“I always like to think that for many technological achievements that benefit humans,” Dawson says, “some organism somewhere has already developed it through some evolutionary process.”

  • davidgro@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    There are tons of phenomena or technologies that exist but aren’t used by life. The most famous is probably the wheel (with an axel, rolling a whole body doesn’t count, nor does cellular machinery).

    As far as I know no living thing has selected for transmitting or receiving radio frequency radiation, nor X-rays or gamma rays. (I’m sure electric eels and such put out some RF, but only as a side effect. They aren’t using it for communication or sensing for example)

    • kalkulat@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      RF is pretty low on the EM totem pole when it comes to energy. There’s plenty of IR to use, which is just above RF… and it’s available 24/7.

      • davidgro@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Sure. But RF can go through dense bush or a forest even better than audio if it’s high enough power - and without alerting any non-RF animals like audio would.

        Or imagine animals with actual radar for finding prey. IR is good for that (I know snakes use it) but again radio could penetrate cover, and yet nothing uses it like that.

        The main point though, is that RF exists despite non-use by life (excluding human technology of course). The same likely applies to dark matter and dark energy whatever they end up being.

        • kalkulat@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          OTOH (I was just reading the other day), cats can’t even see red (looks grey to them) … only green and blue. Looks as though higher-freq visible light worked just fine for Feliformia. The organs/antennae needed to send and/or receive RF would be highly ungainly for speedy smaller predatory mammals.

          Who knows - maybe some of the dinosaurs -did- use RF?! High EMF from solar CME’s might have burned out their receptors.

    • Krudler@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      You might want to do some research and update your beliefs. Yes, some have been found to absorb gamma and xrays.

      • davidgro@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        [citation needed]

        I was very careful to phrase that with ‘selected for’ because of course things absorb radiation. That’s how bones are visible in X-ray radiology. But that doesn’t mean it is something they evolved specifically to do.

        • Krudler@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          Go read

          You don’t need me to research things for you and provide you search results

          I’m pretty sure you’re capable of entering a search query and reading on your own

          It takes less time than writing your wrong opinions