{"id":18979,"date":"2024-12-27T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18979"},"modified":"2024-12-27T10:25:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T10:25:42","slug":"a-century-of-human-detritus-visualized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18979","title":{"rendered":"A Century of Human Detritus, Visualized"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTechnostuff\u201d built in the last 100 years outweighs all the living matter on Earth.<\/p>\n

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Call us Homo slobbus.<\/p>\n

It took roughly four billion years for the first living bit of protoplasm, bred perhaps in an undersea volcanic vent or a warm pond, to grow and evolve into the 1.1 trillion tons of biomass that inhabit Earth today. But all of that is outweighed by the plastic, concrete and other material that humans have produced in the last century alone in the form of everything from roads and skyscrapers to cars, cellphones, paper towels and bobblehead dolls.<\/p>\n

That was the takeaway of a meticulous global inventory of stuff<\/a>, natural and unnatural, compiled in 2018 by Yinon M. Bar-On, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, and his colleagues. They synthesized data from a vast number of scientific studies, from large global measurements to rough guesstimates. One figure widely quoted by pest control companies: There are 1,000 pounds of termites for every human on Earth. If you like big numbers, the 2018 report is delicious reading.<\/p>\n

Recently, Brice M\u00e9nard, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and Nikita Shtarkman, a computer scientist and graphic artist, visualized Dr. Bar-On\u2019s research<\/a>. The two had previously collaborated on an online map of the universe<\/a>, which has been viewed more than a million times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Brice M\u00e9nard and Nikita Starkman<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Their new visualization represents various kinds of living matter and \u201ctechnostuff\u201d in the form of cubes, with sizes proportional to their total weight on Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the portrait of our planet,\u201d Dr. M\u00e9nard wrote in an email. \u201cI thought everyone should know about it. I decided to create a powerful visualization so everyone can see this with their own eyes and better appreciate what has happened during our own lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cTechnostuff\u201d built in the last 100 years outweighs all the living matter on Earth.Call us Homo slobbus.It took roughly four billion years for the first living bit of protoplasm, bred perhaps in an undersea volcanic vent or a warm pond, to grow and evolve into the 1.1 trillion tons of biomass that inhabit Earth today. But all of that is outweighed by the plastic, concrete and other material that humans have produced in the last century alone in the form of everything from roads and skyscrapers to cars, cellphones, paper towels and bobblehead dolls.That was the takeaway of a meticulous global inventory of stuff, natural and unnatural, compiled in 2018 by Yinon M. Bar-On, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, and his colleagues. They synthesized data from a vast number of scientific studies, from large global measurements to rough guesstimates. One figure widely quoted by pest control companies: There are 1,000 pounds of termites for every human on Earth. If you like big numbers, the 2018 report is delicious reading.Recently, Brice M\u00e9nard, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and Nikita Shtarkman, a computer scientist and graphic artist, visualized Dr. Bar-On\u2019s research. The two had previously collaborated on an online map of the universe, which has been viewed more than a million times.Brice M\u00e9nard and Nikita StarkmanTheir new visualization represents various kinds of living matter and \u201ctechnostuff\u201d in the form of cubes, with sizes proportional to their total weight on Earth.\u201cThis is the portrait of our planet,\u201d Dr. M\u00e9nard wrote in an email. \u201cI thought everyone should know about it. I decided to create a powerful visualization so everyone can see this with their own eyes and better appreciate what has happened during our own lifetime.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18981,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18982,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979\/revisions\/18982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}