So what happens when you take gravity out of the equation. ..
--
The second in a series of articles that explores Frontier Technologies and Deep Tech that have the potential to change our evolutionary path. Episode 2 — Gravity.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by gravity and its impact on evolution, on species and technology, yes technology! My thinking is sometimes it is not what you add, but what you take away. I want to know about gravity and its role from the emergence of life from early bacteria and simple organisms to the amazingly complex animal, human and plant based life forms, structures and environments in which we live, and I want to know what happens when it (gravity) is taken away fully or in part.
Arguably, human evolution took its time, building upon the origins of life itself 3.5 billions years earlier, a time known as the ‘primordial soup’ , where the presence of water was essential for molecular life to support chemical reactions, acting as a protective barrier, with ammonia acids and nucleotides formed the building blocks of life, 4 million years later we have humanity…
I want to know what role gravity had in this soup?
We know gravity helps keep Earth in a stable orbit around the sun, called ‘Goldilocks Zone”‘ or habitable zone around a star. The masses of celestial bodies — planets, stars and moons that do the space time dance, as their mass distorts the fabric of the bits in the middle. Get too close to the sun, water never forms is vaporised, too far and water never becomes a liquid. Yet the sun’s rays in many forms provides the ability for humans to make energy and for plants to make energy for life to exist.
I want to start at the level of individual cells. We know cellular respiration is the process of the human organism, specifically it is the mitochondria respiration — where glucose and oxygen are consumed and carbon dioxide produced. In plants it is the reverse process using carbon dioxide and generate oxygen. A reminder that one supports the other in a delicate balance. So the suggestion is — evolution may not of happened without the presence of gravity.
