Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful

Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by butwhywhyoh on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:17AM (#29342532)

I'm thankful for oxygen because we can breathe it! And it can be found pretty much everywhere in the atmosphere of planet Earth. And I'm thankful for all the other elements that I'm composed of. They can even be used to do other miraculous things. Wonderful!

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by matheusmoreira on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:03PM (#29345387)

I'm thankful for mitochondria which allows us to use the oxygen to perform aerobic respiration, enabling more complex forms of life. It seems they were once bacteria which were somehow absorbed by eukaryote cells and turned into an organelle, an hydro-eletro-chemical power plant. Thanks bacteria!

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by amelius on Friday November 26, 2021 @11:48AM (#29351799)

Be careful with certain anti-bacterial drugs, they might affect your mitochondria.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by amelius on Thursday November 25, 2021 @12:08PM (#29342997)

Nestle is fighting over control of freshwater sources. I reckon oxygen is next.

In the future, be thankful with your wallet.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by lisper on Thursday November 25, 2021 @12:34PM (#29343232)

You don't have to wait. Oxygen bars are already a thing, and have been for quite a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by blowski on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:50PM (#29344862)

For a moment, I thought it was going to be an empty chocolate bar wrapper. I wonder how much better this actually is.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by pfdietz on Thursday November 25, 2021 @06:52PM (#29346182)

Nestle uses 0.003% of humanity's fresh water consumption, so I'm sure you're properly allocating your worry budget there.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by pfdietz on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:16AM (#29342521)

Yeast are not bacteria. They are eukaryotes.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by dgb23 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:39AM (#29342719)

I‘m thankful for nerds who make corrections so I can learn some interesting fact.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by victorcharlie on Thursday November 25, 2021 @12:03PM (#29342948)

Actually, yeasts are unicellular fungus. I believe that fungus are the most important life-form in this planet by far.

Pretty cool, huh? :)

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by HWR_14 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:23PM (#29344157)

Fungi, like plants and animals, are eukaryotes. However, eukaryotes and bacteria occupy the same rung in the taxonomic divisions (they are domains), so it's the more appropriate correction. The third domain is prokaryotes.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by riedel on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:16PM (#29344612)

My wikipedia fact checking tells me that the third domain is archaea which together with the bacteria are prokaryotes. Or did I read sth wrong?

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by HWR_14 on Saturday November 27, 2021 @05:26PM (#29364211)

Oh, sorry, you are correct. I remembered that archaea had gotten changes and misremembered them.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by bckr on Thursday November 25, 2021 @01:36PM (#29343744)

> unicellular fungus

Belongs under the Eurkaryote heading, no?

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by Trex_Egg on Thursday November 25, 2021 @01:47PM (#29343844)

yes

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by dgb23 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:42PM (#29344798)

That is pretty cool! Paul Stamets is worth mentioning here. One can find a ton of media presence, books and projects from him. Very interesting stuff!

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by noisy_boy on Thursday November 25, 2021 @08:43PM (#29346799)

For a second I thought you were referring to Stamets on Star Trek. Stamets, mycellium... tribute or coincidence?

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by thewakalix on Thursday November 25, 2021 @09:43PM (#29347050)

> Stamets is inspired by a real-life mycologist of the same name.[1]

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by noisy_boy on Friday November 26, 2021 @12:58AM (#29347837)

Thanks - just saw his wikipedia page - very interesting.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by dan_mctree on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:11PM (#29345438)

>I believe that fungus are the most important life-form in this planet by far.

Would love to hear more about this!

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by matheusmoreira on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:06PM (#29345407)

I'm thankful for wikipedia which has probably taught me more biology than my professors ever did. So many detailed articles, and it's actually fun to read them because they contain so many details that never seem to get mentioned in school. The abundance of links lead to a fun exploration of the subject and a massive respect for nature and its designs.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by CogitoCogito on Thursday November 25, 2021 @04:00PM (#29344946)

Well to be fair the poster was referring to starters for bread which contain natural populations of both yeast and bacteria. So really we should be thankful for both yeast and bacteria. :)

That said, just as the other poster I'm also thankful for pedants like yourself. This is a mistake I probably make myself all the time.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by sombremesa on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:14AM (#29342504)

