biology - Where does the energy come from in the Dune ecosystem?

In Frank Herbert's Dune books, the planet Arrakis has an interesting and well thought-out alien ecology. As summarised in this answer, the sandworms eat sandplankton (which consists, at least in part, of larval sandworms), while the sandplankton eat the spice, which is produced by side-effects of the sandworm life cycle.

However, one thing has always bothered me about this: where does the energy come from? On Earth, most ecosystems are powered ultimately by sunlight, while others are powered by chemotrophy. But either way, you need a source of energy or life can't survive.

There seems to be no substantial photosynthesis on Dune, since the planet is almost all either open sand or bare rock. (Some plants are mentioned, but they are all familiar Earth species and were presumably brought there by humans.) Perhaps the sand plankton, or even the sandtrouts or the sandworms themselves, are autotrophs --- but if so, where do they get their energy from? In short, where are the primary producers of the Dune ecosystem, and what do they eat?

To the best of my knowledge, this issue isn't mentioned in the original book, but Herbert wrote a lot of sequels, and it seems that having a plausible ecology is something he cared about, so I'm wondering if he addressed this point in any of his later works.

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futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

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.

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...

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