Creative Science: Biology

• Chemistry
  

Quick FAQ:

What is Creative Science?  A small short story about a specific science topic, which includes bold keywords on the topic.  Usually the topic is vague, but contains nice general information on the subject.

Can I Suggest A Topic?  Sure.  Either leave a suggestion in the comment box, or contact me directly. 

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Where in the world…

There was fire, and heat, everywhere.  The whole world was a fiery red colour, spasms of molten flaming up everywhere, the once blue ocean looking like it had been sprayed with some kind of eternal food colouring.

            It’s incredible…

Of course he knew where he was.  He was exactly where he was supposed to be - at the beginning of the world.  He was in the Hadean Eon, the time period right after the moon broke off from the earth, the period where the first land masses formed, the period where everything – and he meant everything – originated from.

            How such a wonderful place could have begun with… this.

He looked around one more time, captivated by such a startling opening.  Then there was a flash and he was gone.

            The world was calmer here.  The deathly world that he had just seen had suddenly been erased, replaced – however – by something just as startling.  The world seemed very… blank.  There was no noise and he felt like if he all of sudden yelled at the top of his lungs that his voice would travel across the world and return right back to him.  The land was barren, the sky was a hazy yellow (he knew that atmosphere had barley formed at all), and not a single ounce of vegetation was found anywhere.  He was in the Archaeon Eon.

            And then he looked down.

            There, at his feet, was life.  It was barley visible, a spec in vast land of nothingness; but, all the same, it was there.  It existed.  He instantly knew what he was looking at.

            The Ediacaran Fauna…

            The oldest fossils that had been discovered, he knew, were from the Ediacaran Fauna, a small species that had become caught in the shale of this place.  He was witnessing the beginnings of true life.  It made his heart soar.

            Another flash.

            The Protozoic Eon

            He knew it before he even before he opened his eyes.  When he did open them it took his breath away.  He was at the heart of the Eon and, he suspected somewhere in the Mezosoic Era.

            Could this be…

            Life was everywhere.  Trees were everywhere.  The world was finally becoming… the world.   After seeing such barren and blank landscape to suddenly see such species diversity, and riches, was overwhelming.  Species we’re walking on the ground, climbing in the trees,  flying in the air… swimming in the ocean.  The message it was sending was crystal clear – he was witnessing the peak of the Cambrian Explosion.  He wondered if the principal of ecosystems, and communities worked here.  He wondered if one of these species was a Keystone Species; he wondered if each species had a fundamental and realized niche; he wondered if competition was occurring, or mutualism, or commensalism;  he wondered if any species had been forced extinct; he wondered…

            He didn’t think he could become anymore surprised, but when he opened his eyes this time – well – his wildest dream finally came true.  He saw the dinosaurs.

            Every kids dream…

            He looked around and got the feeling that he was looking a secure and stable environment, like every species here was comfortable and functioning and that – unless some great disturbance emerged – they would rule the world.  He looked around and could see every aspect of an ecosystem.  He could see an abundance of primary producers – countless forest, plants and vegetation.  And as he looked on he could see the primary consumers, the herbivores, eating the primary producers and turning it into biomass.  He watched as the mightiest carnivore of them all, a T-Rex, came and killed one of the herbivores, further continuing the chain of what was a Food chain.  He knew that the NPP had decreased a significant amount by the time it reached the T-Rex.  It was how ecosystems worked:  a continuing decrease of energy as the trophic level increased.  

            How the world got of rid of these creatures is so… cruel.

            He knew what was about to come, and – even though he could do nothing about it – it made him cringe.  He didn’t bother to look up to the sky to see it coming; instead he looked on a prosperous world, unaware of a coming doom.  And as he watched a small reptile clean a small dinosaur (Mutualism) a large asteroid, around 10 km wide, entered the atmosphere.  One sudden explosion and the dinosaurs were gone.

            He was home now… or back in his time period.  He was looking down at the world, from some hidden enclave in the sky.  And what he saw… what he saw was not some insurmountable beauty.  What he saw was chaos, disorder, and a big, big problem.  Pollution was everywhere, he knew.  Global warming was causing the temperature to rise, causing ecosystems to fluctuate, and causing NPP to decrease and increase, in some places.  The humans were, in a sense, competing with the rest of life.  Millions of species had become extinct since the beginning of the human race, and millions more were likely to fall.  A mass extinction was occurring right now, everywhere.

            And as he sat there, in the white clouds, he wondered what was worse.

            The natural destruction of the dinosaurs, or what we're doing now?