WATER AND LIFE
Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it. So if you find water somewhere else, it becomes a remarkable draw to look closer to see if life of any kind is there, even if it's bacterial, which would be extraordinary for the field of biology.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
Life in water
https://twistedsifter.com/2014/05/magnified-seawater-by-david-littschwager/magnified-seawater-by-david-littschwager-4/
Always water is associated with life. As the quot says where there is water there is life. Water is always associated with life. It is because of its important properties. The special properties of water make it so unique that the life on earth has evolved with it. Data says that on Earth we have 3% of pure water of which 0.5% is in liquid form. You may think that 3% among 100% is a very small quantity among the growing population. I may say no because 3% is so huge that it has been serving as our only water source for hundreds of years. So it is our lack of attention has caused water problems in many major cities and low profile villages.
In this we will know how water supports life. It is very important to understand it because without water we humans are out of life in 3 to 5 days. "Even though water is a nonliving thing it is the origin of living things."
What makes water so important for life?
Every drop of naturally available drop of water contains life in it. If we see at a very basic yet fascinating form of life, a single celled organism say amoeba. The most essential function for any thing is to do work in order to survive. Say take a engine if you do not give fuel it will not run and at the same time if the exhaust is not opened the engine will collapse. So the same principle apply to a living organism in order to survive, let it be a singled cell organism or the great blue whale. Their process may be different but their functions ate the same. So to do work, energy is needed.
Again take a engine, a fuel essentially contains carbon in it. As in solid form carbon is nothing but coal. Let me ask you, If you put coal in your car or bike will it run? No. So the carbon in liquid form is the fuel i.e. petrol or diesel. So due to the nature and availability of fuel in nature the liquid form and the gaseous from are dominant (Flossie fuel and natural gas). So by nature it can be seen that the liquid form is very important medium through which we can get energy. In a similar way due to ease of availability of water in liquid form in the normal surface temperate of earth. Water can be a essential medium to gain energy.
Water is nicked named as the universal solvent. which means that water can dissolve all the kinds elements and molecules of its type. As we can see the petrol or diesel that we use for the vehicles are not the pure form of fossil fuels or natural gas. Some additive like sulfur, lead other types of oxygents (helps to burn fast) are added so that the efficiency and the output of the fuel will increase in order to power the engine in a more efficient way. So for organisms these additives are called as nutrients, which are essentially our food in a primary view point. Now due to the polar nature of water and as most of the nutrients found in nature are in the polar or ionic form they easily stay with water naturally. Even rain water will contain small amount of nutrients. These nutrients are not available like a butter block, they are trapped in the earth's surface, So as water runs in the land it takes all the nutrients available add becomes a potential carrier of nutrients, which is the primary form of energy providers to the living organisms.
Salt dissolved in water
http://web.fscj.edu/Milczanowski/psc/lect/Ch10/slide914.jpg
So, the liquid form and the unique nature if water to dissolve many things due to its polarity makes it a important part of life.
How water does its job?
Take the amoeba. The function can be better explained using this single celled organism. Like our skin which protects us from the environment and helps to feel the surrounding and helps to cool the body. In a similar way the amoeba has a outer membrane which separates the organism from the environment. It also has other functions. As we humans have mouth to eat and leave out the waste through urine and stool. Amoeba dose not have such things, so the membrane acts as inlet and outlet.
Real picture of a amoeba, taking its food.
http://bio1903.nicerweb.com/Locked/media/ch28/amoeba.html
Note on membrane
Technically a membrane is a thin flexible sheet forming a barrier or a lining. So in living organisms each organisms has a membrane. Even our skin is a membrane. Essentially we can carry thing on the other side of the membrane by creating pressure difference. So it can act as a barrier from one side and act as a channel from the other side.
Egg membrane. This is how a membrane looks.
https://theuijunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/eggmembrane.jpg
Which medium is good for making the membrane efficient
A membrane is very thin and sensitive even some membrane breaks due to loud sound, So when something is passed through a membrane it should be smooth and harmless.
Consider gas, gases are very smooth but there is a problem with it. It requires lots of energy to store it in a confined place like our body. Next take solid, not all solids have a smooth surface and mostly they are available as a bulk matter so it will harm the membrane ( To imagine the above, consider your sweet coming like vapor from a pressure cooker top and rock salt coming out of your skin).So water is left.
