upworthy
Heroes

The Earth has survived some serious catastrophes. Here are the 4 worst.

Our planet's had a bit of a rough past. But the Earth is nothing if not a survivor.

Here are the four worst things the Earth has survived so far:

1. The Big Splash, aka that time the universe punched Earth in the face and may have created the moon

Imagine a young Earth. Like, super young. Only 20 million years after the solar system even formed. A little precious baby Earth.

And then imagine the universe smashing it in the face with an object the size of Mars.

Image from NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons.

That's the giant impact hypothesis, also known as The Big Splash. Scientists who back this hypothesis think that about 4.5 billion years ago, just after the Earth formed, another proto-planet called Theia may have slammed into it, ejecting rocks and magma out into space. Ouch.

It's not all bad, though. Some of that rock and magma may have coalesced out there in space and eventually turned in our moon. If this is true, it helps explain some of the weird things about our moon, like why Earth rocks and Moon rocks look so similar.

2. The Oxygen Catastrophe, aka that time Earth's entire atmosphere turned into poison and then turned the sky blue

After surviving The Big Splash, Earth had a nice little period of time where it got to relax and, you know, enjoy being covered in magma and stuff.

So relaxing. Image from ESO/L. Calçada/Wikimedia Commons.

Eventually, however, a combination of gas emerging from inside the Earth and meteors crashing into Earth created oceans and an atmosphere around the planet. There were even some wiggly little bacteria-like things swimming around Earth's prehistoric oceans too.

But those oceans, skies, and wiggly things would have looked totally alien to us. That's because there was pretty much no oxygen in Earth's atmosphere (which would have made the sky orange and the ocean blood-red). That was just fine for primitive life-forms, though, because if you're a little anaerobic microbe, oxygen is super poisonous.


Before oxygen, most of the Earth's atmosphere would have been methane, which would have made its surface look a lot like Saturn's moon Titan. Image from ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Wikimedia Commons.

Then, about 2.3 billion years ago, some little upstart cyanobacteria discovered photosynthesis and decided to start pooping out oxygen. After all, for them, oxygen is just waste, right?

For about 200 million years, cyanobacteria did just that. Most life on Earth kind of ignored it until suddenly oxygen was everywhere and nearly everything died. (Way to go, cyanobacteria.)


Cyanobacteria, the ultimate party poopers. Image from Doc. RNDr. Josef Reischig, CSc./Wikimedia Common.

In fact, there was so much oxygen, it broke down the methane in the atmosphere and rusted the iron right out of the oceans, which turned the ocean and sky blue.

That wasn't so bad: Earth got some nice little green life-forms, and the ocean no longer looked like something out of "The Prince of Egypt." All was well. Right?

Hahaha, no. It gets worse.

3. Snowball Earth, aka that time Earth was more frozen than a Disney movie

It turns out the Earth was totally using the methane in the atmosphere to keep the planet from from freezing — so when the cyanobacteria from The Oxygen Catastrophe broke down the methane in the atmosphere, there was nothing more to say than ... welcome to Snowball Earth.


Image from Stephen Hudson/Wikimedia Commons.

Scientists aren't sure whether this was a complete freeze or if there was a thin band of non-frozen water around the equator, but that's little consolation to the vast majority of the Earth, which was under ice sheets that could have been miles thick.

This probably hasn't happen just once, either. This kind of Earth-over deep freeze has happened again and again and again. The last bout of global freezing may have taken place about 650 million years ago.

But hey! Eventually Earth broke out of its little winter wonderland (possibly thanks to volcanoes), and life suddenly began flourishing like crazy!

Look at these trilobites! Image from Heinrich Harder/Wikimedia Commons.

In fact, for a while, things were going pretty well. Earth was starting to look like, you know, the Earth we know today. Too bad there was at least one more giant setback waiting in the wings.

4. The Great Dying, aka that time everything on Earth almost died

With The Big Splash, The Oxygen Catastrophe, and Snowball Earth solidly in the planet's rearview mirror, and a bunch of plants and animals running around on land, things were looking pretty good.

Then, about 250 million years ago, The Permian Extinction, a disaster so horrible scientists sometimes call it The Great Dying, happened. It more than earned its name, too. 96% of marine species went extinct as did 70% of land vertebrates.

