Comment on Bees don't have lungs.
tahoe@lemmy.world 3 days agoNo because you’re likely too big (no offense) :(
I think insects have little holes all over their bodies, in which air gets inside by itself through some physics shenanigans. It doesn’t need to be actively sucked in like with lungs, it just happens because they’re so small.
This method doesn’t scale up though since if you’re bigger, you need more air, and having little holes all over your body won’t cut it. Thats when you know you need lungs, and that’s why you don’t see insects the size of a dog these days (thankfully).
There used to be times in the Earth’s history (Carboniferous) where the air’s composition was different though, and since it had more oxygen in it, insects could grow a lot larger.
Adding to this, the holes (spiracles) connect to the tracheae, which connect to air sacs. While respiration is almost entirely passive in smaller species, larger species actually force air through the system to aid the otherwise passive process.
…m.wikipedia.org/…/Respiratory_system_of_insects
Side note: Spiders have book lungs. They’re not insects, but like insects, they are arthropods.
So theoretically if we terraformed the Earth we would be free to genetically engineer humans to survive without lungs?
They wouldn’t be human. So much of us is built around our lungs, including our ability to speak that anything adapted to survive without them would be as different from a human as a human is from other lung-less animals. Even if they were more intelligent, they would not look or act remotely like a human.
Keyword suggestion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Okay, first of all, how dare you bring evidence and reason into this.
On a more serious note, I agree with the position mentioned in the second paragraph that transhumanism results in a posthuman being, that is, a species that is not human.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it but the movie Mimic had bugs that had grown to the size of a human and taken on a vaguely human form in order to hunt us.
The movie used the reasoning that the bugs had developed basic lungs which enabled them to grow past the limits of their usual breathing apparatus.
No point to make here, I just remember it being cool that they put a small amount of thought into why the bugs could grow to human proportions.
Metz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Fun fact: Cutaneous respiration (aka “Skin breathing”) is something we humans do too. But it accounts only for 1% to 2% of our oxygen input.
However, the cornea of our eyes doesn’t have its own blood vessels to supply it. Therefore, it relies on direct gas exchange with the environment—in other words, skin respiration.
Our eyes breath like bees.
dave@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Is that why bees can’t wear contact lenses?
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No, it’s because they have compound eyes. Even if they could afford all the different lenses they need, they’d never have enough time to put them in and take them out, while still working a full day.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
surely they could just make one big lens with facets in it? sure they’re gonna be hellishly expensive but at least they’re usable
hperrin@lemmy.world 3 days ago
So what you’re saying is I have two eyes in my beeholes?
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 3 days ago
1-2% is more than I’d have imagined!
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I like this fact. That’s why it’s so important to take out certain kinds of contacts at night.