Water being a good solvent of nutrients which are mostly ionic or polar dissolve in it. As water has the ability to flow the dissolve contents do not accumulate is single place. thus making it smooth and easy to transport.
A Cross section of real plant cell membrane
Burton, R., Gidley, M. & Fincher, G. Heterogeneity in the chemistry, structure and function of plant cell walls. Nat Chem Biol 6, 724–732 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.439
Unicellular organisms and water
Consider a single living cell, let is be of plants or animals. a cell as a membrane (plant cell have two of them).Now to gain energy the cell needs the nutrients or essentially the food. As water dissolve it. Through the process of osmosis (movement of substance through membrane due to pressure) the water along with the nutrients enter the cell and the the energy is produced. Now after producing energy the left our (waste) should get out of the body, so again the water inside the cell's body dissolve them and it is extract out of the body through the membrane. The same thing happens with us, instead of taking water through our skin we take though our mouth and let it out through urine or stool.
Unicellular organism in water
https://www.micropia.nl/en/discover/microbiology/Ciliates_en/
this is how water does its job.
Water and underwater life.
Even here a unique property of water to dissolve gas comes to play. Essentially the most common sea animal is the fish. let's see how water helps a fish (This may be a hysterical en-query but it is important to understand it). Fish also needs oxygen to live but not as liquid oxygen but as gas oxygen that we use to breath. So a fish do not make any special reaction with water to extract oxygen from it.
One more specialty of water
Water is unique in many ways. Water not only dissolve liquid or solids like minerals, it also dissolve the gases in the atmosphere. As there are some space between the the molecules of water the gases get trapped between the molecules. Oxygen is on of the gas that get trapped in water. So the sea water contains dissolved oxygen.
As fish have gills, they are naturally designed to get the dissolved oxygen from water and release oxygenated water. By this way the life in water lead their life. even underwater plants do the same.
This how a water breaths.
https://nessf.org/how-do-fish-breathe-the-science-behind-gills/
Water and humans
Water contains every thing a human wants in order to live. All the food we eat do give us the energy to do work but it produces lots of waste. Essentially all the metabolic process inside our body occurs due to the liquids present in it. As water contains salt, essentially sodium ions, they are responsible for our motor movement because they conduct the electrical signals from our brain to our toes. You cant just take a sodium bar and eat because it will kill you only water can provide that sodium in ionic form.
Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. So water is essentially a important part of of our human body. It also helps the body to clean from inside and outside. As water is the main content of blood i.e. 90% of blood contains water. So the absorbed nutrients is carried out all over the body by blood (red colored water). As we know there is good blood and bad blood. The good blood contains all the nutrients and the bad blood contains all the waste like carbon dioxide, urea and many types of acids which are harmful for our body. Thus the drainage system inside our body is run by water.
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/nutraceutical/about/rehydration/water/body-fluid/
Due to this reason we need to drink water.
Drinking water can be poisonous to human
Yes, large intake of water will lead to many problems. As more water is in the body the lungs will have a problem in its functioning, the nutrients will become diluted, the amount of sat become low ant there will be a efficiency of sodium. So over hydration will cause problems like water intoxication, Hyponatremia. It even causes the brain cell to cause to swell causing high pressure in the brain.
Cerebral oedema due to water intoxication. Plain brain CT scan revealed marked swelling of the sulcus at the frontal lobe and narrowing of cerebral ventricles at re-admission. Following the discontinuation of CY treatment and fluid restriction, hyponatraemia was promptly restored by 72 h without any disorientation. CT scan also revealed no cerebral oedema at hospital Day 10. Abbreviations are CT: computed tomography and CY: cyclophosphamide.
T1 - Water intoxication induced by low-dose oral cyclophosphamide in a patient with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-related glomerulonephritis
VL - 1
DO - 10.1093/ndtplus/sfn076
JO - NDT plus
ER -
THUS WATER IS VERY IMPORTANT IN OUR LIFE, IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE THINGS AROUND US AND ACT ACCORDINGLY.
The series W - Water a.k.a clear water is over
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Hope this article was useful and I hope you learnt something from it.
If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.
For previous articles on this follow the following link
W5: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/06/w5-scientific-values-of-water.html
W4: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w4-structure-and-states-of-water.html
W3: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w3-mythological-stories-about-creation.html#more
W2: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w2-scientific-exploration-of-origins-of.html
W1: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html
Watermarks will mark you
ReplyDeleteSeems good. Detailed writing. Keep it up !
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