John Scalzi: At first I thought this was referring to Polaris' tenure as the North Star, since the Earth's axial precession means what is the "north star" changes over time, but NOPE, the star itself is estimated to be 70 million years old, and sharks have been around for 450 million years. Mind blown.

At first I thought this was referring to Polaris' tenure as the North Star, since the Earth's axial precession means what is the "north star" changes over time, but NOPE, the star itself is estimated to be 70 million years old, and sharks have been around for 450 million years. Mind blown.

Reminder to new users here: Cladistically, there is no such thing as a fish or a tree. Also, sharks have existed longer than Polaris, the North Star has.

Which reminds me that Bluesky has a pretty great science feed: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Science

Feed by @bossett.social

Is it supposed to be empty by default, am I missing something?

And the Appalachian Mountain Range clocks in at 480 million years old. The Appalachians are older than BONES.

SCIENCE IS WEIRD AND AWESOME

The Appalachians are too!

Older than the rings of Saturn

@scalzi.com So you know how John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" has a line that in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are part of the Appalachians, "life is old there, older than the trees"? Those mountains are older than all the trees. www.science.org/content/arti...

And it’s also one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Taffy Nivert is a distant cousin and she and Bill were headed to a family reunion when she got her inspiration. Bill drew from western Massachusetts.

And was once part of the same range as the Scottish Highlands and the Scandes Mountains.

Have you ever seen (pictures, at least) the Iapetus Suture?

The odd map here and there.

That it exists, on the surface, accessible and visible, still blows my mind. 😁 upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... [Not me!]

Whoa.

So old they're barely mountains anymore, worn down nubs.

Alas, the Appalachian Mountains we have now are just the worn down nubbins of their former glory. Must have been amazing. If you want to see a new mountain, Tahoma (aka Mt. Rainier), near Seattle, is so young you can measure its age in 1000s of years, 500,000 years. Much younger than sharks.

I grew up close enough to Tahoma I rode my bike to the Park border once via logging roads.

Some days, though, it feels like my bones are 500 million years old.

First couple steps of the morning, and after twisting myself into a pretzel doing DIY around the house!

Yeah, but isn't it mostly *populated* by people who believe it's only a few thousand years old?

I have tentative plans to visit the Appalachians next year. No, not Pennsyltucky. Norway!

I mean, yeah, David Boreanas is only in his, like, fifties, right?

Aren't they still rising, because the weight of the glaciers is no longer weighing them down?

Life is young there, younger than the hillls

In NC we also have the Uwharries. Even more old and nubby. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwharri...

Life is old there, older than the trees

The pre-Cambrian Porongurup Range shakes its stick at them. From a long way down admittedly but we all get shorter as we get older.

I wrote a song about this!

It's also the closest Cephid variable and a trinary star system

And if I'm correctly remembering/understanding a recent SciShow vid on the subject, the variable, Polaris Aa, is thought to be much younger than Polaris B, and that it's weird? Based on my vague understanding of system formation, I'd expect stars in a *-nary system to be very close in age.

Oh hey I didn't know that! Interesting. There are details here, and I'll have to dig into this. www.eso.org/public/blog/....

ESOblog: Probing Polaris ESO Fellow Richard I. Anderson sheds light on the famous North Starwww.eso.org Probing Polaris

Such a cool system!

It was about to become a non-Cepheid, then came back to its senses.😏

The shark facts people have been on it in the last 24h. I liked the one about Greenland sharks that can live over 400 years and eat polar bears.

I mean, I could eat a polar bear. I would skip the liver, though. It can kill you with vitamin A poisoning.

That's a big burrito

Just had eight cold sausages.......

I love that you know that, John.

Polar bear would be a relatively normal burrito ingredient, all things considered.

I love that you keep the same factoid in your head that's been hanging out rent-free in mine since I was 10!

I don't eat any kind of liver, can you explain more, please?

Something something fava beans something something nice Chianti.

Liver attracts gourmet cannibals?

All I know is that the polar bear liver contains a quantity of Vitamin A so high it would kill you!

I wonder wether anyone ever made a Tortilla big enough for an ice bear.

My mom was incapable of cooking for less than an army, so at some point she probably rolled out enough tortillas for that. 🙂

Hooray for yyou Mom and her IceBear Burrito !

And , yes, cooking in small quantities is a big mystery!

Skill issue

Small bites, John.

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