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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 wo

by 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.

by jmount 8y ago

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.