A searching question popped into my mind last
night: if seeds are living or dead? I searched the Internet for what others
have to say.
Here are some of their answers, and
I quote theirs in pink:
- A seed is the embryo of a new plant and as such is
a living thing, but in a dormant state, which requires being buried in
soil or other suitable matter to trigger off the renewal process.
Jack Hill, St Albans England
- It has the potential for life when given the means,
and it can die when it isn't given enough care, so I would say that it is.
Anonymous,
- Actually, the trigger is a combination of
temperature, light and humidity. The matter around the seed is not
important.
Katarina, Slovenia
- Seed is a product of a living thing but must decay
to replace and produce another better or the same.
Tony, Lagos Nigeria
- Seeds are living because seeds need water, light
and soil if you don't take care of them. It will die. Plants grow from
seeds.
Tanya Francis, Wentworthville,
Australia
- Seed of course contains life, as it is said as the
embryo of a new plant. But think about the seeds which cannot germinate.
Can we say in that condition, a seed as a living organism?
Thank you to all the above named
for their opinion.
Let me now give my thoughts here as
a scientist.
All life requires water. The human
body for instance is made up of 60-75% of water by weight. Dehydration set in
when there is a loss of 4 – 5 % water, and a loss of about 10 – 15 % may result
in death.
Without water death occurs after 3 days for a human body caused by a daily obligatory urinary loss of water even though he may survive for months without food, depending on his body weight and store of body’s fats. Water is crucially vital for all forms of life that we know.
The loss of water from the body due to obligatory urine loss is approximately 500ml to 800 ml a day whether or not we drink. In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water. A 70 kg man contains about 42 litres of water. The volume of blood is approximately 5.5 litres in each adult male and 4.5 litres in female. In other words, a human body does not last long without water when 500 – 800 ml of water is lost into the urine everyday even if he does not drink any water to replace this obligatory urinary loss.
So would all life including seeds that have been left without water for sometime.
In chemistry, we also know water is made
up of two positively charged hydrogen, and one negatively charged oxygen.
When hydrogen combines with the
oxygen, it generates an asymmetrical molecule with positive charge on one side
and negative charge on the other side. This charge polarity regulates how
water interacts with other molecules in chemical reactions especially in the
biochemical pathways of all life.
Its role as a universal solvent
helps cells to transport oxygen, gasses, nutrients throughout the body, and the
removal of toxic wastes accumulated through metabolism or from ingested toxins
including ingested drugs. In fact, blood and all biological fluids are made up
of water.
Not just the importance of water in
the chemical and biochemical role in a living body, but water also has an
imperative biological structural role in giving shapes to the cells and body
structures by filling them with water. The water in cells exerts
hydrostatic pressure to give them shapes and prevents them from collapsing from
external forces.
Some plants and seeds can maintain
their cell structure without water, but they still require water to survive as
far as I believe. We shall ask this question again towards the end.
The crucial role of water
allows all contents inside cells to have the right structure and for all
biochemical reactions of life to be possible.
Cells in the body consist of two
layers of molecules called phospholipids. The phospholipids have a polar
and a nonpolar end. Phospholipids form bilayers with one end facing
outward towards water and the other facing inward to repel water.
The bilayer enveloping the cells
allows substances like salts and nutrients to enter and exit the cell. In the
absence of water, cell membranes would not have the needed structure, and
without the membrane structure, cells would be unable to maintain important
life structures inside the cell.
Besides the structure and shape of
cells, water also influences some fundamental components of every cell in life
such as DNA, amino acids from proteins and sugars. The amino acids as
building blocks of proteins need to fold up into specific chemical
configurations to function.
Water plays a role in the
folding of amino acid chains into certain patterns with some types of
amino acids avoiding interacting with water, and others requiring the presence
of water. Proteins provide the structure involved in cellular signalling
and catalyses biochemical reactions in the cell. Proteins are the mainstay of
physiological functions besides their structural function. The contraction of
muscles, cellular communication, immunological defences are some of the
functions of proteins that are only possible in the presence of water.
Proper shapes due to water,
proteins, sugars and other life chemical components make life possible. In a
similar vein, DNA necessitates to be in a specific configuration for its
instructions to be properly decoded. Proteins read or copy DNA into a particular
shape and are only possible in the presence of water.
The water molecules that surround
the DNA in an orderly fashion support its characteristic double-helix
conformation. Without water and shape, cells would not be able to follow the
programmed instructions encoded by DNA or to pass the directives to dividing
cells, making growth, reproduction, and, ultimately, survival of all life on
earth possible. Thus, water is directly involved in many chemical reactions
pertaining to the existence of life.
Even in plants, water is needed in
photosynthesis for the synthesis of sugars, starches, cellulose and thousands
of phytochemicals. Water also contributes to building larger molecules
like DNA and proteins. Contrariwise, water is also required for the reverse
reaction that breaks down these molecules so that cells can obtain nutrients or
repurpose pieces of big molecules.
Water being a universal solvent is
a versatile participant in most if not all chemical reactions. It can act as a
hydrogen bond donor, acceptor, and even a proton (H+) donor or acceptor. This
property empowers water to expedite chemical and biochemical reactions of life
in various ways. The most significant role of water in chemical reactions is
its role as a universal solvent. Without water, many chemical reactions cannot
occur since water is a carrier for most of these life’s chemical reactions.
