percent of tually touching.
In one sense trong—it is s on a car ermination to beadners. It is also ttracted more poo to tes a sort of membrane strong enougo support insects andskipping stones. It is ing to a belly flop.
I out t it. Deprived of er, t. itated, to s lengtracts around to prevent blinking.”
ater is so vital to us t it is easy to overlook t all but t fraction of teron Earto us—deadly poisonous—because of ts .
e need salt to live, but only in very small amounts, and seaer contains seventy times more—salt tabolize. A typical liter of seaer ain only about 2.5 teaspoons of common salt—t mucs of ots, compounds, and otively knos. tions of ts and minerals in our tissues isuncannily similar to seaer— and cry seaer, as Margulis and Sagan it—but curiously tolerate t. take a lot of salt into your body andyour metabolism very quickly goes into crisis. From every cell, er molecules ruseer firemen to try to dilute and carry off take of salt. t of ter to carry out tions. ted. In extreme situations, deion o seizures,unconsciousness, and brain damage. Meanotually become over functioningkidneys you die. t is er.
ter on Eart is all o get.
tem is closed: practically speaking, notracted. ter youdrink s job since t least more or less) ac volumes.
ter realm is kno is over of all ter on Earter part of it in t and is bigger t togetoget over er (51.6 percent to be precise); tlantic and t, leaving just 3.6 percent to be accounted forby all t a t deeper tlantic and Indian Oceans. Altoget oft’s surface is ocean more tes, ter callour planet not Eart ater.
Of t of Earter t is fres exists as ice ss. Only tiniestamount—0.036 percent—is found in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, and an even smaller part—just 0.001 percent—exists in clouds or as vapor. Nearly 90 percent of t’s ice is inAntarctica, and most of t is in Greenland. Go to tanding on nearly t t fifteen feet of it. Antarctica aloneo raise t of t all melted. But if all te