Why humans should learn from the mathematical ability of plants

rexdickson (51)in #stemng • 6 years ago (edited)

Introduction

In the early days of earth, people tried to sort out means by which they can stay young forever or live forever. It was even a prominent and a popular school of thought in the era of the Greek philosophers. The Greeks, believed in a way, if certain balances are kept then one could stay young forever. Several kings in history have their names engraved on the list of those who sought after elixirs to enable them live forever but eventually died. Recently, Science have proven that a human body over time is supposed to depreciate in its bodily functions naturally. A human body consists of trillions of cells in diverse parts of the body and these cells have their uses. Daily, cells die off and new ones generate as the body continues it routine. But due to certain circumstances, human cells don’t regenerate again when dead and these causes aging human, which eventually leads to natural death. But one would question, why did human live longer 50 or 200 years ago than now? Why do human life suddenly seem long if one lives beyond 70? Several attempts to answer the question of causes to natural death have been thrown. Some would say it’s could of the earth's climatic change. Some will attribute it to spiritual reasons. But what really causes these early deaths? The answer lies in plants' vascular system and man’s bad eating habits.

Source - pixabay CCO Creative Commons

Apart from animals, plants are the closet living things to human beings and there exist an important relationship between the duo, not only because of the balance in the ecosystem but the effects they have on each other. The relationship between plants and humans(animals) is further cemented by the fact that their daily singular most important process, required to live, depends on the successful completion of the other party's process. This process is breathing. Plants take in Carbon dioxide, and process out Oxygen which is inhaled by animals, who also in turn send out Carbon dioxide, therefore balancing the ecosystem and completing the carbon cycle.
It has however been noticed that, plants tend to live longer and better, without the aid of human. Plants in forests or in their natural habitats away from human activities, live a much longer and healthier life than the ones closer to humans due to the harmful practises humans mete out to the environment. Plant's proximity to human settlements, is the fore cause of plant extinction in the world.

Plant Mathematical Ability

Plants manufacture food through a complex process called Photosynthesis thereby extracting the needed energy from sunlight. By day, plants convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into starch and sugars.
Equation of Photosynthesis : 1200px-Photosynthesis_equation.svg.png
Equation of Photosynthesis
Source Wikipedia -Public Domian License

During the night, many species consume the starch stored during the day, thus avoiding starvation and maintaining plant productivity, including growth. It is observed that they perform this feat, by calculating the optimum rate at which to absorb the food, so that by dawn they must have used 95% and then start making more. In the night, they process the stored starch at just the right rate -not too slow and not too fast. Plants ration their food reserves in the night, no matter whether 7,10 or 12 hours remained until dawn. Evidently, plants divide the amount of starch available by the length of time remaining until dawn, thus determining the optimal rate of consumption. By so doing, the plants only consume what they need and in the right amount.
Optimal and needful consumption is the health difference plants and humans. But before we go into why unhealthy consumption deteriorates human lives relative to plants’ remarkable dieting, let’s see how these plants do their dieting math.
Remarkably, it is pertinent to note that if genetic or environmental conditions such as shorter day or longer night impair the Plant’s daily cycle, the plant adjusts itself accordingly to allow starch degradation proceed at a slower or faster rate as the case may be, to ensure that the starch reserves last until dawn. Also, a change in light intensity that aids Photosynthesis can also alter the amount of starch produced and available at dusk but it is simultaneously compensated by an appropriate change in the rate of night-time degradation. Now, let’s see the processes that controls starch degradation.

Plant Arithmetic Division To Prevent Starvation

The most prominent facet of the starch degradation process is its ability to immediately compensate for unexpected change in the length of the night or the amount of starch in the available to degrade. This ability is gotten from the plant mechanism that keeps track of both the expected time to dawn and the starch accumulated and the carry out an arithmetic division operation between the two quantities. In this scenario, information about Starch(S) and Time (T) is encoded in two diffusible molecules in the chloroplast. The concentration of starch is proportional to the amount of starch in the chloroplast. Starch and Time interacts in such a way that produces a starch degradation rate proportional to the ratio of their concentration and equal to the ration between the starch in the chloroplast and the expected time to dawn, which is done through an arithmetic division. Moreover, chemical kinetics offers much simpler interaction schemes that can implement arithmetic division in an analog way. In this interaction scheme, Starch is able to bind to the surface of the starch granule and promote it’s degradation, possibly through an activation of enzymes whereas the Time(T) molecules inhibits degradation by binding the Starch and causing it to be detached from the granule surface. Simple calculation proves that through certain determinable conditions, the mechanism leads to a degradation ratio proportional to the ratio between the concentration if Starch and Time and the amount of starch in the chloroplast divided by the expected time to dawn. However, the actions of the Circadian clock and it rhythms, grossly play a part in the biological oscillations of a plant, thereby enabling it to anticipate dawn and adjust it’s biology accordingly.
Circadian Clock In humans and plants
Source : GNU Free Documentation License CC SA- 3.0

Now, we can see how plants naturally adjusts its system and absorbs what it system needs not want at a particular time, unlike humans.

Deteriorating Habits Of Humans

Let’s use the liver as an example of organs that suffers from the excessive eating habits of humans.

The Human Liver
Liver- Wikipedia Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.1

The liver is solely known for protein synthesis and toxin detoxification. Therefore, any failure on the part of the liver always prove to be devastating for the human body. A lot of human foods contain protein such as beef, cheese, chicken, beans, etc. Humans tend to consume this type of food in excess, directly or indirectly, and this has lead to the steep rise in the number of obese adults in the world population. Now, when we eat excess protein, what the liver does is to synthesis it(process it to useful substances and sends it to the body), and sends out the unwanted proteins in gaseous form as farts -that is why farts, are the foremost and simplest form of human wastes because the liver needs even a little amount of protein to give out farts compared to the kidneys' urine or the large intestine’s excreta. But when it keeps coming in excess and the liver can’t keep up with the rate, what happens then? The blood absorbs the excess protein to prevent the liver from damage, and the blood takes the toxins and raw proteins that weren’t processed and this leads to diseases and then natural deaths.
In times past, people ate less of meats and processed foods and more of vegetables, and they lived longer. The body has a limit it can take in proteins, and when this is neglected, the body suffers. Compare this to plants, they only take in the RIGHT amount of starch no matter the time dilation, and they live healthier when all conditions are equal. Processed foods contain large amounts of preservatives and this accumulates as toxins in the liver. The liver only tries to expels the amount it can and forsakes the rest, which the bloods take up. This is also the major cause of obesity. Even athletes are advised to keep away from processed foods and focus on specific vegetables and fruits to help build the body in the RIGHT way. Neglect of these advices by the modern man and acceptance of more processed foods has become man’s waterloo, so deep that humans can’t even learn from plants.

I believe that when humans learn from plants, by eating only the needed food and not the wanted food, humans will live longer. Human beings only eat the right food when they are sick for quick recovery, but when the are get whole? The go back to their wallowing habit again, therefore, the sickness hibernates in the body, coming back stronger and possibly causing death.