this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
202 points (97.2% liked)

Showerthoughts

29632 readers
699 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics (NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out)
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yes, it's pretty cool. Side notes:

  • plants produce a literally electrical voltage across cell membrane when collecting sunlight. The solar panel is very much a technological copy of plant leaves.

  • biology can be incredibly efficient sometimes. storing information in DNA takes just about 40-50 atoms per bit, and DNA is about 2.5 nm in diameter. For comparison, the finest structures in modern computers are 3-5 nm in size.

  • since powering the whole thing is incredibly important, animals have one specialized cell (mitochondria) inside every normal cell, simply for the purpose to convert the energy from sugar into a usable form. Plants have two of these specialized cells, with the other one's job being simply to collect sunlight and turn it into usable energy. That, in my opinion, makes them more advanced than animals. ;-)