Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Found: The First Mechanical Gear in a Living Creature
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 24 (706503)
09-12-2013 5:54 PM


Link to the Popular Mechanics article
quote:
With two diminutive legs locked into a leap-ready position, the tiny jumper bends its body taut like an archer drawing a bow. At the top of its legs, a minuscule pair of gears engagetheir strange, shark-fin teeth interlocking cleanly like a zipper. And then, faster than you can blink, think, or see with the naked eye, the entire thing is gone. In 2 milliseconds it has bulleted skyward, accelerating at nearly 400 g'sa rate more than 20 times what a human body can withstand. At top speed the jumper breaks 8 mphquite a feat considering its body is less than one-tenth of an inch long.
How awesome is this!?

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 24 (706510)
09-12-2013 11:52 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by jar
09-12-2013 7:15 PM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
I remember seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about the familiar old "why do we breath through the same tube we eat through?" question (the problem being it leads to choking), and he had a great point: 'its not like its asking too much, dolphins already have it'
Yup, indeed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by jar, posted 09-12-2013 7:15 PM jar has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 12:25 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 24 (706520)
09-13-2013 9:46 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Jon
09-13-2013 12:25 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
Well, it does make speech a whole lot easier.
Easier? How would you know?
I understand the workings of the anatomy, but what are you comparing against to determine which has more ease?
Not only dolphins. Many other animals have separate breathing and eating tubes.
Thanks for being vague. Are you just talking about other Cetacea? 'Cause he was just speaking to an audience and making some light humor, we wouldn't expect him to be very thorough.
They also can't talk.
But dolphins can. And they're really smart. So its not that big of a stretch, which was his point.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 12:25 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 10:01 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 24 (706521)
09-13-2013 9:50 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by NoNukes
09-13-2013 8:27 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
Nothing talks except humans.
Yes and no. Talking is pretty talking much defined as a human thing.
But I think we could consider other animal's somatic auditory communications as "talking" in the sense that they're communicating information to one another with noises from their mouths.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by NoNukes, posted 09-13-2013 8:27 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by NoNukes, posted 09-17-2013 9:01 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 24 (706524)
09-13-2013 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Jon
09-13-2013 10:01 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
Artificial mechanisms have been constructed to compare the efficiency and utility of various setups for speech systems. The findings are always the same: The 90 positioning of the pharynx against the oral cavity allows for the most robust (=complex) system of sound production.
But your nasal passages could just go around all that and connect directly to the lungs. Now you can breath and eat at the same time.
Well, I was just speaking to some strangers on a forum replying to some light humor. So there's no need to expect me to be very specific.
I expect you to intend to be understood.
We've had other threads on this, but I can say here that no evidence of a communication system with complexities even slightly like those of human language has ever been found in non-human creatures.
That's beside the point that its not that big of a stretch for an intelligent designer to give us a breathing tube separate from the eating one.
But let's talk about this mechanical gear instead.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 10:01 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 11:10 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 24 (706531)
09-13-2013 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Jon
09-13-2013 11:10 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
Where the hell would all the air come from that we use to speak?
The same way it does now. You'd have an additional tube for nose-breathing.
And I was understood. Where's the problem?
You weren't understood. I still don't know what animals you were talking about.
But the eating tube and breathing tube have to connect to get the air from the lungs to pass through the oral cavityan essential process in the production of human speech sounds.
We could have two breathing tubes.
It's pretty cool. I wish I had one, or even several. But I imagine it would turn to mush in an instant trying to move any of my large and heavy body parts.
Especially if you were using it at the speeds this bug does. But you could employ it much slower and be okay. It'd prolly be helpful for lifting a lot of weight.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Jon, posted 09-13-2013 11:10 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Jon, posted 09-15-2013 11:22 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 24 (706711)
09-16-2013 6:18 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Jon
09-15-2013 11:22 PM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
We eat through the same hole we speak out of. Without changing that, there isn't any way to get the lungs to supply the speaking apparatuses with air unless we cross tubes somewhere.
Dolphins!. They talk out of their noses. And fairly well. Throw some kind of tongue-thingy in there and viola.
Here's a fairly interesting article that says:
quote:
its pitch is not defined by the size of its nasal air cavities, and hence that it is not whistling," Madsen said. "Rather, it makes sound by making connective tissue in the nose vibrate at the frequency it wishes to produce by adjusting the muscular tension and air flow over the tissue."
"That is the same way that we humans make sound with our vocal cords to speak," he added.
It was just a general point that it is rather common for creatures to have separate breathing and eating tubes.
Are you talking about mammals? Because its totally irrelevant that frogs breath through their skin, or bugs through their legs, or whatever the hell it is you're talking about.
The only mammals that I can think of right now that have that is the cetacae. And they all can talk pretty good from an animal perspective. The dolphins are just the poster child for cetacae and that's why they were used. If your response is that other createures, that aren't even mammals, can breath through a non-eating tube, then you've horribly missed the point, which is what I suspect is the case given you're avoidance of clarifying.
It seems that to 'wind up' the system would take as much energy as the system would give off (probably more).
You could incorporate some leverage to help for heavier functions.
I think the advantages really come from the gear's ability to store a large amount of energy and release it rapidly in a higher concentration.
I still think it could help with some, albeit slow, heavy lifting.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Jon, posted 09-15-2013 11:22 PM Jon has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024