6 ms·

Survival Of The Sluggish: Scientists Find An Upside To A Low Metabolism

50 points by IndrekR 8y ago

justinator 8y ago
> New research suggests one effective evolutionary strategy: be lazy. Now research Impatience and Hubris!
- rfugger 8y ago
  > Now research Impatience and Hubris! Do it fast, but we already know the answer.
jmount 8y ago
In some science fiction movies (for example "Life", "The Green Slime") the alien life forms grow incredibly fast. If that works or is possible, it makes one wonder why no terrestrial life-form didn't adapt a similar strategy. In the above movies the fast life-form in question does come from a dead planet (the probable outcome of such strategy, but not really something evolution has enough time to select against).
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"In some science fiction movies (for example "Life", "The Green Slime") the alien life forms grow incredibly fast. If that works or is possible, it makes one wonder why no terrestrial life-form didn't adapt a similar strategy." Really? Bacteria can divide every twenty minutes and human T-cells once per hour. Lets say you've got one bacteria cell living in your pipes at midnight, by the next day you could have up to 2^(3*24) = 4.722366e+21 cells. At 1e-15 kg per cell[1], that would be 4,722,366 kg worth of them. The limiting factor is food, not ability to divide. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29
  - jmount 8y ago
    And in the movies the life forms don't limit division, and probably exhausted the food (hence the barren planets they come from).
    - nonbel 8y ago
      The mass of the earth is ~6e24 kg[1]. That would require 133 divisions: 2^(133)*1e-15 = 1e25 which works out to under two days. I'm just saying that life can grow very fast under the right conditions... Do you really want it to be able to grow faster than go from a single cell to the size of the earth in 2 days? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass
      - jmount 8y ago
        No, I don't believe I said that. I think I mentioned it would be bad in the first note. It just is if something could do that in general conditions it is an absorbing or end-state.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    Cancer risk and replication error could also be a limiting factor.
majos 8y ago
Relevant animals: greenland sharks. ~20 ft sharks slowly, slowly drifting at approximately 0.5 mph around the North Atlantic and killing time until they bump into some edible decomposing thing. They reach sexual maturity at about 150 and kick off around 400 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

50 points by IndrekR 8y ago

justinator 8y ago

> New research suggests one effective evolutionary strategy: be lazy. Now research Impatience and Hubris!

rfugger 8y ago
> Now research Impatience and Hubris! Do it fast, but we already know the answer.

jmount 8y ago

In some science fiction movies (for example "Life", "The Green Slime") the alien life forms grow incredibly fast. If that works or is possible, it makes one wonder why no terrestrial life-form didn't adapt a similar strategy. In the above movies the fast life-form in question does come from a dead planet (the probable outcome of such strategy, but not really something evolution has enough time to select against).

nonbel 8y ago
>"In some science fiction movies (for example "Life", "The Green Slime") the alien life forms grow incredibly fast. If that works or is possible, it makes one wonder why no terrestrial life-form didn't adapt a similar strategy." Really? Bacteria can divide every twenty minutes and human T-cells once per hour. Lets say you've got one bacteria cell living in your pipes at midnight, by the next day you could have up to 2^(3*24) = 4.722366e+21 cells. At 1e-15 kg per cell[1], that would be 4,722,366 kg worth of them. The limiting factor is food, not ability to divide. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29
- jmount 8y ago
  And in the movies the life forms don't limit division, and probably exhausted the food (hence the barren planets they come from).
  - nonbel 8y ago
    The mass of the earth is ~6e24 kg[1]. That would require 133 divisions: 2^(133)*1e-15 = 1e25 which works out to under two days. I'm just saying that life can grow very fast under the right conditions... Do you really want it to be able to grow faster than go from a single cell to the size of the earth in 2 days? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass
    - jmount 8y ago
      No, I don't believe I said that. I think I mentioned it would be bad in the first note. It just is if something could do that in general conditions it is an absorbing or end-state.
- fossuser 8y ago
  Cancer risk and replication error could also be a limiting factor.

majos 8y ago

Relevant animals: greenland sharks. ~20 ft sharks slowly, slowly drifting at approximately 0.5 mph around the North Atlantic and killing time until they bump into some edible decomposing thing. They reach sexual maturity at about 150 and kick off around 400 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark