Posted on 04/02/2009 4:46:24 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Envying the Tooth of the Sea Urchin
March 31, 2009 — Did you know the lowly sea urchin has a tooth? It’s not just any tooth: it’s “a remarkable grinding tool,” according to a team of international scientists. They even used the word “exquisite”
in the title of their paper in PNAS.1 Humans might benefit from knowing more about this tool. “The improved understanding of these structural features,” they said, “could lead to the design of better mechanical grinding and cutting tools.”
The sea urchin “tooth” is not really a tooth, but a hard rod with a serrated edge used for crushing the animal’s food (see description at Univ. of Wisconsin about the work of Pupa Gilbert, one of the co-authors). The urchin tooth, which grinds down hard limestone, has the hardness of teeth in higher animals. “Even though the tooth is composed almost entirely of calcite, it is used to grind holes into a rocky substrate itself often composed of calcite,” the abstract from the paper reads. It continues—
Here, we use 3 complementary high-resolution tools to probe aspects of the structure of the grinding tip: X-ray photoelectron emission spectromicroscopy (X-PEEM), X-ray microdiffraction, and NanoSIMS. We confirm that the needles and plates are aligned and show here that even the high Mg [magnesium] polycrystalline matrix constituents are aligned with the other 2 structural elements when imaged at 20-nm resolution. Furthermore, we show that the entire tooth is composed of 2 cooriented polycrystalline blocks that differ in their orientations by only a few degrees.The slight misalignment and interdigitation appears to provide a functional advantage, they found. It provides a corrugated edge that fractures along its cleavage planes so as not to fracture the tooth but actually sharpen it as it cuts. “We also note that in this model, the edges of the individual plates would remain anatomically sharp due to cleavage along the {104} planes, and the cleavage would probably not propagate through the whole tooth tip because of the small misalignment between neighboring plates.” In other words, even the apparent misalignment has a function. They said, in conclusion,A unique feature of the grinding tip is that the structural elements from each coaligned block interdigitate. This interdigitation may influence the fracture process by creating a corrugated grinding surface. We also show that the overall Mg content of the tooth structural elements increases toward the grinding tip. This probably contributes to the increasing hardness of the tooth from the periphery to the tip. Clearly the formation of the tooth, and the tooth tip in particular, is amazingly well controlled.
The mature sea urchin tooth possesses incredible structural and compositional complexity. Here, we show the presence of crystalline blocks composed of 3 different coaligned elements: needles, plates, and polycrystalline matrix. We also show that the tip, and presumably the whole tooth, is composed essentially of 2 such coaligned blocks that differ in their orientations by [less than] 6°.The blocks are also interdigitated in the tip. Furthermore, the Mg concentrations increase toward the center of the tooth tip. We propose that all of these features contribute to the grinding capability of the tooth. A deep understanding of the structural
design features of the tooth tip sheds light on the manner in which one crystalline phase, calcite, can be tailored to fulfill grinding and self-sharpening functions that enable the tooth to be used to grind holes into a substrate that is also composed only of calcite. Much can be learned from the sea urchin tooth that can be applied to the development of improved grinding and cutting tools.
USA, published online before print March 30, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0810300106.
All together, everyone: how much was said about evolution in this paper? ZILCH! Instead, they used the D word design: they wanted to gain a “deep understanding of the structural design features” of this “exquisite” grinding tool to learn how we might tailor our own bottom-up nanofabrication of crystals to fulfill functions useful to us. This paper had intelligent design all over it – in the research, in the understanding, and in the application.Show this to your biology teacher and tell him or her that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of design.”
“Notice your little creatures first have to have the red or green glows appear for no reason whatsoever.”
It was a simplified explanation of natural selection. Not macro evolution which you are now talking about. I said the The red or green glow simply so there were limited variables. But the red or green glow could easily have an explanation, for example it’s biological process includes an indicator which is green under acidic conditions and and red under basic conditions. This color had nothing to do with it’s survival and was simply a byproduct of past evolution.
“may be a 500 element structure”
Please re read before you post. I didn’t say it was a 500 element structure.
The glow requires an operating blood supply, healing system, aspiration devices, temperature monitoring system, immune system, and four hundred other “in place” mechanisms all working in perfect harmony BEFORE the glow would even survive the first day.
A simple creature requires none of that except maybe a blood supply.
Self-Directed Intelligent Evolutionary Design. The sea urchin knew that it needed a better tool for grinding hard limestone, so it directed itself to design the desired mechanism in its future generations. OK, OK, how about this one: The limestone instructed the sea urchin on the proper design of a tooth through a chemical process which caused, through random trial and error over billions of years, the necessary mutations in the DNA of the sea urchin to eventually develop the proper grinding mechanism. Yes. Yes. I’m sure that’s what happened.
