@explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king I'm not an engineer but I've often wondered, while biking home into a Christchurch noreasterly, whether there's an engineering solution to cancelling out, or even reversing, wind direction at ground level. Some sort of solid scoopy sails on power poles, that pivot to face the wind. Maybe generate electricity at the same time. I can dream. 😃
@explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king Which [!tangent alert!] also reminds me of another thing I puzzle over while biking into a head wind. Why don't trees generate food from the wind? And why doesn't kelp make food from the currents in the ocean? There's a lot of energy roaring about that life, so far, doesn't seem to have evolved a way to tap into. #ScienceMystery #Biology
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@joncounts those are very good questions. They certainly exploit that energy to distribute their genetic material... maybe the problem is there's no mechanical analogue to photosynthesis... at least I can't think of one (off the top of my head) @explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king
@lightweight @explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king I've got a science paper somewhere that poses the same question, and then puzzles over why evolution has overlooked one possible mechanism. Many bacteria and protists scoot about in water by using ATP (the currency of cell energy) to move their flagella (hairs). It's not clear (at least not to the authors of this paper) why a stationary bacteria having its flagella moved by the water couldn't run this pathway in reverse and make itself ATP.
@lightweight @explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king ...and (to go even further down this tangent from the topic of biking in the rain), if it is possible for life to evolve to use fluid currents to generate food, and not just rely on photosynthesis, then that would greatly expand the possible places in the universe that are potentially habitable (all you need is an ocean and tides, or an atmosphere with winds).
(I'll stop now. 
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@joncounts @lightweight @explorergrace@mastodon.nz @pablo @weka @robert_p_king@mastodon.nz Maybe it’s a question of scale? If you are generating food you need to work at the molecular scale and at that scale large forces such as wind or currents are not so relevant or easy to harness as opposed to local chemistry. However if you consider chemical concentration gradients as a source of energy then active membrane pumps are interesting to consider. Usually they use ATP to pump molecules in or out of the cell against the concentration gradient but they can sometimes also run in reverse using the potential energy of the ion gradient to generate ATP. Kind of like a water wheel. Check out ATP synthase in action! https://youtu.be/kXpzp4RDGJI
@Scimmia @lightweight @explorergrace @pablo @weka @robert_p_king Thanks Scimmia. That makes a lot of sense. Cool video too. 🙂