What caused it? Scientists still aren't sure. Some think it might have been a collision with an immense asteroid or runaway methane or maybe what we now know as Russia simply ... exploding.

Either way, we know it took millions of years for life on Earth to recover. A lot of the more popular lineages of animals, like trilobites and a lot of mammal-like reptiles, were wiped out, leaving huge vacuums in the ecosystem. A few lineages did survive, however, including the ancestors of modern mammals and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs!

OH HEY, DID SOMEONE SAY DINOSAURS? Image from Dominik Reinold/Pixabay.

Thanks to climate change, today the Earth is going through some transformations too. With the planet's history as proof, chances are the Earth will survive climate change, too. Whether that includes humans, however...

Look, here's the thing. I like the skies the color they are now, thank you very much. I don't want to live through seas of lava, mile-thick glaciers over Acapulco, or the skies changing color (unless you're talking about a beautiful sunset or the northern lights, of course).

Fighting climate change isn't really about saving the planet. It's about saving ourselves and the other creatures that call Earth home. No matter how cool an ice planet with red skies sounds.

From Your Site Articles
Teachers

Florida teacher fired for giving zeros to students who didn't turn in assignments

The lowest grade that teachers are allowed to give students is a 50.

Diane Tirado/Facebook

Left: Teacher Diane Tirado. Right: The note she left for students after being fired.

If you're of the mind that kids today are being coddled and not properly prepared for the real world, well, you might want to buckle up for this one. The story out of a public school in Florida has parents and teachers alike up in arms.

A Florida teacher was fired for giving her students zeros for missing assignments. Diane Tirado has been a teacher for years. Most recently, she was an eighth-grade history teacher at Westgate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Diane recently gave her students two weeks to complete an Explorer notebook project, but several students simply didn't hand it in. Since there was zero work done, Diane gave them zeros.

She got fired for it.

schools, teachers, education, grades, students, parentsMichael Scott from The Office saying "What?"Giphy

The elementary school has a rule called the “no zero policy."

The lowest possible grade that teachers can give students is a 50, even if they don't turn anything in. That means that an extremely poor completed assignment is worth the same number of points as no assignment at all.

Hardly seems fair, right? Westgate is far from the only school that has such a policy, however.

whiteboard, education, classroom, teacher, middle school, 8th grade A message written on the whiteboard for her students after Diane Tirado was firedDiane Tirado/Facebook

It's a rule that Diane, unsurprisingly, does not agree with. After she was fired for disobeying, she left her students a charming goodbye message on the whiteboard.

"Bye kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life. I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 percent for not handing anything in. Love, Mrs. Tirado"

The scale, as outlined by the school, reads as follows:

A = 90 to 100
B = 80 to 89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 50-59

Diane later shared the story on Facebook, hoping to spread awareness about the school's policy.

“A grade in Mrs. Tirado's class is earned," she said.

“I'm so upset because we have a nation of kids that are expecting to get paid and live their life just for showing up and it's not real."

Diane's post has gone viral, and most commenters agree with her position – it's not fair to hand out grades for work that doesn't exist.

No zero policies are common in many schools, and teachers notoriouslyhate them. But it's at least worth considering why they exist. Some educators say it's because when a student earns a zero, it's very difficult for them to ever recover their grade in that class. In other words, it may be too harsh. Others argue that, if you don't want a zero, don't turn in nothing! Getting an earned-zero is a great way to learn to at least try.

A follow up statement from the school stated: "Ms. Tirado was released from her duties as an instructor because her performance was deemed sub-standard and her interactions with students, staff, and parents lacked professionalism and created a toxic culture on the school’s campus. ... During her brief time of employment at West Gate, the school fielded numerous student and parent complaints as well as concerns from colleagues. Based on new information shared with school administrators, an investigation of possible physical abuse is underway."

However, school representatives did not deny the existence of the no zero policy, and Tirado claims the school engaged in a smear campaign after she became a "whistleblower" on their policies. She's currently considering legal action against the district.

Still, the debate over the grading policy rages on.

“The reason I took on this fight was because it was ridiculous. Teaching should not be this hard," Diane said.

This article originally appeared 6 years ago.

From Your Site Articles
teachers
Modern Families

Richard Dreyfuss shares intimate photos from moment he realized his son has a congenital disorder

"As these pictures show, we slowly realized there was a problem with our son."

