The Ponderings of a Very Tired Man

Gendanken,

To be sure, I don't really know what this thread is truly asking, but there's a word for it that starts with a and ends with doxography.
Click to expand...

I know. I know.
I even wrote in the thread that I was too tired and that I should probably wait.

Basically, I was asking about water in the respiration cycle. But not only in respiration. Water is produced (again. I'm too tired to go digging through the text book for the exact details. People familiar with molecular biology (which is who I am particularly addressing) should know what I'm talking about.)...

Water is produced in several steps of the cycle. Both in the mitochondria and in the peroxisome. It's produced in respiration, but it's also produced in the series of proteins that produce the electron-motive force, also the citric cycle (Kreb Cycle?) I think...)

So. Basically my question centered on water and heat.

I know that the body needs water because of sweat. It overheats. So it sweats to cool down the body. Then it needs to replenish that water somehow. That's a given.

But I was just wondering about the exact uses of water in the cell. Sweat is a no-brainer. As is a solvent (is that the word) in the cytoplasm and plasma and the rest of the 'juicy bits'. But, is it utilized in any chemical reactions? Is it broken down or only created (in animal cells.... I suppose a discussion of plants would also be somewhat interesting...)

If there were a different method of cooling the body than sweating, would the water produced during the various stages of the various reactions produce enough to keep the animal alive without needing to drink?

Is this somehow utilized in desert animals?

I realize there's no perfectly efficient system and thus new water must always be introduced, but let's say the system is perfectly 'sealed'. Would new water need to be introduced? Would water need to be excreted?

See what I'm saying now?


Also. I asked about the peroxisomes because of the tangent of heat-production. The peroxisomes produce more heat than mitochondria? Is this correct? What is the decision procedure (if you want to call it that.... I imagine there's a technical term for it) that decides whether fatty acids are broken down in the peroxisomes or the mitochondria?


Basically. This thread is an invitation for anyone who knows anything about cellular biology to ramble on about this and other things. If you think it connects, it does. I'd be up for reading it.

I'm especially hoping to hear from Spurious, Hercules, maybe Charonz (not sure if this is exactly his thing....), and pershaps some others who have knowledge of these things.


Is this a bit more clear?


By the way, I was on the verge of heat stroke when I wrote this thread. Hence my motivation.



And. Billy T. Apologies for not making it yesterday. I've been wearing myself out lately (as this thread is evidence of) and I just wasn't up to responding to you yesterday. I don't want to fuck off your thread, but neither do I want to fuck it up. I'll get to it as soon as I feel up to it and I will pm you when I do. Deal?)



gendanken said:
acetylocaholine
Click to expand...

That's CoA. Coenzyme A. It contains Adenosine (or some variant thereof) if I remember right. And it is a vital part of the mitochondrial production of ATP.

I kid, I kid!!
Click to expand...

I HATE you!!!
(No, I don't.)

But at least we get to get togehter and roast Gustavio. Five minutes and counting....
Click to expand...

He's been dying with worry about you, you know. Poor boy.


Anonymous,

Well. You sorta are spamming. But, this is a bit of an addled thread to begin with. I'll admit it. Is it clearer now?


Spurious,

Thank you. More?



Billy T,

Peas are green solely so kids won't eat them....



Hey!
Looky there!
Roman gets it!

That would mean for every pound of sugar (glucose, not table sugar) you ate, you'd get just over half that back in water.

So why can't we just live off eating sugar?
Click to expand...

Good question.
It would appear that food is mostly converted to glucose anyway, right?
 
Mr. Annonymous:
Gustav, must you foist your unspeakable appetites on poor Gendanken, the poor man's only responding to Nexus.
Click to expand...
You read alot of Brit lit, don't you?

You've got this air of thesaurus and cricket written all over your posts.
I used to write like you in my Austen days (silly girl...)


mmm
darling girl
you returned
i am complete
Click to expand...
Nyet, not yet (all hail prose)

You owe me an apology and a dollar for every last 'dank ass' and 'piece of tail', rhetorical devices or not you hot sack of pigshit, you've ever imposed on my innocent person.
A complete human owns up to his faults and makes up for it.

Roman:
Faker.
 
gendanken said:
Nyet, not yet (all hail prose)

You owe me an apology and a dollar for every last 'dank ass' and 'piece of tail', rhetorical devices or not you hot sack of pigshit, you've ever imposed on my innocent person.
A complete human owns up to his faults and makes up for it.
Click to expand...

i apologize, dearest
i was young and clearly irrational
insane too
 
Ok….

So the question basically boils down to this:
If for every chemcial reaction in our body we are producing water and other molecules as endproducts, but still water, then why the need to drink water at all?