Furthermore, water buffers cells
from the damaging effects of acids and bases if not balanced. Acids and
bases release excess hydrogens or take up excess hydrogens, respectively, from
the surrounding cells. Losing or gaining positively charged hydrogens
dislocates the structure of molecules, especially proteins that require a
specific structure to function appropriately. Thus, it is crucial to protect
them from acids and bases imbalances.
Water being neutral with pH 7 can
buffer changes by acting as both an acid and a base. Even though the chemical
bonds within a water molecule are very stable, it’s possible for a water
molecule to give up a hydrogen and become OH–, thus acting as a base, or accept
another hydrogen and become H3O+, thus acting as an acid.
This chemical adaptability and
buffering action allow water to neutralize drastic changes of pH due to acidic
or basic substances in the body. Eventually, this buffering protects proteins
and other molecules in the cell.
In summary, water is vital to all
life whether in a dominant seed or in an actively living organism. Its
versatility and adaptability help perform important biochemical and chemical
reactions. Its simple molecular structure consisting of hydrogen, the most
abundant element in the universe, and life-giving oxygen helps maintain inner
and outer shapes of cells and their membrane. No other molecule matches water
that processes such unique universal properties that support life.
In astronomy for instance, one of
the first criteria astronomers look for the presence of life in an extrasolar
or exoplanet planet outside our solar system is the presence of water.
The approximate radii of the
Goldilocks Zone within the host star’s habitable zone are given by:
ri = ( √ L star / 1.1)
r0 = (L star /
0.53)
Where:
ri = the inner
boundary of the habitable zone in astronomical units (AU)
ro = the outer
boundary of the habitable zone in astronomical units (AU)
Lstar is the
absolute luminosity of the star.
1.1 is a constant value representing stellar flux at the inner radius.
This brings us back to the question we asked in the beginning if seeds lying dormant and asleep without water for years are alive or not? If there are alive then they still need water to maintain its structure and basal metabolic rate no matter how low their basal metabolic rates as in hibernation of animals such as turtles, snails, snakes, wood frogs, and groundhogs, skunks, hedgehogs, bumblebees, during winter.
There
are of course bacteria that can thrive in extremely dry environments. They are
not seeds, but xerotolerant microorganisms that are extremophiles that can
survive in environments with extremely limited water.
There
is a high diversity of xerotolerant bacteria that are found in many different
extreme environments, including hot and cold environments, such as the Atacama
and Antarctic deserts. These xerotolerant microorganisms survive in sheltered
geological niches that allow their biological activity.
Their
dormancy allows desiccation that enables them to react to sporadic cycles of
rainfall and drought by remaining in an inert metabolic state most of the time.
These xerotolerant bacteria use several physiological mechanisms to prevent
cell disruption and water loss, including phospholipid modifications to
maintain membrane fluidity, the secretion of water-retaining extracellular
polymeric substances, and the accretion of compatible solutes that reserve the
osmotic potential across their membrane.
These
xerotolerant microorganisms, DNA and protein stability are crucial to ensure
that cellular activity is resumed under favourable conditions. Thus, most
molecular adaptations to xeric stress involve the upregulation of proteins that
are stable under low water activity and that preserve their life-giving
properties.
Then
besides these bacteria that can thrive in extreme dryness, there are also
desert animals such sidewinder snakes, Mexican coyotes, dung beetles,
camels, fennec foxes and other desert animals that can thrive in almost
waterless environments, but only for short periods.
But
these are not seeds. They are living organisms with high content of water in
them.
The water content in most seeds is between 10-15% only. This is far below than required for any metabolic activity. The soil moisture contents of 50 to 75 percent are usually required for seed to germinate into life. Thus, seeds before putting into moist soil are they dead or living?
If seeds are dead, they will not spring alive even when given water or put back into the damp soil.
See my other article:
“Can Life in Other Worlds Exist Without Water?” published on
Sunday,
October 16, 2022 here:
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=is+water+needed+for+life
See also The Origin of Life here:
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=origin+of+life
But if seeds are living, the water content in them is far too low to support life. There must be something else besides water that supports life.
Give this a thought with this verse:
“God “formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
Though the verse applies to the creation of Adam and Eve, the same applies to all living creatures that evolve from the soil that additionally has water in them.
Astronomers too concur that life on
earth is made of (dry) stardust that arrived on this planet from the supernova
explosion of a distant star.
But there is no water in star
dusts, or in dried up seeds, or was it, it was dusts and water plus something
else non-material and non-physical that make up life?
Seeds kept in warm places such as in sacks and plastic bags for years have very little or no water in them, and yet when they are put back into the soil from where they originally came, they sprout out life as a living plant. How would scientists like me explain this weird phenomenon?
I really can’t myself unless there
is something more than just water that is “living” hidden inside the seeds.
This brings me back to the question if seeds like all living organisms including plants have a soul as a soul would not need water for its eternal existence? This unknown and undefined entity must have commanded the seeds with whatever water left in them and all life-giving chemicals they have to spring alive when they are actually dead.
“And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was
no more sea” meaning there is no water in another earth and heaven and yet
there are souls and life there as given in Revelation 21:1
This also brings us back to the
question if astronomers and astrobiologists may have been presumptuous in
formulating the equations for their Goldilocks Zone for life existence in
extrasolar planets or elsewhere in the Universe?
Thank you gentle readers for sharing my thoughts
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