Images via Wikicommons and Twitter

Richard Dreyfuss and his son Ben Dreyfuss

Actor Richard Dreyfuss (star of “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) shared intimate photos of the birth of his son Ben that showed the shock and confusion parents experience when realizing their newborn has a birth abnormality.

On June 14, 1986, Dreyfuss and his wife Jeramie Rain had their second child and they could tell something was wrong shortly after his delivery. “Your eyes are not the same,” Ben would later write about his birth. “One is blue, the other is grey. One is hiding under a partially opened eye-lid; the other is extending far beyond it, like a potato exploding out of an egg cup.”

It was the “most traumatic and emotional moment of my life,” Richard wrote on Twitter. “My wife Jeramie gave birth to our second amazing child. And, as these pictures show, we slowly realized there was a problem with our son.”




The actor’s photos are touching because they show the parents experiencing the incredible beauty of the birth while struggling to make sense of the unexpected.

“I held him and promised him that I would do everything I could [to] save him. That I would love him no matter what,” the “Mr. Holland’s Opus” star wrote.

Ben would later be diagnosed with Peters anomaly, a rare genetic condition that causes a clouding of the cornea and eye-structure abnormalities. Over the first year of Ben’s life, he would have multiple eye operations and would eventually lose all sight in his left eye.

Richard Dreyfuss, Ben Dreyfuss, parenting, family, illness, fatherhood, peters anomaly Richard Dreyfuss and his son Ben DreyfussImages via Wikicommons and Twitter

He explained what life’s like with one eye in a blog post his father shared at the end of his tweet thread. It’s a raw open letter to himself that details how his struggles with being different evolved as he developed.

It’s a revealing glimpse into the interior monologue of someone who knows he’s being stared at but everyone is too polite to bring it up.

“Eventually you come around to the idea that much more noticeable than the eye itself is your reaction to it,” he writes. “You couldn’t make eye contact with anyone for decades. Upon this realization, you decided to make piercing eye contact with everyone.”

Ben is a journalist who was in charge of audience development at Mother Jones for eight years. He has a popular Substack blog called “Good Faith” where he discusses the intersection of politics and social media from the unique perspective of a liberal with no problem pointing out progressive excesses.

Richard Dreyfuss’ photos of his son’s birth show that all the fame and acclaim in the world can be quickly dispatched when we see that there is something wrong with a child. But on a deeper level, they are an intimate look at the faces of parents whose lives have been upended in a moment they expected would be wholly joyous.

It’s a moment that many parents have unfortunately had to weather and hopefully, the photos will give them comfort knowing that the despair will soon be overcome by love.

This article originally appeared two years ago.

From Your Site Articles
family
Pets

Four guys asked their new neighbor if they could walk her dog. Then the dog wrote back.

"If you ever get bored, we are more than happy to look after him/her."

via Stevieticks / Instagram

A black dog and a note form "the boys from number 23."

If you've lived your whole life with a dog, a home has to feel pretty empty without one. Your heart has to feel like there's something missing as well. When Jack McCrossan, originally from Scotland, moved to Bristol, England with his three friends, they were bummed out to learn that their landlord didn't allow dogs.

So when they saw a beautiful black Sheprador (a German Sheppard Lab mix) in their neighbor's window, they knew that had to become buddies with her. They wrote the dog's owner, Sarah Tolman, a letter asking to arrange a play date with the dog. "If you ever need someone to walk him/her, we will gladly do so," they wrote.

"If you ever get bored (we know you never will, but we can dream), we are more than happy to look after him/her. If you want to come over and bring him/her to brighten our day, you are more than welcome. If you want to walk past our balcony windows so we can see him/her, please do," the letter continued.


"We hope this doesn't come too strong, but our landlord won't allow pets, and we've all grown up with animals. The adult life is a struggle without one," they wrote. "Yours sincerely, The boys from number 23," the letter concluded.

Soon after, the boys in 23 received a response from the dog herself, Stevie Ticks, accepting the offer. However, it may have been written by her human, Sarah Tolman. In the letter, Stevie shares a bit about herself, saying she's two years and four months old, was adopted in Cyprus, and that she's "very friendly and full of beans." (The boys shouldn't worry about a gassy hound, in England, "full of beans" means lively.)


