Thanks for taking the time to standardize the use of "%" or "percent" in the Chlorella article. KP Botany 06:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Probably because I was sending it to someone else, and put it on your page by mistake--I was pretty sure I shouldn't be welcoming the %-guy. I wanted to ask you a question, also. Maybe I asked the other person the question, instead. Oh, yeah. Is there any place on Wikipedia that lists whether to use symbols or words in cases like this? You did not seem to know according to the edit history you submitted with the changes, but is this because you looked and could not find, or because there is no standardization that you know of? KP Botany 04:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Re: your comment about there should be a list...look in the article under the section titled "UAV models". Akradecki 15:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
That is a totally cool article you linked on Solar Powered Sea Slugs.
I think the main problem animals would have with solar power is the surface area to volume ratio of their bodies. Plants have thin leaves with a large surface area which allows them to collect a lot of sunlight relative to their body mass. Animals do not have this body shape - but the sea slug in that article did - which seems to fit my hyphothesis.
Ttguy 21:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
well straight off u move a trophic level or two in terms of energy conservation, so depending on where the animal is in the trophic levels you could have a ten fold to even thousand fold savings in energy, as the light energy conversion is inefficient after going around the food web, on the other side would be some sort of mass-to number of effective chloroplasts ratio, apparently counterbalancing that the other direction as of this surface area issue. Of course a major benefit is possibly sustaining survival in conditions when food is scarce, even if it may be at a lower level of energy for the animal to work with to do all the things its organism needs to do, and possibly needing to reduce its activity level...in any case, it seems to me if animals photosynthsized the ecosystems could likely contain more animal biomass, more plant biomass, or some combination of both...perhaps extra premium nutrients would be added as well into the cycles further enhancing animals higher up the food web, perhaps other factors may reduce or limit this somewhat from a pure calculation just based on the energy savings, then there is the extra exposure to possibly harmful electromagnetic radiation from possible extra time spent in direct sunlight that may have to be adapted to...if the creatures had adapted it long ago, and with a lucky roll of the dice for them and their genetics, they could have later adapted out into all the highly evolved animals, and the large animals would all be photosynthetic today, it didnt happen that way though, yet at least here on planet earth, its very possible the humans will ensure at least some additional animals photosynthesize- PolyhymniasPeripheralPerceptions 02:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Well I tried some pack of the envelope calculations and here is what I came up with, I must be wrong somewhere.
175-300 watts per meter^2
175 joules = 41.8260038 calories - google calculator
175 watts ~ 50 calories / second - change units and aproximate
6% photosythetic efficiency
50 * .06 = 3 cal/sec/m^2
roughly approximating my surface area as 5 cylinders. arms, legs, torso, and one sphere head.
surface: cylinder 2 pi r (r + h) sphere 4 pi r^2
im 5'7" 2 arms - 3 in diamter x 24 in long = r = 1.5 h= 24
2 pi 1.5 ( 1.5 + 24 )
240 sq in x 2 arms
1 torso 36 in around x 24 in tall r = 16/pi h = 24
2 pi 16/pi ( 16/pi + 24)
930 sq in
2 leg 15 in around x 32in long r = 7.5/pi h = 32
2 pi 7.5/pi (7.5/pi + 32 )
515 sq in x 2 legs
1 head 17 in around r = 17/2pi
4 pi (17/2pi)^2
91 sq in
91+515*2+930 + 240*2 = 2531 sq in
1 (sq in) = 0.00064516 meters squared - google calc
2531 sqin = 1.6 m^2
3 cal / sec /m^2 * 1.6 m^2 = 4.9 calories per second
4.9 cal / second * 8 hours of good sun * 3600 second/hour = 28,800 seconds * 4.9 calories / second = 141,000 calories per day
141k /2 for double counting the ends of the cylinders = 70,000 calories per day
That doesnt seem right... -- dave1g ( talk) 09:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13967-cells-organs-get-plastic-upgrades.html?feedId=online-news_rss20 - artificial photosynthesis injected into people in the future? --
dave1g (
talk)
03:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)