Sorry for being a little late today. I went to Shimazu Shave Ice and had a Ling Hing Mui flavored shave ice, topped with condensed cream...for $7.
Looking at the Worldometer data of yesterday, Japan remains #1 with 230,555 new cases. The USA is #2 at 99,061. The pandemic epicenter has shifted from Europe to Asia/Oceania. Ranking of major countries in terms of new cases/million population:
- #1 Japan 1831
- #2 Australia 1733
- #3 South Korea 1660
- #4 New Zealand 1579
- #6 Singapore 1335
- #7 Taiwan 974
- #8 Italy 909
- #9 Austria 831
- #10 Germany 783
- The World reached 7 billion in 2011.
- Our global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, increasing at a rate of less than one percent growth rate/year.
- Fertility in two-thirds of the world is now below 2.1 births/woman, roughly a level for zero growth rate. This was 4.5 in mid-70's.
- The COVID-19 pandemic dropped global life expectancy at birth from 72.9 in 2019 to 71 last year.
- But longevity is expected to rise to 77.2 in 2050.
- More than half of the projected population increase will come from eight countries: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Tanzania.
- By 2050, there will be twice the number of those 65 years and older than children under 5, and about the same as those up to 12 years old.
- World Population day was July 11. No one seemed to have cared.
- It took hundreds of thousands of years for the world to reach 1 billion in 1804.
While this is controversial, the eruption of Mount Toba dropped our population to as low as 1000 breeding pairs, possibly all in Africa, which is why we all have original roots from that continent. This eruption was 12 times greater than the largest in recent history, which was Mount Tambora, Indonesia in 1815. This is Lake Toba today.
- Then by 10,000 BC, our population grew to somewhere between 1 and 15 million.
- From 1 billion in 1804 it took 207 years to reach 7 billion.
- Maybe 10 billion in 2058?
- 2100? Perhaps 11 billion.
What is the optimal population of Planet Earth?
- In 1994 when the world population was 5.6 million, Paul Ehrlich and his colleages said 1.5 to 2 million.
- Then in 2021 Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University said: from half to 5 billion.
- In both cases, the matter of limited resources was why. From Dasgupta:
- If a virus was the size of a 5 cent coin, a bacterium would be about the size of a dinner plate, and Danny Devito would be 656,168 feet tall.
- Viruses more than a quadrillion quadrillion.
- About one nonillion, which is 1 followed by 30 zeroes.
- Ten times more than all the bacteria.
- Ants perhaps 1 quadrillion, which is 1000 trillion or 1 million billion.
- Cockroaches up to 3 trillion.
- Chickens 26 billion.
- Humans 8 billion.
- Cattle 1 billion.
- Pigs 0.8 billion.
- Blue whales, the largest creature ever--somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000.
- Northern White Rhinos 2 (yes, two, both female)
A dazzling, multicolored cuticle. A shiny chitinous armor. Photos taken with a microscope lens reveal the hypnotic beauty of the critters we usually dismiss as bugs. These colors come from chitin, a substance that forms an insect’s hard outer covering as well as its wings and other flexible parts. The chitin, which has been in arthropods for as long as 550 million years, is behind the metallic-colored scales of the Chrysiridia butterfly’s wings, or the thousands of lenses in a hornet’s compound eye.
You can have a ringtail cat as a pet.
Blood Lily at 10 days:
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