Manna rains from heaven (RAR)

[FaxModem1]

Due to act by divine being, everyday except the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), before sunrise, manna rains from the lowest cloud layer and falls to the ground in populated areas. If there's a fishing boat alone in the Pacific Ocean, it will rain manna on the fishing boat.

Like the biblical manna, it spoils after 1 day, and cannot be preserved. Aside from Friday's batch, which can be used for the Sabbath.

How does this affect the world?

[Solauren]

Due to act by divine being, everyday except the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), before sunrise, manna rains from the lowest cloud layer and falls to the ground in populated areas. If there's a fishing boat alone in the Pacific Ocean, it will rain manna on the fishing boat.

Like the biblical manna, it spoils after 1 day, and cannot be preserved. Aside from Friday's batch, which can be used for the Sabbath.

How does this affect the world?

Well, for one, world hunger was just solved in the short term.

Long term, this could seriously effect food production. Why buy food when there is free Manna? That puts farmers out of work, and devastates the entire food industry.

Then, if the Manna stops, we have no reserves.

[Majin Gojira]

Well, for one, world hunger was just solved in the short term.

Long term, this could seriously effect food production. Why buy food when there is free Manna? That puts farmers out of work, and devastates the entire food industry.

Then, if the Manna stops, we have no reserves.

The long-term you describe really does depend on what the mana tastes like. Sure you CAN eat mana, but do you really want to?

Also, if humans can eat it, so can almost everything else that scavenges human food sources. So all sorts of pests and vermin will have a population boom.

[LadyTevar]

Manna would get damned boring after a while. Me, I prefer sushi.

[Solauren]

The long-term you describe really does depend on what the mana tastes like. Sure you CAN eat mana, but do you really want to?

I was thinking more in religiously strong areas. Even if Manna tasted like regurigated, refried horse crap, there are people that are so devotedly religious, they'd eat it anyway.

That would lead to a lower demand in food over all. That would lower food production to meet the lower demand.

Then remove Manna, and you not have a problem.

Hell, would make an awesome planetary conquest tactic.

[Raw Shark]

Doesn't manna taste like coriander? If so, me and 25% of the population are fucked. We'd have to pay elevated prices for food we can actually eat, because it tastes like soap to us. My body reacts to coriander/cilantro not as, "bad-tasting food," but as, "NOT FOOD SPIT IT OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"

[LaCroix]

Doesn't manna taste like coriander? If so, me and 25% of the population are fucked. We'd have to pay elevated prices for food we can actually eat, because it tastes like soap to us. My body reacts to coriander/cilantro not as, "bad-tasting food," but as, "NOT FOOD SPIT IT OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"

#MeToo

Also - nutrition deficits incoming... there is no way manna as single source of nutrition will not fuck your body up in medium to longterm.

[Crazedwraith]

Doesn't manna taste like coriander? If so, me and 25% of the population are fucked. We'd have to pay elevated prices for food we can actually eat, because it tastes like soap to us. My body reacts to coriander/cilantro not as, "bad-tasting food," but as, "NOT FOOD SPIT IT OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"

In the Hebrew Bible, manna is described twice: once in Exodus 16:1-36 with the full narrative surrounding it, and once again in Numbers 11:1-9 as a part of a separate narrative. In the description in the Book of Exodus, manna is described as being "a fine, flake-like thing" like the frost on the ground.[3] It is described in the Book of Numbers as arriving with the dew during the night.[4] Exodus adds that manna was comparable to hoarfrost in size,[3] similarly had to be collected before it was melted by the heat of the sun,[5] and was like a coriander seed that is white.[6] Numbers describes it as having the appearance of bdellium,[7] adding that the Israelites ground it and pounded it into cakes, which were then baked, resulting in something that tasted like cakes baked with oil.[8] Exodus states that raw manna tasted like wafers that had been made with honey.[6] The Israelites were instructed to eat only the manna they had gathered for each day. Stored manna "bred worms and stank":[9] the exception being that stored the day before the Sabbath (Preparation Day), when twice the amount of manna was gathered. This manna did not spoil overnight, because, Exodus 16:23-24 states:

Looks like coriander in appearance, not alike in taste.

