Recovered: Tensegrity Structures in Biology

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nick c
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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by nick c » Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:13 pm

Ted:
If memory serves me, you have written about attempts to breed Eagles to large sizes in Russia? and that they reach a certain size beyond which safe landings become crashes.



StefanR wrote:Second, what Junglelord was referring to as form and function will hold in the case presented above. Actually too little is known about the precise habitats and niches
While the dictum "form follows function," is probably a wise one, it has little bearing on the size problem. As I would say that Quetzalcoatlus' form followed it's function within the conditions of that era, yet under the current conditions that large form would not have been permitted to follow its' function. So the question is not one of form following function, but rather scalability and changing conditions.
We don't need to have precise information of habits and niches, the point is that we are contemplating animals that have no niche in the present, hence there are no flying animals of that size today, why is that?
If one assumes that large pterosaurs could fly in the presently felt Earth gravity, it begs the question of why are today's flying animals of such small size by comparison? Why wouldn't some animal(s) today, with the ability of flight, have evolved to fill the ecological niche of the large pterosaurs? Why do we not see Sea Gulls or condors with 40' wingspans, or a giant eagle swooping down and flying off with a deer in its' talons?

StefanR and Junglelord,
I think I am having a deja vu,
Did we not have a thread on this in the old forum?
I think I am having a deja vu,
Did we not have a thread on this in the old forum? :)


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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by Tzunamii » Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:16 pm

I find Teds arguments for a change in gravity fascinating.
His book lines up the ducks for such a change quite well IMO.
As for the taboo subject of "daring" to question evolution, its as sad as "daring" to question the big bang.
Both are non testable, and dogmatic.
I for one think both are a pile of bunk.
Its only an argument if you choose to make it one.
Fortunately for us, we can freely discuss the hilarity of BB here, as well as obvious radical differences in our environment throughout the ages.
I think I am having deja vu....
wait a min....

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:23 pm

nick c wrote:Ted:
If memory serves me, you have written about attempts to breed Eagles to large sizes in Russia? and that they reach a certain size beyond which safe landings become crashes.
Friend gave me a copy of a book called "Bird of Jove" which describes one of England's top falconers by the name of Sam Barnes who around 1971 managed to get into Kirghiz country and found a 25-lb berkut which was close to dying of flounce which they had no cure for in the CCCP at the time and the old Kirghiz khan gave him the bird, telling him that a berkut that size, if healthy, would be worth more than a dozen of the most beautiful women in Kirghiz...

Aside from hunting for sport, Mongols and Kirghiz and what not raise sheep and would rarely get a straight line shot at a wolf; the wolf would nab a lamb and be off over hill and around dale, but the eagles can go after them and kill them. Usually at least. Normal size for a berkut is 12 - 16 lbs or thereabouts and the wolf CAN win those occasionally. With an eagle at 25 lbs however, the wolf has no chance, the bird would just drive its talons in around the wolf's spine and snap it.

In other words, they'd like to have 25 lbs be the average and a big one be 35 - 40 lbs but they've been trying to breed for that sort of size since the dawn of time and it isn't possible. Somewhere around 25 lbs life starts getting hard for them. Trying to take off from level ground after a big meal gets to be difficult or impossible and if a wolf or some other land predator were to happen along at one of those times the eagle would be in trouble.

They apparently see one the size Barnes was talking about every 30 or 50 years or so.

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by kevin » Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:13 pm

I do not normally fly up into the higher realms of this site, and will understand if this post is removed.

I can dowse feathers, and am fascinated by them, and why people wear them?
I find in whatever position you hold them, they reveal a field with a clockwise direction.

I find this field direction in humans down near the ground surface, with an anti clockwise direction above.
I would speculate that the feathers create a field with a positive point above them, and thus induce a reverse gravity effect.
This is where the negative is attracted to the positive point, thus giving a net upward push.

I consider that we and all other animals have a field pattern that leads to a positive point been centred downwards, and thus a push down is dominant.
I would further speculate that by wearing feathers around the head, and down the spine, that an alteration to the normal human field is induced.
I cannot provide proof of this, or refer to some other person, I can demonstrate, and above all, I am true in what I say.

