2011

Niet pochýb o tom, že pozemský život je úžasným experimentom prírody - avšak nie každý experiment sa musí zákonite vydariť. Ako vedci nie tak dávno s prekvapením zistili, život, ktorý máme na Zemi v súčasnosti, nie je prvým pokusom o zložitejšie mnohobunkové organizmy. Skutočný prvý pokus - tzv. ediakarská fauna (nazývaná aj biota) - zmizol z povrchu Zeme pred viac než pol miliardou rokov, podľa súčasných znalostí nezanechajúc žiadnych evolučných nasledovníkov. V tomto článku sa na tento život nadobúdajúci cudzie a neznáme formy, obývajúci niekoľko desiatok miliónov rokov našu Zem, pozrieme podrobnejšie.

One would logically expect the largest and most demanding projects to be accomplished by the most developed or at least the most populated countries of the world, managing adequate resources. There is abundance of information concerning construction of impressive dams, bridges or tunnels in such countries, however, there exists one exception constructed in a technologically neglected part of the world, almost without arousing notice outside its own continent. Honestly - have you ever heard about the Great Man-Made River in the Libyan Sahara yet? The following lines describe this remarkable system built deep inside the Sahara desert.

Note: This article is an exact translation of the original article written in the Slovak language on August 2010 (with the exception of replacing Slovak realia with the US/UK ones and adding the imperial units data), thus unaffected by the Libya affairs which took place in 2011. Due to the recent mass communication tendency of erasing the positive facts about Libya under col Muammar Gaddafi's rule (including, e.g., UNESCO removing its link about the project), provable distortion of information appearing in mass media, or losing neutral point of view (like some articles in Wikipedia), author decided to publish this translation in order to provide neutral, data-driven and fact-based description of the Libya's remarkable project regardless of the global political mood.