"The first field tests in Western Sahara show that when windblown sand grains rub against each other, an electric field is created."
"When this happens, the smaller dust particles typically absorb electrons from the larger dust, giving themselves a negative charge."
"As a result, dust particles are more easily blown higher into the air, while positively charged sand particles tend to be closer to the ground. This separation of charges creates an electric field that electrifies the dust trapped in the sand,
Get more of it into the air, and you'll create bigger storms."
"This ball not only has downward lightning, but also upward lightning."
[Hiss, then this is too dangerous]
[Knowledge about cowhide has increased]
[By the way, why have I never heard of it?]
"It's just that you haven't heard of it, because the probability of such an event happening is very low. I don't think I've heard of anyone who encountered a sandstorm and was struck to death by lightning from it."
【Too much hell】
【I haven't heard of it either】
[Anyway, let’s celebrate, it’s another day of racing against death]
[There is a rocket behind Fang Shen’s butt, right?]
[Death is like the wind, it always accompanies me, but it can never catch up]
After surviving the sandstorm crisis, Bi Fang took Alpha on the road, but this time he did not choose to control the reins, but allowed it to hang freely.
There are many ways to get water in the desert, but since we have camels, there is no need to choose those complicated and slow-effective methods.
"I said before that you can undoubtedly find water sources and even food by following animals, but the animals here are definitely not the ones you can find water sources by bringing a dog with you."
"Almost all animals in nature have their own fixed living territory, even migratory birds. Although they migrate every year, their routes are fixed."
"They know where there are lush water and grass on this road, where there are no predators, and where they can rest safely, and they will hardly change. This is why Professor Etienne went all the way to find me and asked me to help change the behavior of white-fronted geese.
If the migration routes are not changed, they will be driven to extinction by the continuous urbanization of migration routes."
"Did you discover the reason?"
"The reason why most animals know the location of water sources is not because they are gifted and have antennas on their heads. Wherever there is water, the antennas point."
Bi Fang put his hands on his temples, stretched out his index finger, and turned around, making a more comedic action, which made the audience laugh.
【Is it because they live here that you know it? 】
"Yes, an animal's territory is like our house, and the water source is the tap water supply in the house. As the owner of the house, you naturally know where your faucet is."
"Animals are thirsty, and you know that you can just follow them to find the faucet. But if you take a dog with you and break into unfamiliar territory, you can only rely on luck to find the faucet."
"Almost all animals do not have the ability to find water directly, so they usually do not leave their territory."
"If the faucet in the house is broken, in nature where there are no plumbers, animals can only move, but moving is not that easy, and often requires paying a very painful price. Anyone who has watched the migration of the African savannah in the animal world should be very clear.
.”
【Wildebeest!
!]
【The widow maker, the African buffalo!】
[It’s really shocking, every time I see them crossing the river, and then being bitten by crocodiles, and finally becoming dinner, or luckily getting past with a large group of people]
[Humans may need to spend a lifetime of savings and labor to move, and it is not easy for animals either (dog head)]
[Almost all, I guess Lao Fang must be talking about special cases, I guess it is Alpha]
"clever."
Bi Fang smiled and patted Alpha's neck.
"When humans are in the desert, the biggest difficulty they face is water. If you don't drink water, you may die in a few hours due to dehydration. But camels in the desert don't. They can always find it.
Drinking water in desert oases is one of the very few animals that can actively seek out water sources."
"This is due to their unique structure of the nose. The camel's nostrils are diagonally opened and can be opened and closed freely to prevent dust from entering. There are valve-like structures inside, which are covered with olfactory cells. They can not only search for food, but also survive in droughts.
The desert, with its tasteless water source, has a damp feeling from a long distance away."
"Such a nose is enough for a camel to find water sources more than 20 kilometers away through its sense of smell, making its chance of survival when crossing the desert much higher than that of a human carrying a large bag of mineral water."
"So, if you really get lost in the desert, experienced people will not feed the camel water. After a few days, loosen the reins and let it move freely, and it will find it on its own."
