Orts #923

The Earth is thought to be about 4.5 billion years old. Imagine that span compressed into a single year.
Life appears surprisingly early, on February 25^th, but it’s July 15^th before multi-cellular creatures appear.
Fish appear on November 20^th, and land plants on the 22^nd.
Mammals, birds and flowers arrive in December, on the 13^th, 18^th and 20th, respectively.
The dinosaurs go extinct on Christmas day.
Our species, homo sapiens so-called, arrives on New Years Eve, at 11:36 PM.
    https://biomimicry.net/earths-calendar-year-4-5-billion-years-compressed-into-12-months/

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The average wealth of the poorer half of American households has dropped below zero in the years since the financial crisis, according to the World Inequality Database. [ https://wid.world/country/usa/ ]  What does that mean? It means that fully half of Americans hold more combined debt than assets.
     -- David Leonhardt, in a NYT Op-Ed, April 3, 2019    https://nyti.ms/2Uzr79B
 

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-  the complicated role of clouds in controlling Earth’s climate -

"If the planet’s patchy white veil of clouds descended to the ground, it would make a watery sheen no thicker than a hair."
     -- Natalie Wolchover, A World Without Clouds, Quanta Magazine, February 25, 2019

https://bit.ly/2tK1js3