The average man has over 2 million sweat glands throughout his body.
A quick look tells me that on average, he will lose a liter of water per day in sweat, piss, and shit....but since we're being pedants here, we'll say micturations like urine and fecal matter.

This figure goes up with activity and that man being a social animal in constant movement, these figures are likely to fluctuate on levels far above whatever water levels produced by the lysing of glucose, for example, could ever meet.

If your own body cannot meet these demands, than your body will compesnate for it with a thirst signal ......is my opioniated guess.
This would be why we have to drink water.
 
Didn't think about piss and shit. A new method of excreting waste would also need to be developed. There are desert animals already that don't urinate, right? And their turds are little deserts themselves... dried and dessicated.

But, there is no completely sealed animal.

There are other fluids to consider too, of course.

The engineering requirements would be extreme to create an organism which is perfectly water-tight... but what then?

Just consider this an unrealistic gedanken that might shed some light on cellular workings from a different viewpoint than the mainstream...

Or. Just the product of a deranged mind. Take your pick.
 
Our ancestors came from the water. There was never any point in being watertight.
Click to expand...

Yes. But things change, don't they?
Many animals are adapted splendidly to a desert terrain, but none are perfect (and most likely never could be...) but. I'm just asking... what if?

Not interested? Or has it been too long since studying the workings of the topic? Hopefully somebody's fresh on the subject. If not... well. I guess I'll have to do some genetic engineering... put off that four-assed baboon and make a water-tight monkey instead...
Muaha!
 
Yes. Yes.
You sure you're not American?
You're really very utilitarian, you know.
McDonald's should really be your bag.

This is a gedanken.
A thought experiment.
I don't expect such a thing to ever happen.
I'm using this as a platform to ask questions on the importance and uses of water to animal (and plant) cells.
 
Arthropods are marvelously watertight. All that chitin.

Breathing, too, takes a whole bunch of water out of us. Isn't the breath we exhale close to 100% humidity?

Another question, then. For every unit of sucrose I eat, how much water do I get that's not necessary for respiration?
 
invert_nexus said:
Anonymous,

Well. You sorta are spamming. But, this is a bit of an addled thread to begin with. I'll admit it. Is it clearer now?
Click to expand...

Nonsense - the premise for the thread is superb, part and parcel of why I took an interest. I wanted to read the answers. Sorry about the the rest, just got pidoodling around with Spurious whilst we were waiting and then, my, doesn't the time just fly by... ;)

Unreserved apologies, no more feeding the troglodytes. Scouts honour.


Gendanken said:
You read alot of Brit lit, don't you?

You've got this air of thesaurus and cricket written all over your posts.
I used to write like you in my Austen days (silly girl...)
Click to expand...

:) .... Actually, the one thing I never voluntarily choose to read is literature, English or otherwise - can't abide the stuff, detest it with a passion. Give me a choice between saving the last copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare or the last Stephen King from combustion, there I'll be toasting m'crumpets over the embers of the Bard whilst thumbing through the first 631 pages of chapter one of the King...

There's really nothing quite like the study of "literature" to instill an abiding appreciation for everything which isn't... ;)
 
Roman said:
Arthropods are marvelously watertight. All that chitin.
Click to expand...

Lobsters aren't watertight. Insects aren't watertight. They breath with the trachea. I suspect there is waterloss there too.

edit.

but you were right of course.

When the exoskeleton of uniramians and chelicerates first evolved in the seas, its main functions were probably protection and anchorage for muscles; but it eventually helped certain arthropods live on land. The cuticle (shell) is relatively impermeable to water, helping to prevent water loss.
Click to expand...

I was being anal.
 
Last edited:
The point being that it is not easy to change the basics you start with.
Click to expand...
It took the pepper moth a mere 50 years to go from grey to black and back to grey again periodically.

While not changing the anatomical basics (in other words, grey moths did not change into black ones in 50 year cycles), you are changing the basics of selective pressures *snap* just like that.
Same with the Australian black swan.
Just like gendanken.
Click to expand...
Touche (cocksucker...)

Nexus:
Didn't think about piss and shit. A new method of excreting waste would also need to be developed. There are desert animals already that don't urinate, right? And their turds are little deserts themselves... dried and dessicated.

But, there is no completely sealed animal.

There are other fluids to consider too, of course.
Click to expand...
I don't ...think so.
Perspiration (which includes all forms of water evaporating), respiration, urination, and defecation are the only methods by which all organisms lose water.

Find another one and I'll pull a hair out.

As for a completely sealed organism, the closest genius is the kangaroo rat which purportedly never drinks water in its lifetime and has learned to trap the air it exhales with the curvature of its tunnels. In other words, its learned how to recycle the moisture it loses when breathing.

You and I piss and shit urea compounds, which is soluble and takes a lot of water along with it. Desert birds and reptiles and this little rodent here excrete pure uric acid, which is basically solid and contains little to no moisture.