[Damn, this sense of smell is invincible]
[No matter how invincible I am, I still get caught by Fang Shen (funny)]
[Still Fang Shen is better]
[By the way, is such an awesome sense of smell better than that of dogs and bears? I don’t think they can find water sources by smell. 】
"It is true that dogs and bears cannot find water by their sense of smell, but it is not necessarily true that a camel's sense of smell is stronger than that of the two of them."
Bi Fang shook his head, making everyone a little confused.
"In fact, camels have less than 800 olfactory receptor genes. It sounds like a lot, but on the contrary, camels have fewer olfactory receptor genes than other animals."
"Normal humans have more than 1,000, dogs have 1,300, and the more powerful mice have 1,500."
"But neither humans nor dogs nor rats can locate the water source. This is not a matter of distance. Even if it is less than ten meters, they cannot know that there is water in front of them just by smell."
"The odor discrimination ability of camels is actually far inferior to that of dogs, bears, and rats. This is related to its living environment. In the desert, they do not need strong odor discrimination ability, because there are not many odors that need to be distinguished in the desert.
"
"So it is not a problem that camels have fewer olfactory receptor genes. Instead, because there are not many odors to distinguish, these olfactory receptor genes have a stronger professional division of labor. They have been strengthened in some special olfactory aspects. It
In terms of smelling water and other green plants, it is far stronger than other animals!"
"In the soil of vegetation, a chemical substance called 'geosmin' is emitted. This special smell is similar to the smell of newly plowed soil, and a camel can smell it from a long distance."
"In fact, we can sometimes smell this smell, such as on rainy days, the 'earth smell' after the rain is also geosmin, which is essentially a metabolic waste product of bacteria."
After several days of drought in the summer, a heavy rain suddenly washes the earth, making the leaves greener and the flowers redder, and even the air is filled with the fragrance of earth.
You take a deep breath, filled with the fragrance of plants and the unique smell of earth, the fragrance of nature.
But scientists will tell you that this earthy aroma after the rain is actually some volatile organic compounds of fungi. It is a "smell trap" for bacteria, used to attract springtails to help spread Streptomyces progeny spores.
【Ah this, ah this, ah this】
【I always like the smell after rain...】
[It’s over, I can’t go back]
[What’s the point? We don’t know how many bacteria we eat every time we breathe]
A person with mediocre talent may become outstanding if he concentrates on doing only one thing year after year.
There are so many odors in nature, but these camels don't need them all. There are few natural enemies. Its biggest enemy is the natural environment, so it only needs to smell a few odors. Even if the smell discrimination ability is a bit poor, it can make up for it.
The reins fell down around Alpha's neck. Alpha walked under the sun for a moment. After walking straight for a while, he seemed to notice something was wrong. He turned his head and looked at the rope beside his neck. For a moment, he didn't know whether he should continue moving forward.
, and stayed in place.
Bifang didn't let it stop, and gently clamped Alpha's abdomen with his legs, signaling him to continue moving forward.
[Can it really be found? Are there water sources in the desert?]
【There must be an oasis】
[Do oases really exist? I feel like they are all movies and TV shows, or they are fabrications. Maybe they really exist, but there are only a few here and there, right? 】
"You are wrong. The Sahara Desert is indeed the largest desert, but it is not the driest desert, nor the most monotonous desert."
"The so-called desert is more like a surface without trees. The 9 million square kilometers of desert is almost the size of China. Although it looks like a patch of yellow and orange at first glance, the geological structure is actually not simple."
"For example, Egypt's four major oases, if you look carefully at the topography, they are actually on the same fault zone. This topography is inherently a guide, and most importantly, it also provides a water source."
"I told you a few days ago about the cause of the Sahara. I wonder if you still remember it."
"The desertification of the Sahara was very late. Before the agricultural age, the Nile Valley was an uninhabitable place because there were huge layers of stone accumulated there, which were even 100 meters thick during the Ice Age."
"So people gradually moved in from the grassland area before desertification, and there must be rivers if there are people."