"I love meeting new people and it would be great if we can be friends. I must warn you that the price of my friendship is 5 x ball throws a day and belly scratches whenever I demand them," the letter continued. A few days later, the boys got to meet Stevie. "Meeting Stevie was great!" McCrossan told Buzzfeed. "She was definitely as energetic as described. We got to take her for a walk and she wouldn't stop running!"

black labrador, dogs, dog-walkers, kind nieghbors, stevieticks, bristol, ukA black labrador (representative image).via Canva/Photos

Tolman thought the boys' letter was a fantastic gesture in an era where, quote often, neighbors are strangers. "In a day and age where people don't really know or speak to their neighbors, it was really nice for them to break down that barrier," she said. After the story went viral, she saw it as an opportunity for people to share their love of dogs with the world. "My mother and I are amazed at all the love we've received from around the world these past few days," Tolman wrote as Stevie. "If you have a doggo in your life, share that love with those around you."

A lot has changed in the past 6 years since this story warmed hearts around the globe. The boys have since moved away, but as of September 2024, Stevie is around 8 years old and still doing well. Her keeper and Sarah's partner, Chris Bowley, shared an update on Instagram. "[The boys] sadly moved out of Bristol. However, we have always tried to keep the ethos going of Stevie having as many friends and meetups as possible," Bowley wrote.


This article originally appeared six years ago.

From Your Site Articles
dogs
Motherhood

Single dad gets suspicious letter from his late wife and rushes to get a DNA test

"She told me how sorry she was that she didn’t have the guts to tell me this to my face when she was alive.”

via Nathan Cowley/Pexels

A devastated man sitting by the ocean.

Ten months after a man’s wife passed away, he finally got the courage to read a letter she left him, which contained a devastating admission. The 4-year-old son they had together may not be his.

“My ‘darling’ wife passed away 10 months ago,” the man wrote on Reddit’s Off My Chest forum. “She wrote a letter for me before she died, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it until now. She told me how sorry she was that she didn’t have the guts to tell me this to my face when she was alive.”

In the letter, the wife revealed that there was a “good chance” that the son he thought was his wasn’t his biological child. A few weeks before their wedding day, the wife got drunk at her bachelorette party and had a one-night stand with another man. Soon after that night, she became pregnant but was unsure who the father was.

DNA, DNA test, paternity test, letter from deceased spouse, Reddit, family, parentingA man reads a lettterImage via Canva


The man was torn whether or not to have the paternity test done. The child had only one parent in this world, and he would have to take care of him regardless. He also thought it was cowardly that his former wife would wait until she was no longer around to share the truth with him.

“So she thought she’d rather drop this bomb on my life when I could no longer confront her about it,” the man wrote. “Now that my son would only have one parent looking out for him, and she’d have no idea how I would even react. Maybe I should not have got the paternity test done. Maybe it might be better to live in ignorance. But I just had to know.”

The man took the paternity test and learned he wasn’t the child’s biological father.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

“I’m devastated. This doesn’t change how I feel about my son,” he wrote. “He’s my whole world and he’s innocent. But boy, does it hurt. There’s so much going on in my head right now. I haven’t stopped crying. Thank god my son is at my parents' place for the day. I’d hate for him to see me like this.”

Facing a pain nearly too much for him to bear, the only outlet he had at the moment was reaching out to Reddit to find some solace. “I just needed to let this all out. Don’t have it in me to tell anyone in my life about this right now,” he wrote.

DNA, DNA test, paternity test, fatherhood, parenting, life advice, RedditA man holds his head in his handsImage via Canva

The commenters send him hundreds of messages of support to get him through the shock of first learning the truth about his family.

The most popular message was straightforward and honest.

"All your feelings are valid, a lot of people will react with some kind of toxic positivity to things like these. Your feelings are valid. Each and everyone," femunndsmarka wrote.

Another commenter added that someday, his son will appreciate how he stepped up and did what was right in a very trying circumstance.

“He is going to find out the truth one day. Imagine how much more he will love you knowing you didn’t leave him, even though he wasn’t yours,” ImNotGoodatThis6969.

Another commenter provided valuable insight from the son’s perspective.

