I've been reading this board for quite a while and
have laughed heartily at many of the threads and thought
long about others. About a year ago I wrote the straight
dope asking a question that has been bugging me for years.
Well, Cecil nor his cohorts has given me answer to
this question. (albeit probably a stupid one).
If I can see an ant, which is many,
many times smaller than me. Would
it make sense that maybe ants can see
bacteria(or molocules)? I just believe
that as we get bigger, we see only bigger
things. I mean, if this were to be true,
maybe an ant could be trained to see the
first atoms of cancer or the like. I know
that if all the ants in the world were
weighed…they’d more than make up for
the weight of the human population.
Maybe God…or some other deity put
them here for just that purpose, and
we just overlook them.
I'm not saying ant training would be
easy. I wouldn’t know what kind of snacks
to feed them or anything(or even how to
pat them on the head). Fetch would be a
bitch. It just seems to me that we may be
overlooking one of our most important…
but simplistic, resources.
Not everything on this Earth was placed here to be useful to humans. Ants have enough on their plates already just being ants, and making the world a better place for future generations of their colony.
Actually your theory isn’t that bad. But its more likely that we’ll be able to build robotic ants before we count train the natural ones. What I’m talking about is Nano-technology or Nanites, which are robots much smaller than ants that can view the world cell by cell. Much of it is lost in Sci-Fi and the usual overblown hype at the moment, but there is deffinate potential as technology advances.
Sure, but dogs are just dogs also. Until we trained 'em the wolves just ran around pillaging and raping. If we get the ants under control, the universe is ours.
While it is small, the ant is still hundreds of thousands times larger than molecular particles, and milllllions of times bigger than atomic particles. Even dust mites, which are still many many times larger than molecules can only relate to humans on a cellular level. I believe that it would be much more feasible for us to genetically engineer friendly microbes to do what you’re suggesting. That is, as soon as we have a clue what we need them to do.
But don’t fret none; symbiotic relationships between humans & microbes are well established. They’re in your innards right now helping you digest that tuna helper you had for dinner.
I’m sure that I’m 1000’s probably millions of times
larger than a grain of sand. I can see it. That’s my
problem. While you and I can talk about cellular things,
are things proportional? I’m sure an ant or a dust mite are
thousands(if not millions) of times smaller than me. I can
see them. That’s my predicament, it just seems that things
are always relational.
I read that before and it still didn't answer my question. How detailed of an image do you have to have
to identify a molecule. It’s like H20 hydrogen and oxygen.
I’ve only gotta see 2 of one and 1 of the other. That’s only three things i have to distingush. I’ve seen my ex wife and I only have to see her eyes to know she’s evil. I’ve got 20/12 vision. I know that ants aren’t the seeing-eye savior of the world but…it just seems that being as small as they are, they’d be able to see smaller things.
There are instrinsic limits to any light-based vision. Specifically, you can’t resolve anything smaller than the wavelength of light you’re using. That makes looking at cells OK, but when we start talking about distinguishing small molecules and atoms, it’s pretty dicey. It has nothing to do with the size difference between the eye and the object. It’s a fundamental consequence of how light works.
The universe we know does become a very different place depending on the scale from which we interact with it. I can’t comment on how sight changes, but take microbial or insect locomotion as examples of how a very familiar fluid, namely water, seems quite unfamilar when viewed from this intimate perspective.
I have always enjoyed waterstriders, those bugs that skim across the surface of ponds. This feat is possible only because the forces the insect exerts on the pond surface are small, and don’t exceed the force holding water molecules at the pond surface together (surface tension). Yeah, the bug probably has a foot that spreads it’s weight out a little and probably the foot/leg surface is water repellent, but still, it’s a great trick. I imagine that if we could experience water at this scale, we’d have an entirely different concept of it.
How bacteria and protists move is quite amazing as well. Many use flagella (E coli is a good example). In essence a flagellum is a whiplike appendage that rotates around a central axis allowing these little guys to zip around. What’s amazing is that a rotating corkscrew provides propulsion in water. It’s hard to imagine how unless one abandons our conventional “big” perspective of water.
I read an essay on the topic once that described water at the microbe scale as behaving like a much more viscous fluid than the one we experience. I don’t know why (any P-Chem folks out there?-mabe b/c forces on this scale are too small to push ordered groups of water molecules around much???), but knowing this, it’s possible to understand corkscrew propellers. Think about a corkscrew’s traditional medium, corks. The screw uses it’s “grip” on the cork to wind it’s way deeper into the cork as it is rotated (Ooh, is it getting warm in here?). Flagella do the same thing, winding their way through relatively stationary water molecules.
Anyway, this much too long of a post to not address the OP directly. But I think you’re onto something, Corbravert. Keep thinking small.
Well…
Just kidding, Cobravert.
Being smaller doesn’t neccessarily make it easier to see smaller objects. More important is the shape and makeup of the eye. And the part of the brain responsible for vision.
Us humans actually have pretty good vision. We can see quite small objects, such as a grain of salt, the human egg cell, or the fine hairs on your sweetie’s butt.
I mean cheek.
Welcome, and enjoy.
Peace,
mangeorge
Well, hey, I didn’t think it was a stupid question. I thought it was kind of an interesting concept. It made a nice change from things like, “Do I really need to rotate my tires?” and “Is it legal for Cher to have only one name?”
Nice going, Cobravert, but now, don’t get carried away and weird out on us, 'kay? We’ve already got plenty of that.
IIRC there have been attempts, fairly succesful too, to train pigeons to spot defects in machined products going down a production line belt.
Pigeons can spot flaws very easily that would be difficult for the human eye and they can do it far faster and more accurately.
Birds have better eyesight in general than we have, and so do some fish and invertebrates.
Some birds such as hawks have a resolution that leaves us far behind - see that Kestrel hovering a couple of hundred feet up ? It is scanning for small mammels that we would have difficulty spotting form a few feet away.
Seagulls have far less trouble with mist and fog than we do as they can see in infra-red.
There is a type of shrimp that has a much wider range of colour vision and resolution than we have, even the humble goldfish can see into infra-red regions, which is helpful in a creature whose natural habitat is brackish pools.
Very tiny creatures like ants and bugs are unlikely to have the eye construction to be able to do as you ask, there are no insects with retinas such as the higher animals, and it is the retina which permits the high resolutions as each single cell is a reciever, think of how many cells in the human retina and then in birds of prey, insects cannot match this.
