A meditation by the revenue stream

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I recently read Bill Bryson's, 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'.  He's got a great perspective on humanity and our scientific understanding of the universe we inhabit.  Even things you all ready know, he presents in a fresh way or embellishes with interesting anecdotes or trivia to illustrate his points, and that makes the book a very enjoyable read.  There aren't many science books that I can think of that made me laugh out loud, let alone more times than I can recall.  About halfway through the book, I started keeping notes of some of my favorite facts, quotations, and anecdotes.  Here are some of those that I found particularly interesting or amusing.

1.  80% of US casualties in WWI were due to the Spanish or swine flu epidemic of 1918.

2.  The biomass of microbes in the world exceeds that of all other flora and fauna, and would coat the surface of the planet to a depth of 5-6 feet if it were piled up.

3.  Many viruses have 10 or fewer genes.  The simplest bacteria have several thousand.

4.  In 1918, out of 300 volunteers for flu research selected from the inmates at Deer Isle Military Prison, 62 volunteers:
          a.  Were injected with infected lung tissue from the recently dead.
          b.  sprayed with infectious aerosols in their eyes, noses, and throats.
          c.  Had their throats swabbed with discharges from the sick and dying.
          d.  Had to sit open-mouthed while a gravely ill flu victim was encouraged to cough in their faces.

          The only fatality in the study was the ward doctor who oversaw the experiments.

5.  Less than one in 10,000 species has made it into the fossil record.

6.  Trilobites, (Ordovician Era), were a successful species for 300 million years.  Dinosaurs, (Permian Era), were extant for about 150 million years.  Homo sapiens has been a biologically successful species for around 50,000 years.    

7.  If your pillow is 6 years old, it is estimated that 1/10 of its' weight is made up of sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites, and mite dung.   

8.  If you go out to the woods, (any woods), and scoop up a handful of soil.  You will be holding up to 10 billion bacteria, most of them unknown to science.  You'll also be holding up to 1 million yeasts, 200,000 molds, perhaps 10,000 protozoans, and assorted rotifers, roundworms, and other small creatures collectively known as cryptozoa.

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