Bi Fang began to correct the ideas of water friends.
There is still prosperity hidden in the barrenness.
"In the early days of Egyptian civilization, the eastern desert, Nubia, Libya, and the deserts around the Nile River were not that dry yet, and there were still many rivers."
"Egypt's exchanges with external civilizations, ore mining, timber, and even cultivated land itself are still very dependent on these rivers. Although the main stream of the Nile River today is the absolute center, it is at least not the only one. It can even be said that the dry valley played a role in the formation and maturity of Egyptian civilization.
Its status in China is tied with that of the Mediterranean, Libya, Sinai and Nubia.”
"In Egyptian legend, Set, the god of the delta, and Horus, the god of the Nile Valley, fought for many years. In the end, Horus defeated Set and drove him to the desert to become the god of the desert. This clearly reflects the inferiority of the river valley, delta and desert.
, but don’t forget, since the desert can be juxtaposed with the river valley delta, it shows that Egypt attaches great importance to the desert.”
If the so-called Sahara Desert is really worthless and birds don’t lay eggs, how can it be taken seriously?
Many local myths can actually sort out some of the context of human development.
In areas with developed water systems, the locals would never worship a powerful fire god, and the fire god in the system would never be able to defeat the water god.
"Perhaps the conditions are not that good and not that rich, but in the hearts of the Egyptians, the importance of the desert in culture is several dimensions higher than the desert in the eyes of modern people."
"Even though the sky was filled with yellow sand at that time, there were a lot of oases scattered in the desert, and a lot of human beings survived. Only in this way can they occupy a considerable position in culture."
"Unfortunately, desert archeology did not start until the end of the last century. Now we mainly study the dry valleys in the eastern part of the river bend in Upper Egypt. There are also some discoveries in the west, but not many."
The cost of desert archeology is too high, and it is a job destined to have an extremely low input-output ratio.
It is very difficult to search for unclear glyphs carved on cliffs or gravel in a valley that stretches for hundreds of kilometers, eating sand and holding a brush.
"So a long time ago, there were actually a lot of oases and rivers in the Sahara desert."
"Today, many of these rivers have disappeared on the surface, but underground, invisible, they still exist, rushing endlessly, and continue to provide for the emergence of oases."
The fact is just as Bi Fang said.
There are a considerable number of underground rivers under the Sahara Desert. The water resources of these underground rivers are relatively sufficient, and some even form small rivers directly in the desert.
With the water supply from underground rivers, there will be oases of considerable size in the desert, with various plants appearing on them. Some larger oases will also have some animals. When humans come to such oases,
It's hard to imagine that you are in the desert.
"The Kerdaz Oasis is a famous oasis in the Sahara Desert. It is also formed by underground rivers. According to inspections, there are even various small fish in many underground rivers. People can directly swim in the Sahara Desert.
Fishing in the underground river.”
"It's definitely a wonder in the Sahara."
【Another day of learning Chinese and Western knowledge】
[Myth researcher, Fang Shen profession plus one]
[Although it’s just a common myth, it still feels awesome]
It is not surprising that a mathematician is proficient in mathematics and can handle various professional issues at ease, but if he also shows a certain degree of literary literacy, even if he is not a professional scholar, it will still be surprising and even admirable, because it is not only
The level of professionalism is not the level of expertise, but the breadth of it.
Unfortunately, things don't seem to be as easy as Bi Fang thought.
Alpha was no longer restrained by the reins, and did not change direction, but walked in a straight line. It did not change until several hours later, and it was not until evening that he seemed to realize that he could walk as he pleased.
For this reason, Bifang even resisted the midday sun to prevent it from interrupting Alpha's "inspiration".
There was already insufficient water, and after one afternoon, my lips became chapped and turned white. I couldn't even make a big expression, otherwise they would become chapped and bleed.
The situation lasted until eight or nine o'clock in the evening, when the moon rose, and Bi Fang finally achieved something.
In his sight, a "black spot" appeared on the vast land.