"As an adopted child, I just want to thank you on behalf of your son. I deeply believe it changes nothing, family is not about blood, its about who you love, want to have by your side, and care for the most. Sending hugs, strength and gratitude," Mariuuq wrote.

The father at the heart of this story is understandably devastated because his life was upended almost overnight. But the hope in the story is that his trials also taught him a powerful truth—his love for his son goes much deeper than blood.

This article originally three years ago.

From Your Site Articles
dna test
Culture

California man buys a small island in Finland because it's cheaper than the deposit on a house

"Our plan is to build a log cabin completely by ourselves."

Photo credit: Canva

Couple buys small island because it was cheaper than a house

The cost of living is getting quite ridiculous. Pretty soon people will feel like they need to take a loan out just to buy basic groceries. But there's one area that has people struggling beyond compare and that's the extreme cost of not only rent but purchasing a home. Many people are being completely priced out of the market causing people to rent longer than they'd like while some are having to move back in with their parents.

Due to the rising price of housing in American specifically, more people are choosing to relocate outside of the country in hopes to maintain a better quality of life on less money. There are entire Reddit channels dedicated to expat living and Americans looking to become expats.

Oliver Russell, 24 was slightly ahead of the curve with his exit from the United States. Though he is American, he's also half Finnish giving him dual citizenship with ties to the country through friends and family that he visited often.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Russell grew up in Laguna Beach, California but after moving Colorado, he was denied in-state tuition which made affording business school nearly impossible. That's when he decided to take advantage of the free college education Finland offers for it's citizens, he had always dreamed of moving to Helsinki anyway.

It just so happened after getting settled into his second homeland, he met a girl. Helena Tomaszewska, 20 is Dutch and once the two got serious about dating the started looking at getting a summer home, which is standard in Finland. But during their search for the perfect home, the two discovered houses were expensive. The down payment alone seemed like entirely too much money for the young couple.

"In Finland, the summer cottage life is a huge part of the culture and I would come out here every summer. I loved the summer cottage life and wanted one of my own," Russell tells SWNS.

ocean, life, islands, life hack, life hacks, abandoned island, finland, californiaA man relaxes in a chair in front of the oceanImage via Canva

They continued their search, checking out different real estate websites for something in their price range. Just when it seemed like the pair was having a run of bad luck locating an affordable property for to serve as their summer home, Russell came across an island. Yes, an island. By the time the new Finnish resident came across the island, it had been on the market for 10 years and lucky for them it was within their budget. The couple only paid $31k for the 2.5 acre island.

Unlucky for them, the island was completely overgrown with tries, bushes and moss. No one had lived there for more than 10 years so if they were going to build their summer home there, they had a lot of work cut out for them. That big detail didn't deter them one bit. The two young adults got to work.

"Our plan is to build a log cabin completely by ourselves with no experience and transform it into a fully functioning summer cottage," the man shares in a video that shows him chopping down trees and shaving bark off of logs.

finland, island, life hacks, life hack, californiaA couple walks along the beach on an islandImage via Canva

Russell and Tomaszewska purchased the island in March 2024 and have made several trips to ready the land for a permanent structure. But have so built a platform deck to camp out on and an out house so they have somewhere to rest when they're continuing their work.

Russell tells Lad Bible, "We made a frame out of logs that we felled from trees and I got some decking from a hardware store. We then built an outhouse and I am now trying to build a shower structure so we can wash while we're on the island. We wanted to get the base camp set up so we have a comfortable place to stay while the big building happens next year."

There's a requirement for the island, and it's that a certain portion of it needs to be a sauna. It's unclear if this is a requirement by the Finnish government or a deal between Russell and his girlfriend. Either way, that's the portion they want to focus on after they get the shower built, while their hope is to have the entire cabin built by next summer.

sauna, island, finland, california, life hack, life hacksTwo women sit in a sauna next to the oceanImage via Canva

A 2025 finish date might be a little lofty since both island owners are full time students at college leaving little time to trek out to the island to spend days building But there's no doubt they'll finish this massive project and have plenty of time to enjoy it.

Living on an island with no neighbors really cuts down on the chances of unexpected visitors. But a trip to town get a gallon of milk or toilet paper would require a boat ride so hopefully they're also including a large storage area.

How about you, would you live on a deserted island?

This article originally appeared last year.

From Your Site Articles
cost of living
Trending Stories