softblockwashere-deactivated202

i am going to create an environment that is so toxic

screambirdscreaming

softblockwashere-deactivated202

wtf ❤️

screambirdscreaming

The dumb joke is that when cyanobacteria first invented photosynthesis, the oxygen they released was extremely toxic to all the other bacteria that existed at that point. Photosynthesis was so successful and they released so much oxygen that they nearly wiped out all life on earth.

This is called the Great Oxygenation event, or the Great Oxygen Catastrophe, it is to date one of the largest mass extinction events in earth’s history, and as far as I know it’s the single most extreme event of an organism making the environment toxic for other organisms.

Which is always funny to think about from a human perspective, because pretty much all life *except* bacteria could not have evolved if this hadn’t happened.

The Archaea - the really old bacteria that existed before cyanobacteria - are still around, they just live in weird places now like hot springs and the deep ocean where the nasty oxygen can’t reach them.

softblockwashere-deactivated202