Is it possible to have an organism that loses NO water at all? Absolutely not, unless you covered up every last hole, pore, and cavity in its body.

Anonymous:
.... Actually, the one thing I never voluntarily choose to read is literature, English or otherwise - can't abide the stuff, detest it with a passion. Give me a choice between saving the last copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare or the last Stephen King from combustion, there I'll be toasting m'crumpets over the embers of the Bard whilst thumbing through the first 631 pages of chapter one of the King...

There's really nothing quite like the study of "literature" to instill an abiding appreciation for everything which isn't...
Click to expand...
No wonder thy prose is so kitsch.

You ridicule William, as if one ever could.
Because you’ve never once experienced the rapture of reading a line he’s cut across the very arteries of bulky philsophies, bleeding them dry of all that wordy overmuch by capturing what they never could so simply and neatly in 9 little words

“As boys to wanton flys are we to gods….” Sartre, for all his hot gas, could never capture this same idea in such a beautiful, razor sharp snap.
Shame on you!!
 
Roman,

Breathing, too, takes a whole bunch of water out of us. Isn't the breath we exhale close to 100% humidity?
Click to expand...

Yup. Yup. Yup.
There's another avenue of moisture loss.
How could I forget the lessons of Dune?
Christ. I start a simple little thread and completely neglect the many avenues of water loss other than sweating....

I guess you'd lose some from your eyes too. Minimal, of course, but still a loss.


Gendanken,

Find another one and I'll pull a hair out.
Click to expand...

Well. I'm being nit-picky here, but if you were to pick a nit then it'd have to be pubic lice to be in the same area of the fluid I've in mind....

Again. This would be a minimal loss, but still a debit to the water account.


Then, of course, we all bleed. Desert animals would adapt to clot blood quickly so as to minimize blood loss.


I bet a perfectly watertight creature could be designed. But, it'd be a cumbersome bastard, I bet.

As for a completely sealed organism, the closest genius is the kangaroo rat which purportedly never drinks water in its lifetime and has learned to trap the air it exhales with the curvature of its tunnels. In other words, its learned how to recycle the moisture it loses when breathing.
Click to expand...

And other desert animals, of course. (Although perhaps none as well-adapted as the kangaroo rat.) Many animals never take a drink in their lives. They get all the water they require from their food.

Is it possible to have an organism that loses NO water at all? Absolutely not, unless you covered up every last hole, pore, and cavity in its body.
Click to expand...

Perhaps even have a dual-layer of some sort. Make the exterior layer a coolant that can be quickly reabsorbed if a wound should occur. The inner layer would hold all the vital organs and etc....

I bet it would look like something from Lovecraft.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie and in stranger eons even death may die..."

The elder ones were pretty efficiently designed...

Shame on you!!
Click to expand...

Shame on you!
(I expected far worse from you. The man just ridiculed Shakespeare!)


Anonymous,

Unreserved apologies, no more feeding the troglodytes. Scouts honour.
Click to expand...

No sweat. (Ha!)
I begin to wonder if any molecular biologists will have anything to say? Hercules seems to have his hands full discussing homosexuality...
 
Inverted Nexus said:
No sweat. (Ha!)
I begin to wonder if any molecular biologists will have anything to say? Hercules seems to have his hands full discussing homosexuality...
Click to expand...

I'm deeply pleased to hear that first part, but I'm not surprised to hear answers to your question being somewhat unforthcoming - it's a deceptively difficult matter to actually pin down. I pondered it for several hours before conceding I'm out of m'depth with solutions - hence the interest.

As to that thread (that statement regarding natural sexuality), I'm keeping my neck well out of it. It'll take three months at the outset just to settle who's teeth should be kicked in first, let alone posit a descent question....

Brains, eh? Everyones got 'em....

gendanken said:
Anonymous:

No wonder thy prose is so kitsch.

You ridicule William, as if one ever could.
Because you’ve never once experienced the rapture of reading a line he’s cut across the very arteries of bulky philsophies, bleeding them dry of all that wordy overmuch by capturing what they never could so simply and neatly in 9 little words

“As boys to wanton flys are we to gods….” Sartre, for all his hot gas, could never capture this same idea in such a beautiful, razor sharp snap.
Shame on you!!
Click to expand...

:) ... Oh, don't get me wrong here - I comprehend, understand and appreciate Shakespeare every ounce as well as the next, it's just by matter of preference I prefer a straight forward yarn about nothing in particular as apposed to much a do about very little in the first place.

There's a difference. Prose has its place in the world, but I'm much more inclined to want to hear about what a person actually thinks, not what books they have read.

I'm a thoroughly disreputable sort like that.... ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top