e9 x 1e6 (tonnes per gram) = 5.5e17 grams
    • carbon is 12 amu and 12% of the atoms in human body
    • Avogadro's number 6e23, hence one gram of human carbon is 5e22 atoms
    • Associated with (100/12)*5e22 ≈ 4e21 total atoms per gram of human carbon
    • Fermi estimate: Total Earth biomass 5.5e17 * 4e21 atoms = 2e39 biomass atoms if humans representative

    • There are 1e22 to 1e24 stars in the universe
    • Thousands of asteroids and trillions of comets and icy bodies orbit the Sun
    • Perhaps 3e12 comets per star times 1e24 stars is 6e36 icy bodies in the universe, not counting unbound bodies
    • that's a LOT of physics
    • Both biology and physics are complicated ... or simple, if one is a simpleton



To Err Is Human, To Admit It Is Not and Other Essays

  • 2022


Real People Don't Own Monkeys

  • 2022


Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body's Journey Through Life

  • 1999

StevenAustad (last edited 2026-02-10 08:44:42 by KeithLofstrom)