This story Starts out like the standard "Planet of the Apes" routine: Space voyagers from Earth get caught in some sort of warp and return to a recognizable Earth, but the civilization they knew is long gone. In this story, however, all macro biological life has disappeared completely, to be replaced by a wilderness of feral machines, many of them replicating the standard biological forms: amulatory predators/prey (analogous to animals), sessile energy accumulators (like plants), even sea "creatures". Some predators are able to use parts of their prey directly, although most incorporate some kind of smelter or other recycling feature that allows them to mine basic materials from prey. Explosives are part of the repertoire of prey defenses, hinting that some of this may have been kicked off by humans tinkering with autonomous machines meant for warfare. I think it was by a well-known SF author, like, say, Robert Silverberg. I believe it dates back to the 1980s, could have encountered it in a collection of older stuff, but it's definitely post-60s, as integrated chips are mentioned explicitly as a resource.
In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
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