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Organic Wheels
Topic Started: Aug 22 2008, 11:03 PM (2,511 Views)
Marty Party
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I remember those interesting sketches in Nemo's resume, the ones with animals that have evolved wheels, and I would like to discuss the possibilities of sch organisms. I think that the wheels are probably pushed by tiny legs, or perhaps like a tattoo pen. Said creatures could achieve speeds that would shame earth creatures.
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Yorick
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Maybe not a wheel but a sphere.

Some kind of long, natural tube connects the ball legs to the rest of the body
Edited by Yorick, Oct 16 2008, 12:40 AM.
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Nemo Ramjet
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Hi all,
The wheeled world sketches on my website date a way back. The idea was that on a high-gravity world, plants would grow like pavement stones and smooth, low-sloping surfaces would blanket the planet. There could be a few feasible ways wheels could evolve naturally:

1- The wheels could be gnawed/sculpted into shape from natural objects such as stones, wood and then rotated in muscular pits.
2- The wheels could be symbiotic plants or animals that cling to the larger animals' muscular pits and turn.
3- Some novel protein structure could form detachable/retachable muscle fibers.
4- Detached extensions of dead bone or chitin could pretty well form loose wheels in sockets. But how would this be turned.
5- Electromagnetic rotation by electric organs. However, this is horribly energy-inefficient.
6- Or, as a final solution, the wheeled organisms could be nanolife or artificially designed breeding robots.

In the end I reluctantly decided to scrap the wheel world, because of the "axle problem:" Any large body would be impossible to carry around without an axle running through it, and I thought that problem to be insurmountable through natural evolution. Furthermore, the mechanisms that allowed wheels to evolve could also give rise to working legs far more easily, at less energy cost. I thus find wheeled animals impossible, or even if possible, at a disadvantage to legged ones. A rolling animal moving around like a ball is more likely in my opinion.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

If Nemo has scrapped this project, does that mean it's up for adoption? 'Cause I've got a plausible solution to this problem.

The answer is muscles. Muscles help humans and ALL animals move. Without muscles, I would not be typing this. Heck, I wouldn't even be born.

So what if these wheeled organisms had an advanced muscular system that DID NOT use the same sugars that Earth muscles use to move? What if they used an unknown carbohydrate to move these muscles at high speeds? These muscles would be stronger than Earth muscles and thus have new capabilities.

So what if these wheeled organisms had two sections on their bodies: a wheeled section (made completly out of muscle) and a bone section (made out of a bone-like substance and some muscle)?

The muscle section includes axel(s), axel(s) extensions, and wheels. These are all made out of muscle (with some protein thrown in for structure). The individual microscopic muscle fibers attach to different sections of the wheel, propelling them forward at high speeds due to the steroid-like sugar they use to drive them.
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Carlos
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I believe you are making a tremendous mistake. Muscles, even if not needing sugar (and I believe thats impossible, as all living tissues need sugar), wouldn't work that way, they require a bone support, and a wheel made of muscle wouldn't be usefull (as it would just be a shapeless blob). Plus, the main problem with wheels is the circulation, because it would be unable to occur in the wheel, and thus that thing would rotten away without sugars and nutrients
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lamna
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JohnFaa is correct and steroids are nothing like sugers. A living wheel would have to be entirely self sufficient. It probably would not need much food, just enough the keep ticking over and heal itself.

I found this interesting.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shuttle/6886/IB.html
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

I never said it was steroids. I said is was a kind of sugar that ACTED like steroids.

Isn't that all that bones are? Calcium deposits fortified with protein?

Maybe those muscle cells could have a kind of cell wall to help hold structure?
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Carlos
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The problem isn't just the support, its also the fact circulation is cut, and any place without circulation dies; thats why goat balls fall if you cut their circulation with an elastic band!
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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lamna
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Or when they use the elastic bands to dock lambs tails.

How are foods like steroids?
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Could dead cells still be moved by muscle fibers that alternate positions?

It's an unknown kind of sugar, native only to the planet with wheeled organisms (I'll just call it Michla just so we can have a name). Sugars don't have to be the same everywhere we go.

And who says circulation has to be the same in every organism you meet? Oxygen could still be transported without blood. Sure there will be blood in the bone section. But in the muscle section, oxygen is pumped from muscle to muscle as these muscles move, kind of like electricity on a circuit. Each cell activates the other.



Or how about this idea:
There is a large, heart-like muscle in the muscle section. The only job of this muscle is to produce electricity. Muscle fibers attach to axels made out of dead cells. Electricity flows along these fibers, activating the cells, causing them to turn. In effect, these organims have two hearts: one the causes movement (the electricity producing heart) and one that causes respiration and circulation (similar to the heart we have).
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lamna
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Suger is a chemical. I think we know all the stable types of carbohydrate that could be used as food.

And circulation does have to be in it. If the wheel is self contained, then it is a separate organism.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

So kind of like symbiosis (similar to what the siphonophores do)?
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lamna
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Symbiosis, would have to be the way it could be done.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

So if symbiosis is one of the only methods for this to be effective, what would each organism get out of it?


Wait, I thought of an idea:
These wheeled organisms aren't wheels. Rather, they are plants that roll around so they can move from spot to spot (meaning they can directly control where they photosynthesize). Overtime, these plants have diversified into armadillo-like creatures that eat these plants and armadillo-like creatures that eat the plant eater. This world is basically a world of armadillo-like creatures.

Does the above idea sound plausible? If so, I'll start developing it into a world.
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CarrionTrooper
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Wait... the plants evolved to creatures that eat them, and creatures that eat the creature that eats the plants?

Then what do they symbiote with?

A possible solution: There's a plant and an animal, both needed mobility. Then they symbioted, and the plant gets them rolling, while the animal defends the plant.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

That could work.


Here's where I based by solution off of:
I always thought the the first life-forms that ever existed on Earth were a form of photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Then this cyanobacteria evolved into algae, animals that ate the algae, and animals that ate those animals. Then it all diversified until we get to modern times.

Is that how life evolved on Earth? 'Cause I honestly don't know.
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