Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    Here Are 5 Ways Lightning Shapes Life on Earth

    by Chris Drudge Jun 07, 2016 5 minutes

    Lightning is the flash and rumble of an electron swarm leaping across the sky. With extravagant swiftness it moves through a cloud, from one cloud to another, or between a cloud and the ground, millions of times every day. The role of lightning in the world’s affairs is much more substantial than its ephemerality might suggest. For billions of years it has shaped life on Earth, from the first hidden cells on an otherwise barren planet, to the particular menagerie here today.

    Here are five ways lightning has made its mark on life on Earth.

    1. Origin of life

    Let’s start by setting up . Take a glass container and fill the first quarter or so with warm water, fresh or salted. This is a pond or ocean on the recently solidified primordial Earth. Replace the air above the water with

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus10 min read
    Meet My Pal, the Ancient Philosopher
    To do philosophy, you don’t need expensive labs or equipment. You don’t need a huge team. You can do it all by yourself. The downside is that philosophers are often lonely. Reading in solitude while wrestling with your own thoughts is difficult. We d
    Nautilus9 min read
    How Big Is Your Family?
    In the spring of 1987, I stooped over the desk in my shared student office in Cambridge, England, running my finger across a map of Papua New Guinea and squinting at the tiny typescript. I was trying to establish the location of a cluster of tribes i
    Nautilus6 min read
    Is Technology Worthy of Our Faith?
    1 Tech Has Become the Most Dominant Faith of Our Time Though I am an atheist, I have built my life and career around religion. First I spent five years pursuing ordination as a secular humanist rabbi, including 18 months living in Jerusalem and Tel A

    Related Books & Audiobooks