5 ms·
Gravity definitely plays a role in biology - blood flow is probably the most straightforward example.
by pharrington 7y ago
Gravity definitely plays a role in biology - blood flow is probably the most straightforward example.
- ceejayoz 7y agoGravity plays a role in Earth biology. It does not necessarily play a role in all biology.
- ncmncm 7y agoAny biology that developed without a gravitational gradient would definitely be affected by finding itself in one. It would probably not be, strictly speaking, biological for long. Technically, it would become "goo".
- ceejayoz 7y agoThat humans are damaged by boiling water doesn't mean boiling water plays a role in our everyday biology.
- soulofmischief 7y agoWater does, though. So in this case gravity would be the water and boiling water would be a black hole. One could argue boiling water adds entropy to a system (if its power source comes from outside the system) and that it's worth studying the effects of this added entropy in detail. Like how far do I need to be from the water to maintain homeostasis? Does the heated air around the water create small currents which cause a thunderstorm in Kansas? Testing these kinds of questions is essential to the scientific progress we've made which even allows us to definitively say what water is and isn't.
- ncmncm 7y agoTrue. But the design of our circulatory system (to the degree we can talk about a "design") certainly is tuned the conventional gravitational gradient. E.g we have one-way valves in our leg veins to help keep blood from all pooling down there. Likewise, our bones are continually restructuring their interiors according to the stresses resulting from experience of weight. I don't know of any evidence that the bone cells involved experience the weight directly, independent of the stress. There is pretty good evidence that they are responding directly, instead, to piezoelectric currents generated by the stress. So, if the bone cells aren't experiencing gravitation, unmediated, their organelles certainly aren't.
- atoav 7y agoBecause earth biology developed within a gravity environment.
- soulofmischief 7y agoWe don't know of any instances of life which developed "without gravity", whatever that means, since an object interacts with itself gravitationally. What would such a form of life look like? We don't know the full role gravity plays in the formation of life.
- atoav 7y agoMy intuition as somebody who worked in VFX with self affecting gravity and spent some time looking at simulations would be that self-effects are usually too small to really play a role in environments where all other forces are many magnitudes bigger. But intuitions are often wrong, which is why looking at things in a micro gravity environment makes sense. This is why we do weak gravity experiments in the ISS right?
- soulofmischief 7y agoYep, all I'm saying is it's necessary at some point to do experiments around this to further our understanding.