Some things would have been inevitable. Minus Columbus, Europe would have discovered the Americas eventually. The Vikings had a colony in Newfoundland in 1021 AD.
@john2001plus 0 seconds ago My elderly mother died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma after having it for 24 years. She thought that Roundup could have been the cause. I don't think that it is possible to know.
Speaking of which, I briefly saw The Prisoner in the 1960s while my father watched it. He thought the show was weird, so we didn't watch any more of it. I saw it as an adult and liked it, but the finale was one of the nuttiest shows to air on television. I don't think they knew how to end the series, so they gave us a surrealistic ending. It was a weird ending to a weird show. The show has been occasionally parodied, for example on The Simpsons.
The biggest threat to life is the next period of mass glaciation. It could take thousands of years, but we should already be in the cooling-down cycle. Even if we have a hundred years of warming, we have bigger environmental problems long term.
The Earth is halfway between its maximum tilt and its minimal tilt. We are 11,000 years away from the minimal tilt. All of human civilization arose during the last 11,000-year warm period.
The maximum tilt melts the glaciers because the summers are warmer. However, as the glaciers advance, a positive feedback cycle happens because the glaciers reflect more sunlight into space, rapidly cooling the planet.
It is possible that our effect on the climate could create a new normal. However, I don't see how we counter 90,000 years of cold before the next interglacial warm period.
It would be extraordinary for a photon, a single particle of light, to have 18 to 250 times this energy. If one hit you then I suspect you might feel it.
Planets closer to the Super Nova would have been fried. This is a danger that we have always lived with. A nearby gamma-ray burst would sterilize the planet. It has been theorized that distant gamma-ray bursts were responsible for some past mass extinctions.
@john2001plus 0 seconds ago Indiana is an "F" tier state? Indiana is an industrial powerhouse with vast amounts of farmland and natural forests. Columbus, Indiana, where I grew up and retired 40 years later, was determined to be the safest small city in the country. The city is also famous for its architecture and is the worldwide headquarters of Cummins Engine Company.
There is reportedly some debate about whether Neanderthals were a separate species. Google search results say that they were. However, Neanderthals were close enough to us that I like the idea that they were a sub-species.
It is common for people of European ancestry to have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA. Someone I know did a genetic test that showed a higher-than-average percentage of Neanderthal DNA.
Genetic diversity is a good thing regardless of the species. It can help a group survive environmental changes. Under harsh conditions, some individuals die off and some survive. (Mother Nature is a bitch. 🙂)
Many people on YouTube tend to think wild animals are like pets, especially bears. The problem is that everything looks like food to a bear, and other predators are no different.
