I actually fact checked this and it’s true.

  • aelwero@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    100
    ·
    7 months ago

    And they’re gonna go away because some wingnut convinced a bunch of people that their fins cause boners.

  • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    95
    ·
    7 months ago

    And then you add the fact that sharks have barely evolved because they’ve been the perfect silent killer since the dawn of time.

    Another fun fact:
    Sharks don’t make sound. They don’t have any organ for the purpose of making sound. That is creepy as all hell.

    • Hamartia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      54
      ·
      7 months ago

      That can’t be true. I distinctly remember the shark in Jaws: The Revenge roaring. So get your facts straight.

    • Gladaed@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      7 months ago

      Just because they didn’t change their appearance doesnt mean they did not evolve. It is somewhat misleading to say that, but conveys a point I guess.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        7 months ago

        More relevantly, the fossil records for sharks are mostly their teeth and jaws, because all their other bones are cartilage and rarely fossilize.

        “Sharks haven’t significantly evolved in appearance in 350 million years” is therefore based on reconstructions made under the assumption that the old sharks mostly looked like current sharks, which may or may not be true.

        Though we can get a surprising amount of information that way, for example one change is that their jaws used be more at the end of their snout instead of more underslung like today, like so:

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-technologies-reveal-strange-jaws-prehistoric-sharks-180977396

        You’ll note the Goblin Shark still has hints of that design.

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        7 months ago

        I made sure to say barely instead of not at all, but you’re right, there was certainly some evolution happening

      • Victoria@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        7 months ago

        Yes, actually. Example: Triglidae

        They are bottom-dwelling fish, living down to 200 m (660 ft), although they can be found in much shallower water. Most species are around 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in) in length. They have an unusually solid skull, and many species also possess armored plates on their bodies. Another distinctive feature is the presence of a “drumming muscle” that makes sounds by beating against the swim bladder

    • hallettj@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      7 months ago

      Wow, this is one of the most complicated Snopes analyses I’ve seen. But it seems like the statement is accurate with caveats. If the brightest component of Polaris is probably 50 million years old what was there before wasn’t really Polaris. And then it doesn’t make a difference whether sharks have been around for 450 million or 195 million years.

  • sosodev@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    People forget that life on earth has been around for an extremely long time. We believe that single cellular life first appeared around 3.5 billion years ago. We also believe that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old. That means life has been around and evolving for around 25% of the time the universe has existed. Life operates on a scale far beyond our comprehension.

    Another fun fact about life. We think that multicellular life only appeared around 600 million to 1.2 billion years ago. So life was probably single cellular for billions of years. The complexity of life has rapidly increased since then and will continue to do so.

    Edit: new research suggests that complex multicellular life may have appeared around 2.4 billion years ago.

      • sosodev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Even if humans manage to kill off most life on Earth it will continue to exist, propagate, and become more complex. Again we’re talking about billions of years. There have been huge shifts in climate and mass extinctions many times before and yet here we are.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          7 months ago

          True, it would be difficult to completely turn Earth into a lifeless rock, but I think humans are up to the task.

          • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            There are plenty of things we can’t kill and, in fact, live on things we might use to kill them. Extremophiles that live in environments nothing else can. Bacteria that live off gamma radiation. We would have to dedicate ourselves to ridding all life on purpose to kill everything. We would have to live long enough to be the last things to kill if that was the goal.

          • HenryWong327@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            Eh I doubt it. Every single nuke ever built combined still doesn’t come close to the power of the Chicxulub asteroid (the one that killed the dinosaurs) and even that impact didn’t come close to eliminating all life on Earth. Unless someone accidentally compresses a mountain into an artifical black hole or something there probably is no way to wipe out all life on Earth.

            • Tvkan@feddit.de
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              7 months ago

              Mars was once habitable but lost it’s magnetic field, wiping it’s atmosphere. Venus was once habitable but taken over by a runaway greenhouse effect.

              I’m not saying they ever had life or that we’re going to suffer the same fate, but it’s definitely possible to wipe a planet clean.

              • HenryWong327@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                7 months ago

                75% of all species, not all life. Larger species and photosynthesizers were more heavily affected, while smaller species, scavengers, and deep sea life were less affected.

                And I’m not a biologist, but I’m pretty sure even 75% of all life, not species, still wouldn’t be close to completely ending life on Earth, cause in the end as long as some microbes survived around a hydrothermal vent somewhere total extinction would be avoided.

                • rojun@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  I still think that “lifeless rock” does not specify how lifeless - theoretically extinct or just lifeless enough to make human life either extinct or just miserable. I took it as the latter, and in that case even lesser cases than 75% of all species would suffice.

                  The first case, the theoretical and non-human focused pov is quite another thing. Like you said, there’s so many opportunities and adaptations for life to seap through the combs of doom :)

        • PorkRollWobbly@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          7 months ago

          Yeah I think most people don’t know or comprehend that there have already been like 5 mass extinctions in our planets lifespan. It’s going to take something like getting hit by 4 gamma ray bursts at the same time to completely wipe life off of planet earth.

          • 1847953620@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 months ago

            true, we’re just gonna be like a soft reset button, like a windows reinstall without formatting, where it just shoves everything into windows.old