My comments about directed mutation had nothing to do with the sea urchin. Google directed or (the more politically correct) adaptive mutation. And while you’re at it, Google epigenetic inheritance. It will be a real eye opener for you.
Amen!
Yeah! Then have the clergy design torture devices for the blaspheming engineers! Maybe some kind of boring device that employs an interdigitating feature (I just had to use that word)!
When I was in HS I developed the theory of God directed evolution. It is as valid today as ever. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Evolution directed itself to form man in the form of a monkey because a monkey was the best form that evolution could imagine a man may evolve from. (Evolution first tried using the French Bulldog, but they kept capitulating.) God, in his infinite wisdom, simply waited until the monkey was ready, grabbed one male and one female, breathed intelligent life into them and viola...you!
"The Iron Pocket Protector" has a nice ring to it.
LOL!
“Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.”
The “Draft Table Rack”.
Thanks for the ping!
If you do not stop making sense, I’m afraid I’ll have to congratulate you.
Precisely the problem. It requires a blood supply. And a blood supply requires a pump mechanism, a cleansing mechansim, an aspiration mechanism, and has a shelf life of 30 seconds before it begins to rot without such.
Now, let’s get this organism to fire off a blood supply, together with all of its accompanying mechanisms at exactly the same momemt. Why? Because the pump mechanism needs, yes, a blood supply a cleansing mechansim, a healing system, a repair system, an aspiration mechanism, and has a shelf life of 45 seconds before it begins to decay with such. The “blood supply” is itself a complex set of interactive and interdependent systems, none of which could survive on their own, yet all must have arisen from simultaneous accidental mutations?
It is this probability of the complexity of the support systems arising first (and concurrently) needed to provide an environment for the “glow” to accidentally appear in both red and green that is just astronomical. But, it is treated as if, “Okay, assuming this all randomly appeared and a set of red and green glows appear. Which color would be preferred by the environoment?” That question is almost ridiculous in the face of what just occurred.
“God, in his infinite wisdom, simply waited until the monkey was ready, grabbed one male and one female, breathed intelligent life into them and viola...you!” [excerpt]
And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7
1) dry earth, dust, powder, ashes, earth, ground, mortar, rubbish
a) dry or loose earth
b) debris
c) mortar
d) ore
1) ground, land
a) ground (as general, tilled, yielding sustenance)
b) piece of ground, a specific plot of land
c) earth substance (for building or constructing)
d) ground as earth's visible surface
e) land, territory, country
f) whole inhabited earth
g) city in Naphtali
Leading people away from the truth requires a lot of quantity over quality.
If it's not in the Bible, why would I know that?
You are terribly terribly wrong. A blood system does NOT require that, all of those are found in complex creatures.
Simple creatures have an open circulatory system in which a simple blood-like fluid directly supplies oxygen to cells.
Transportation for oxygen and nutrients have distinct stages of efficiency.
The first being it was simply there and had no transportation method which is not efficient and only the very simplist of creatures use that.
The second is transportation with Osmotic pressure which is used by plants and non moving creatures. This does not require evolution beyond anything except a membrane.
The third is an open circulatory system which the bloodlike fluid is found sorrounding all cells and movement of the “blood” only occurs when the creature itself moves and can not be specifically targeted to certain areas of the creature.
This arises to simple canals which will later become vessels and muscles specifically targeted to moving blood and simple hearts evolve.
“Okay, assuming this all randomly appeared and a set of red and green glows appear. Which color would be preferred by the environoment?”
I gave a reason for a red and green glow to appear which is very simple and requires the most basic of reactions, Acid-Base. Again, it was a simplistic model so argueing the odds that a red and green glow would appear is not really smart. Especially considering that the type of reaction i gave happens ALL THE TIME everywhere you look. In fact a glass of water self ionizes to a certain point the only reason you don’t see a color is because hydroxide and hydronium are both colorless.
;)
If the support system for your “simple” creature with red and green glows is so “simple: then create one, any one. Create a one cell organism from your own composite of constituent materials.
The terribly terribly wrongness lies with your observations that even the simplest of mechanisms are so very complex that they are impossible to reproduce apart from the organisms themselves. Gloss over these if you wish, but the astounding requirements even for the “membrane” to survive and reproduce are enormously difficult or you would make one and show how “simple” they really are. So, if you are right, show us. All of the chemicals in the world are available to you, choose a well equipped lab, and deliver us “life”. Otherwise your cavalier use of “simple” displays an arrogance of monumental proportions.
Sorry Fichori, I was being sarcastic. My silly point was that just because we (men) can think of a scenario to explain an observation it is still only an observation. Since Adam all that man has done is to record the intricacies of what God has made. In describing their observations, they have believed themselves to be possessors of knowledge and wisdom beyond the Creator. Yet they remain journalists recording observations which they had no part.
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