Comment on Petrichor

Live_your_lives@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• superkret@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  We evolved in the Savannah.
  Rain means the watering holes are filling up, which is obviously good cause we need water, but it also attracts prey animals.

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  • DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This, of course, was summarized most eloquently at the zenith of human evoloution: the 1982 hit single by Toto clearly stating, “I bless the rains down in Africa.”

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    • NeatoBuilds@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Oh wow all this time I thought they missed the rains of Africa

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      • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Some of those rains went unblessed because someone missed them.

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      • Klear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        “I guess the rain is down in Africa” for me.

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You think rain is your ally?

    You merely adopted the damp. We Brits were born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see dry sand until I was already a man…

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    • flicker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Heh. Molded.

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      • Deebster@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Their spelling was moulded by the US

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    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Run! He’s a mossman!

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  • EleventhHour@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Was that area a desert 250,000 years ago?

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    • ladicius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The whole continent of Africa (as every other continent) went through several major climate changes, small and big. Pretty sure there were at least five major turnovers from wet to dry climate and back since then, and numerous before.

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      • Krauerking@lemy.lol ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Fun fact, there are some theories that the Sahara desert was actually caused by over foraging from early goat herding.

        So to a degree out ancestors may have already caused some climate change.

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    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The North African region was a lush verdant region 11,000 years ago, which is not so long ago considering humans already spread far and wide around that time.

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  • Windex007@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m still missing something here. For it to be useful, I’d imagine that it would need to inform decisions, and do so where existing senses would fail.

    At least in my environment, if I can smell rain, I could also just as easily use my eyes to see the cumulonimbus clouds and say “rain, due east”.

    In the savanna are there scenarios where the only awareness of rain would be smelling it? Can you derive directionality at 5 parts per trillion? Does it matter?

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    • erev@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      you can smell it coming before you see it imo. that gives you time to get to shelter and to move to where the water/food is

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  • MBM@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You’d think more African animals (especially predators) would have that ability, then

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• fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Water is life.

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  • Slovene@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Shrek is life.

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    • TheEntity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Shark is wife.

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      • fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Shrimp is rife.

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  • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Moisture is the essence of wetness and wetness is the essence of beauty”

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    • fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      so hot right now

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  • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Life is life.

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    • ladicius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Na, naaa, nanana.

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  • EleventhHour@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Victory is life

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• MunkyNutts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Maybe an evolutionary trait to locate water?

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  • TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And thirsty herbivores to eat!

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    • imgcat@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Unlikey

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• ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s worth remembering that evolution doesn’t select for the best as much as it selects against the worst.

  The reason we have such sensitivity doesn’t have to be particularly game changing as long as it doesn’t make us less likely to reproduce.

  You can plainly see our big niche adaptations being used everyday. We think good. We recognize patterns. We use tools. We walk a lot, efficiently and upright. We communicate with high precision. We have a surprisingly efficient digestive system.

  We’re not busting out the ability to smell rain super often, which hints that it might be more in the “doesn’t hurt” category instead of being a big advantage.

  My guess is that being able to smell disturbed soil is helpful for tracking, either where an animal has run or where something has been buried. Our ancestors were not above digging up a fresh-ish dead animal a canine had buried for later.
  But it could just be that rain sense slightly more accurate than looking towards the horizon was as useful then as it is now: vaguely, I guess? It just doesn’t hurt anything.

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• odium@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  my theory is natural selection of humans/human ancestor species. The ones who didn’t find shelter in time before a rain died/got sick and died later.

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  • Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I think it’s more than those who couldn’t find water died, within 3 days.

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