The one for me which was quite surprising is how recent grasses are. Grass is 110M or so year old, but grasses as we know them - the plains, covering vast spaces, etc. - the C4 grasses, are all in the 5m-15M years ago period. Imagine an earth with no sprawling grasses.
I found that surprising when I learned about it. Grass did not exist yet at the time of the dinosaurs. In good documentaries, artistic representations of dinosaurs may show them among ferns and trees, that did exist. But if I see grass I will know the team did not do a good job!
The "proto" in this case would have to refer to a synapsid, which have been described as "mammal-like reptiles", some of whom were the ancestors of the mammals which didn't yet exist 295 million years ago.
Not a scientist or science reporter, but it strikes me that the headline (and content) of the article should include 'that we know of'. Is that silly of me, or is it expected from the reader to know that this is always implied?
Yes, it's poorly phrased. It could easily say "oldest known insect plague". But the whole article is not written well at all - seems like English may not be the authors' first language.
No, there are different scenarios. In this case we're looking at incomplete evidence of history, and we know with certainty that there are many phenomena for which evidence didn't survive. The usual way this is dealt with is to talk about "the oldest known X."
With many things in science, there isn't anything like that degree of incomplete information. We can talk about, say, a chemical reaction with extremely high certainty.
Also, in many cases a theory provides implicit context which makes the resulting statements true in the context of that theory. We can say that in general relativity, a black hole has a singularity at its center. There's no doubt about that, but it doesn't tell us whether actual physical black holes contain singularities.
They’re definitely the current insect plague of my tomato plants
Funny to think that some (proto?) human was swearing at these things 295 million years ago the same way I am
The earliest hominids came around ~10 million years ago, so unlikely.
Nor did tomatoes, nor any type of fruit nor flowering plant at all, exist 295M years ago
I actually didn’t know that, TIL.
The one for me which was quite surprising is how recent grasses are. Grass is 110M or so year old, but grasses as we know them - the plains, covering vast spaces, etc. - the C4 grasses, are all in the 5m-15M years ago period. Imagine an earth with no sprawling grasses.
I found that surprising when I learned about it. Grass did not exist yet at the time of the dinosaurs. In good documentaries, artistic representations of dinosaurs may show them among ferns and trees, that did exist. But if I see grass I will know the team did not do a good job!
Nor did any mammals exist then.
There were big proto reptiles like Edaphosaurus that could have shaken their fist at a bug infestation though
But they didn't have prehensile hands, so no fists for them!
It took evolution another 230-280 million years to develop fists to shake at bug infestations.
just let the "proto" do the work and enjoy the joke
The "proto" in this case would have to refer to a synapsid, which have been described as "mammal-like reptiles", some of whom were the ancestors of the mammals which didn't yet exist 295 million years ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsida
Not a scientist or science reporter, but it strikes me that the headline (and content) of the article should include 'that we know of'. Is that silly of me, or is it expected from the reader to know that this is always implied?
History is defined as events which are recorded.
"Leaf miners identified as oldest insect plague in the history of Earth"
Yes, it's poorly phrased. It could easily say "oldest known insect plague". But the whole article is not written well at all - seems like English may not be the authors' first language.
That's the catch phrase of zoology youtuber Lindsay Nikole. https://youtube.com/@LindsayNikole
If science took that approach, wouldn't you need to put this in every scientific related statement ever made?
No, there are different scenarios. In this case we're looking at incomplete evidence of history, and we know with certainty that there are many phenomena for which evidence didn't survive. The usual way this is dealt with is to talk about "the oldest known X."
With many things in science, there isn't anything like that degree of incomplete information. We can talk about, say, a chemical reaction with extremely high certainty.
Also, in many cases a theory provides implicit context which makes the resulting statements true in the context of that theory. We can say that in general relativity, a black hole has a singularity at its center. There's no doubt about that, but it doesn't tell us whether actual physical black holes contain singularities.
Every fact would have to end with “unless I am wrong”.