Alcohol definitely does more good, just consider the uses it has aside from being ingested.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by cyberpunk on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:24PM (#29344688)

Also, consider how many flights went smoothly because of alcohol.. I mean, outing myself as British here but (every flight) without a stuff gin or three, that woman in-front of me would have had a stern talking to I can tell you! :}

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by quickthrower2 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:50PM (#29345768)

I wonder if British are more reserved because they’ve evolved to have about a unit or two of alcohol in the blood stream at all times at which point it’s the sweet spot. I jest of course. Also I’m a Brit.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by PapaSpaceDelta on Thursday November 25, 2021 @06:18PM (#29345947)

I suppose that I have to put this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4 here. Many a true word…

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by cyberpunk on Thursday November 25, 2021 @06:03PM (#29345850)

Well, we certainly developed an effective preventative against malaria... And that's before we get to the ballmer peak [0], which I think many of us experienced at one point ;)

0: https://xkcd.com/323/

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by chronogram on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:23PM (#29345531)

> alcohol (although that one maybe does more harm than good)!

Alcohol in the medical field is critical in doing good. A lot of harm has been prevented by alcohol.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by HWR_14 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:24PM (#29344165)

Alcohol let our ancestors survive. Weakly alcoholic beer was far healthier than water because its production likely killed germs in the water.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by axiolite on Thursday November 25, 2021 @07:43PM (#29346505)

> Alcohol let our ancestors survive.

Only true in dense cities and perhaps onboard seafaring vessels. Most of humanity could find unpolluted sources of water.

You could also say that, without the crutch that was small beer, humanity might have been motivated to learn and implement water treatment/purification techniques and proper sanitation systems centuries earlier.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by bumby on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:09PM (#29345430)

Edward Slingerland Haha written about a hypothesis that beer was the major reason for inventing agriculture. I don’t know how well received that theory is, but it was an interesting and unique take

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by 6gvONxR4sf7o on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:47PM (#29344367)

I recently read that that’s a myth, unfortunately.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by rags2riches on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:05PM (#29344531)

Brewing typically involves boiling. That can kill a germ or two, or so I've read. That's true for brewing tea as well.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by dclowd9901 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:10AM (#29342462)

I had this same exact thought the last time i was making bagels. What an absolute miracle it is! And whoever came up with using it to fluff and soften bread through some natural symbiotic reliance of raw nature is just such an incredible step it seems utterly designed from above.

Yes, I’m saying maybe a god exists and loves us because they gave us bread.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by TimTheTinker on Thursday November 25, 2021 @12:58PM (#29343423)

Benjamin Franklin thought beer was enough proof that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be happy :-)

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by kwertyoowiyop on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:57PM (#29344929)

“Every good quote eventually gets attributed to Lincoln, Wilde, Churchill, or Jobs.”

— Benjamin Franklin

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by flatiron on Thursday November 25, 2021 @01:59PM (#29343944)

https://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/say-what-says-who-benjami...

He never said that.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by TimTheTinker on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:13PM (#29344586)

Interesting, thanks!

Looks like he actually said something similar about wine though:

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy! (from a 1779 letter from France to his friend André Morellet)

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by luckman212 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:51PM (#29344419)

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by SubjectToChange on Thursday November 25, 2021 @11:25AM (#29342609)

Yeast is a type of fungus.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by elil17 on Thursday November 25, 2021 @05:41PM (#29345679)

True lol thank you. Meant to say “microbe”

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by CogitoCogito on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:56PM (#29344919)

I like this and totally agree! I baked two naturally leavened loaves of bread this morning for thanksgiving and am currently drinking a beer. On a regular day I would eat some form of yogurt as well. It really is an amazing little part of life. :)

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by jchook on Thursday November 25, 2021 @04:00PM (#29344950)

Also yeast is used frequently in medical and biological scientific studies, and helps us learn more about the role of DNA, aging , and certain kinds of cancer.

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by adrian_mrd on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:56PM (#29344453)

Thankful for marmite :)

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Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful by cyberpunk on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:25PM (#29344694)

Damn right. Vegemite isn't even shiny...

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