Surprised as how such basic stuff gets "discovered" now and then. For all the toot of science, how come it took us that long to realise such a basic (in appearance at least I'm sure) fact ?
Not quite what you asked, but I know of why another really common set of micro organisms wasn’t noticed. Megaviruses, which rival bacteria in size, were only discovered in the last couple of decades. They’re everywhere. But when people would look for viruses they’d do so specifically by sorting matter in samples by size. So effectively by definition a virus would have to be small. We’d been looking at them under microscopes for over a hundred years but assumed they were inert particles.
I'm sure there are many other things still unknown and many things known but may change. Science is about discovery and many new discoveries are made even basic but also complex discoveries. Information known can change when new information is discovered. Science is not carved in stone it's not faith and corrections, updates are welcome part of discovery.
teaearlgraycold|1 year ago
dghughes|1 year ago