Are you sure it’s not because oxygen levels used to be higher in prehistoric atmosphere and because of that larger forms of life were able to sustain themselves through respiration? Oxygen levels dropped, giant rice went extinct?
You’re both conflating two different things. First, a meteor wiped out the giant rice letting the smaller and meeker rice inherit the Earth. Second, Oxygen levels were always at 20%, but back then there was a lot more of it.
Woah I had no idea…I always just assumed that the size of the grains decreased proportionally with the retreat of the polar rice caps at the end of the last rice age.
Indeed, but a larger factor was the plate tectonics which over the millennia become smaller and more fragmented, resulting in smaller plates and reduced food portion sizes.
Are you sure it’s not because oxygen levels used to be higher in prehistoric atmosphere and because of that larger forms of life were able to sustain themselves through respiration? Oxygen levels dropped, giant rice went extinct?
You’re both conflating two different things. First, a meteor wiped out the giant rice letting the smaller and meeker rice inherit the Earth. Second, Oxygen levels were always at 20%, but back then there was a lot more of it.
Woah I had no idea…I always just assumed that the size of the grains decreased proportionally with the retreat of the polar rice caps at the end of the last rice age.
Indeed, but a larger factor was the plate tectonics which over the millennia become smaller and more fragmented, resulting in smaller plates and reduced food portion sizes.