Do not overlook what your eyes cannot see, and the ability to fly is not all about atmosphere and lift, gravity appears to Me as nothing but a consequence of attraction.


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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by junglelord » Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:24 pm

Dispite the large skin folds, the musculature of the "wings" look incredibly small.
I think based on the small cross sectional area of the muscle mass of the wings/arms, that maybe they indeed never did fly and perhaps only ever glided.

Just a thought.
If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.
— Nikola Tesla
Casting Out the Nines from PHI into Indigs reveals the Cosmic Harmonic Code.
— Junglelord.
Knowledge is Structured in Consciouness. Structure and Function Cannot Be Seperated.
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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by balsys » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:14 pm

We did have a thread on the previous forum on the Dinosaur size problem. After much discussion "tensegrity" was given as the reason why Dinosaurs could grow so large.

Personally I thought that this explained some of the issues raised but not all of them (why does evolution result in radical size changes over geological time spans as given in one of the links in the old thread).

The size of the Petrosaurs given here is another issue. Tensegrity can explain the structural issues, but not the flight one. A paper or link on the old site linked to a theory that the early atmosphere was many times more dense than today (almost a quasi-liquid). Under such conditions you could imagine such large animals "flying" (well probably closer to swimming).

Love a good mystery.

Cheers,

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Tue Oct 07, 2008 7:51 pm

balsys wrote:We did have a thread on the previous forum on the Dinosaur size problem. After much discussion "tensegrity" was given as the reason why Dinosaurs could grow so large....

"Tensegrity" appears to me to apply to bone structures, if it applies to living things at all. The problem with sauropod dinosaurs being able to stand and walk however was with available musculature. A large sauropod dropped into our present world would simply collapse in a heap, suffocate, and die, same as a blue whale dragged onto land.

The other problem with sauropods was their necks. If held upright in our gravity a circulatory collapse would occur, if outwards you'd be looking at trying to hold somewhere between a half a million and a million foot pounds of torque with muscle and sinew and, again, the whole thing would collapse immediately.

Ted

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:01 pm

junglelord wrote:Dispite the large skin folds, the musculature of the "wings" look incredibly small.
I think based on the small cross sectional area of the muscle mass of the wings/arms, that maybe they indeed never did fly and perhaps only ever glided......

Our world offers no example of a creature which can only glide and which does it over any sort of a distance. A pure glider trying to live the way a flying bird lives or the way one of those pterosaurs lived would be at the mercy of the winds (or lack thereof) and he'd have to have thermal currents and updrafts occur magically in front of him every time he needed them like the Sunshine Superman or maybe some sort of a new super-hero character like Captain-L (for lucky) whose motto would be "It's always better to be lucky than good)....

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by junglelord » Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:08 pm

Aaaahhheemmmm
Flying Squirrels.
We have them here as a matter of fact.
If they could climb, then its just a matter of locomotion, not food, just like the flying squirrels.
They are really cool as a matter of fact and watching a flying squirrel as he glides over the forest floor is as cool as it gets.

As far as size and tensegrity.
Tensegrity applies to all the soft tissue not just bone.
It does not make one fly if they are too heavy.
If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.
— Nikola Tesla
Casting Out the Nines from PHI into Indigs reveals the Cosmic Harmonic Code.
— Junglelord.
Knowledge is Structured in Consciouness. Structure and Function Cannot Be Seperated.
— Junglelord

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Wed Oct 08, 2008 12:54 am

junglelord wrote:Aaaahhheemmmm
Flying Squirrels......


Read carefully. I noted, "...and which does it over any sort of a distance".

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by StefanR » Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:50 am

balsys wrote:The size of the Petrosaurs given here is another issue. Tensegrity can explain the structural issues, but not the flight one.
Indeed. 8-)
nick c wrote:StefanR and Junglelord,
I think I am having a deja vu,
Did we not have a thread on this in the old forum?
Indeed. :)
tholden wrote:"Tensegrity" appears to me to apply to bone structures, if it applies to living things at all. The problem with sauropod dinosaurs being able to stand and walk however was with available musculature. A large sauropod dropped into our present world would simply collapse in a heap, suffocate, and die, same as a blue whale dragged onto land.
Maybe you are right. But as NickC said. Deja vu ? ;)
pneumaticity
pneumaticity in whales

It's a pity indeed that the thread in the old forum is gone and this above is a little that remains. From what I got from that discussion back then was that although maybe discussing a changing gravity or a growing earth might not be wrong. Trying to use the size of animals or plants as an argument is not such a good way around it.
The illusion from which we are seeking to extricate ourselves is not that constituted by the realm of space and time, but that which comes from failing to know that realm from the standpoint of a higher vision. -L.H.

