Hey Veeky Forums could evolution create an organic ball bearing? Something an animal could use to very quickly move downhill or so? Like a Turtle having some on their stomachs?
How could an organic bearing even function? I imagine it would never form naturally though.
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how would the bearings repair themselves?
I suppose it isn't impossible. It'd likely work as a internally lubricated socket of cartilage with a dense boney sphere inside of that acting as the ball. I don't really think that this would ever arise out of nature however, most terrain is not designed for wheeled transit. Thus the creature would have to live somewhere like the American south west with it's flat terrain and smooth rocky surfaces for this to arise as a valuable mechanism.
Ball bearings? Try complex nano machinery.
> be an insolent faggot
> me and the lads are larping dungeons and dragons
> dungeon master says "your party encounters a human fidget spinner"
> It has really hard stats that could kill us easily
> too autistic to lose
> reference section 1.5.2 paragraph 2 line 42 of the rule book
> get into a heated argument over the interpretation of the definition of "human" and the definition of "fidget spinner"
> "No Cpt. Pochhammer, it does not imply that they are mutually exclusive"
> "STFU Sir Niggerjew, it's a scientific fact that living beings can't have ball berings"
> make this thread
...
There's a species of insect with organic gears.
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I think that the closest we would get to that would be something like what was seen in "The Amber Spyglass" where there was a species that used round nuts like wheels. Although this is unlikely and would require tool use which makes it less of an organic development of a ball bearing and more of an invention.
anything that rotates freely like that would probably be difficult to supply with blood or repair. but idk, not a biologist.
Could we bio engineer an insect that was basically a tank? Like it could fire poisonous barbs from a 360 degree rotating turret like orifice that sits on top of it's body?
i dont think we can do that yet. Maybe in 40 years
Joints eventually wear out and become arthritic I imagine bearings would fail at some point.
Okay hypothetically there could be an organism with a rotatable shell with a large number of spherical ball bearings to allow it to rotate quickly and easily. If the ball bearings are in a extracellular fluid they could be repaired organically just like any other piece of an organism or broken down when the outer surface is breached and a new one grown from a central cell cluster.
While we're talking about organic bearings, would a heart that's just a centrifugal pump be more efficient than a reciprocating one?
Next question, what would drive the wheel? The bearings allow it to rotate freely bit don't provide any mechanical work.
"Organic" just means "made with carbon", what you meant to say is "biological".
Well in a small organism the previously described nanomotor so well set up for flagella movement. In a larger one it would probably be a set of muscles in a complex shape I'm not good enough in mechanical engineering to properly describe. That or rhythmic contractions and have the bearings sit nestled in muscular divots.
They're called "ball joints," like your shoulder retard.
Not OP but the point was clear despite the wording. Not sure what your post contributes.
My shoulder can't spin 360 degrees without issue
So is this the reason we haven't seen anything like this on a macro scale? Its just so complex that legs mutated first and just worked "fine" so there was no need to change?
Well the same set up could be done just as well with a pressurized fluid with less energy involved. 360 ball bearings just aren't effective in a biological environment because making them would be time and energy consuming and if they wear our asymmetrically they would have to replaced even more often. It would be easier to do other systems, plus a ball bearing works best in a system designed with it in mind. Evolution is piece-wise for the most part so unless there was some weird coevolution it won't happen. Also as was previously stated, balls suck for getting around on complex terrain .
Sure that answers the terrestrial problem but what about aquatic animals? A biological propeller would be pretty damn good, and efficient too. A propeller doesn't suffer from the same problems at wheel does, couple that with some steering fins and you'd have superior navigation under water.
Because fins work great and don't wear out easily. Plus they use easily controlled muscles that allow for quick turning and high levels of speed control. If they want fast propulsion the easiest method is just to use jet propulsion like an octopus. A propeller might be cool but how would it develop and grow in size with the organism? How would the creature maintain blood and nutrient flow efficiently?
It could be that propellers are superior methods but the barriers to creation and maintenance are too high.
Very informative, thank you user.
Thanks for the interesting subject
It's impossible, while one race is attached to the body balls and other race are completely disconnected from the rest of the body, there can be no nerve or blood system connection, so half of the bearing and anything that is connected to them would be just dead tissue, so if there was an organism with wheels on ball bearings the wheels would just soon wear out and the organism would be left with defunct, useless bearings
Evolution can create creatures that use elements from their environment to create rolling motion. Your prime example for this is the dung beetle.
To create anything like a wheel from the organic tissue, the wheel would either have to be suspended within the creature, like the eyeball or cell organelles, or it would have to be formed of some sort of secretion, a la the dung beetle, or it would have to be the animal itself, like the rolling desert spider. Otherwise, you can't have a reproducible self-sustaining nutrient-supplied rolling element that doesn't also rely on some sort of symbiosis between different creatures. Say, something like pill bugs being used as wheels at the end of a spider's outstretched legs. It's not unheard of for symbiotic organisms to merge into one species, but this is largely restricted to colony organisms, the same ones that gave rise to eukaryotes, but they would also need to come up with a means to meaningfully reproduce.
some squid have rotating hooks iirc
>It's not unheard of for symbiotic organisms to merge into one species
what are examples of that other than mitochondria?
>How could an organic bearing even function?
Ask your mom. I showed her how organic ball bearings work last night.
I can see a bearing forming , maybe, but not sure how an organism would apply force to what was on the other side.
That said, look at where organism live -- in forests, sandy dessert margins, swamps -- the wheel is actually not a great locomotory feature there. Legs are easier and mych more versatile on different terrains.
Interesting but not really on point.
Well.... they have gear teeth on appendages that rotate significantly less that 360 degrees and absolutely do not rotate freely.
SO not very relevant to a thread about evolving ball bearings or wheels. An interesting curiosity, though.
nature has found it's more efficient to just have an animal roll up like a wheel rather than always being wheel shaped, such as the armadillo, the Armadillidiidae, and the hoopsnake
>anything that rotates freely like that would probably be difficult to supply with blood or repair.
All I can think of is a non-living bearing secreted by one of two symbiots, each symbiot forming either the wheel or the axle and points inward.
Or put it into a jellyfish or sponge, something that breathes and filter-feeds throughout the entire body.
Is a small change in heart efficiency really going to give you much of a competitive advantage in the great game of survival and reproduction?
>>Maybe if I just loosen it up a bit for you...
>It's impossible, while one race is attached to the body balls
Not sure if /pol/...
Not him, but it does not matter. Youd potentially get wheels that way whether they remained symbiotic or merged species.
But use caution and recall that "rotating" and "freely rotating" are not the same thing. Owls can rotate their heads to a surprising extent, but they are not freely rotating.
Me great-gram swore that hoopsnakes used to be a real problem when she was a girl.