[LadyTevar]

Scholars have long debated what Manna could have been, and Wiki helpfully provides a summary of the most popular theories. I myself had only heard of the Fungi Theory.

Identification

Some scholars have proposed that manna is cognate with the Egyptian term mennu, meaning "food",[14] a term that has never been attested to in history. At the turn of the twentieth century, Arabs of the Sinai Peninsula were selling resin from the tamarisk tree as man es-simma, roughly meaning "heavenly manna".[15] Tamarisk trees (particularly Tamarix gallica) were once comparatively extensive throughout the southern Sinai, and their resin is similar to wax, melts in the sun, is sweet and aromatic (like honey), and has a dirty-yellow color, fitting somewhat with the Biblical descriptions of manna.[16][17] However, this resin is mostly composed of sugar, so it would be unlikely to provide sufficient nutrition for a population to survive over long periods of time,[16] and it would be very difficult for it to have been compacted into cakes.[17]

Other researchers have believed manna to be a form of lichen - a plant colony that often has a low mass per unit volume density and a large "sail area." In particular, Lecanora esculenta has been postulated. Known natural aerial falls of various lichens have been described as occurring in accounts separate from that in the bible. "In some parts of Asia Lecanora esculenta covers the soil to such a degree that, according to Parrot, it forms beds 15 to 20 centimetres thick."[18][19]

In the Biblical account, the name manna is said to derive from the question man hu, seemingly meaning "What is it?";[20] this is perhaps an Aramaic etymology, not a Hebrew one.[17] Man is possibly cognate with the Arabic term man, meaning plant lice, with man hu thus meaning "this is plant lice",[17] which fits one widespread modern identification of manna, the crystallized honeydew of certain scale insects.[17][21] In the environment of a desert, such honeydew rapidly dries due to evaporation of its water content, becoming a sticky solid, and later turning whitish, yellowish, or brownish;[17] honeydew of this form is considered a delicacy in the Middle East, and is a good source of carbohydrates.[21] In particular, there is a scale insect that feeds on tamarisk, the Tamarisk manna scale (Trabutina mannipara), which is often considered to be the prime candidate for biblical manna.[22][23]

Another type is turkey oak manna, also called Persian gezengevi- gezo, men, Turkish Kudret helvasi, man-es-simma, also Diarbekir manna, or Kurdish manna. It is formed by aphids and appears white. It was common in western Iran, northern Iraq and eastern Turkey. When dried it forms into crystalline lumps which are hard and look like stone. They are pounded before inclusion in breads.[24]

A number of ethnomycologists, including Terence McKenna,[25] have suggested that most characteristics of manna are similar to that of Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, notorious breeding grounds for insects, which decompose rapidly. These peculiar fungi naturally produce a number of molecules that resemble human neurochemicals, and first appear as small fibres (mycelia) that resemble hoarfrost. Psilocybin, the primary psychoactive molecule in the "Psilocybe cubensis" mushroom, has been shown to produce spiritual experiences, with "personal meaning and spiritual significance" when test subjects were evaluated 14 months later.[26] The speculation that manna was an entheogen, also paralleled in Philip K. Dick's posthumously published The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, is supported in a wider cultural context when compared with the praise of soma in the Rigveda, Mexican praise of teonanácatl, the peyote sacrament of the Native American Church, and the holy ayahuasca used in the ritual of the União do Vegetal and Santo Daime churches.[27]

Other minority identifications of manna are that it was a kosher species of locust,[28] or that it was the sap of certain succulent plants (such as those of the genus Alhagi, which have an appetite-suppressing effect).[29]

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm wondering on two things out of hand, one is how bad is this going to be for storm sewers systems and drainage in general anywhere developed, and two anywhere that isn't aggressive at collecting it what's the vermin problem going to become like. Without knowing what it really is its hard to know either one's answer.