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:11 am

Animal sizes are a perfectly good argument for changed gravity. It's an easy and coercive demonstration that the largest elephants are the largest animals possible in our present world and you had animals 150' long and closer to 200 tons than to 100 tons in past ages, which would be crushed by their own weight in our present world.

The question nobody asks is if those kinds of sizes were such a winning ticket for creatures which supposedly dominated the planet for tens of millions of years, then how in the 70 million years which supposedly separates our age from theirs has nothing ever RE-evolved to such sizes; there's no answer to that one.

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by junglelord » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:19 am

Tensegrity structures never crush under their own weight, only compression structures.
The engineering principle of soft tissue is Tensegrity.
To take a compression model and apply it to a structure in gravity is the science of modern engineering and is involved in stress, strain, fracture mechanics, etc. Tensegrity does not pose these problems as it is not a product of these items.

Concerning Flying Squirrels, they can infact go quite far for such a little glider and from a very modest height.
I have seen this many times in the forest. Therefore it is shown that nature will make a creature that glides.
How this can be used as a rebuttal against the gliding dinosaure, well, thats your logic, not mine.
:lol:

One often marvels at how far a hang glider can travel.
:?

Cheers.
If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.
— Nikola Tesla
Casting Out the Nines from PHI into Indigs reveals the Cosmic Harmonic Code.
— Junglelord.
Knowledge is Structured in Consciouness. Structure and Function Cannot Be Seperated.
— Junglelord

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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by tholden » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:35 am

"Tensegrity(TM)" doesn't appear to have helped this guy very much:

Image

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nick c
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Re: Rigorous study of size limits for flying creatures

Unread post by nick c » Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:28 am

Hi StefanR,
StefanR wrote: From what I got from that discussion back then was that although maybe discussing a changing gravity or a growing earth might not be wrong. Trying to use the size of animals or plants as an argument is not such a good way around it.
It seems to me that the size problem of past geological ages (which is across the board, not only a flight issue, but also land animals, insects, amphibians, plants, etc.) is a valid piece of evidence against the prevailing assumption of constant gravity. Furthermore, there seems to be a transition between our age and the Mesozoic which is the age of giant mammals, which was populated by animals larger than today but smaller than the age of dinosaurs.
While this is not enough by itself to conclusively falsify constant gravity (there could possibly be an alternate explanation of the size problem that does not exclude constant gravity) if it is not a knockout blow it certainly is a knockdown.
Most explanations that I have seen are piecemeal, that is they might account for one aspect of the size problem but don't explain all, where as, variable felt effect of gravity does explain the entire issue.
for example:
-higher O2 levels- this could explain larger insects, but does little to explain large land animals and flying animals
-higher CO2 levels- this could explain larger flora, again, incomplete
-tensegrity-there is tensegrity in today's fauna, why are they not gigantic too? and of course there is another debate as to what extent this architectural concept can be applied to biology.
-denser atmosphere-there are numerous objections to this (in addition to what Steve Smith wrote earlier on this thread)
how dense can an atmosphere get before lungs become unusable? Is there any other evidence that the Earth's atmosphere had radical differences in density in past times?
-expanding earth-there are objections to this:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... earth1.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... earth2.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... earth3.htm


Most paleontologists just simply choose not deal with the issue. They talk about ecological niches, I once watched Bakker on TV documentary speaking on the filling of ecological niches. To paraphrase, he said that the ptaranodon's niche is filled by the albatross, the sauropod herds by elephant herds, the t-rex by the tiger, etc. But is there not a severe scaling problem here? there really is no ecological niche today for an animal as large as brachiosaurus, a tippy toe t-rex, or a large pterosaur.
Arguably, one could invoke Occam's Razor as further support, once the assumption that a gravity constant is beyond question is removed. Variable felt effect of gravity seems to be the simplest explanation.

nick c

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