Fluke

This is a cool point. I've never thought about that before. It's a very stable environment allowing for efficiency to be selected for in ways that may decrease adaptability.

Yeah. Countless examples going both directions. I wouldn't call crocodilians super adaptable, but they are so well tuned for their specific environs that they've been largely unchanged for 94 MILLION years.

I would argue that being warm blooded makes an animal more adaptable. Interestingly, it seems cold blooded reptiles evolved into warm blooded archosaurs which eventually led to cold blooded crocodilians. Tellingly, these active warm blooded ancestors are all extinct in favor of the passive, cold blooded, low adaptability ambush predator.

In the opposite direction, the adaptable rat has done much better than the countless specialized species that have disappeared since the industrial revolution and human explosion.

They get eaten

I hadn't heard anything about this. Thanks for posting!

I saw a gray area where I live and wondered if somehow our pollution was low. Turns out that was just clouds. Different picture entirely when they moved.

Edit: changed great typo to gray

The perfect comment doesn't exi....

I'll try to list things that aren't in the typical internet echo chamber. Bring on the controversy. These are just my opinions.

50% of the shelf space at the grocery store is just different forms of corn syrup, sometimes with some trans fat mixed in, generationally twisting our idea of what food is in a race to the cheapest, most addictive product.

The only way it's profitable for someone to knock on your door to sell ANYTHING is if they are obscenely inflating the price (think 100-600% markup)

Most supplements, especially expensive ones with TV ads

Dr Scholl's and the goodfeet store

Genuine leather is just about the opposite of what you'd think

Bamboo fabric which is pretty much just a different way to say rayon but is pitched as a revolutionary and environmentally friendly cloth

Most bladeless fans just hide fan blades in the base

Many cleaning products don't do better than diluted soap and water (even for sanitizing) especially the ones with TV ads

Financial planners who are actually financial product salespeople

Most single-purpose kitchen gadgets, especially as-seen-on-TV

The realtors racket: I just paid $30k for an internet posting and mediocre advice

Many personal hygiene products are just repackaging the same two or three active ingredients by the same one or two megacorporations

Essential oils (even ignoring mystical claims) big names charge an order of magnitude higher than they should

I thought your comment was a humorous perspective with maybe some small truth to it. I guess all the down votes say I'm in the minority.

The World Health Organization said it was safe up to a certain level. The people in the WHO who said that work for Coca-Cola.

This means we can't rely on the recommendation, and the actual "safe" amount may be much lower than that. The article goes into good depth and gives counterarguments too.

It is important to note that in reality there is no safe amount for a carcinogen. Sometimes a threshold is set to reduce risk to a reasonable amount in necessary workplace exposure or medical treatments.

The truth is, I think we'll all eventually realize any sweetener should be seen as candy, not a thirst quencher.

Will this global push end up limiting miniaturization of electronics? Even if it does, may still be a worthwhile tradeoff.