-- Marie Hansen, St. Augustine, Florida
Well, you know me. Always trying to spare my readers the obvious. But now I'm thinking: Maybe they just think they know. We'll see.
For starters let's concede the original writer's premise. Robot limbs that faithfully duplicate animal motion are a design nightmare. Coordinating multiple limbs, maintaining balance -- if you think that's easy, try it after you've had a few brewskis. Remember the walking war machines in the Star Wars movies? One reason they were so striking is that they had no real-world counterpart. We use wheels for our vehicles because rolling is so simple. Why doesn't nature?
You might say: Because it's impossible. How would such a wheel evolve? Many intermediate steps would be required, but until the protowheel became functional (semitechie talk coming up here), it would be useless baggage offering no selective advantage.
Just one problem. Some critters already have evolved wheels, sort of. Take the mother-of-pearl moth, Pleurotya ruralis. While in the larval stage, this bug is generally content to amble along in the we'll-get-there-when-we-get-there manner of all caterpillars. However, when sufficiently startled, P. ruralis hoists itself into a wheel shape and rolls out of harm's way -- up to five full revolutions at 40 times its normal walking speed. (OK, so I previously denied there were hoop snakes. Who said anything about hoop caterpillars?)
You're not impressed. "Armadillos, tumbleweeds, freaking rocks roll," you say. "What I want to see is a creature with a wheel and axle."
Coming right up. The bacterium Escherichia coli, among others, moves by spinning whiplike filaments called flagella like tiny propellers. The typical flagellum is rotated up to several hundred times per second by what is basically an organic electric motor. We know it spins (rather than, say, twisting back and forth like a washing machine agitator) because researchers glued down an E. coli flagellum and the critter's body spun around like an eggbeater. If this thing isn't a wheel, it's pretty darn close. For an illustration, including an animation of the flagellar motor in action, see: id-www.ucsb.edu/ fscf/library/origins/graphics-captions/ flagellum.html.
You object: "Who cares about a germ? A more complex creature couldn't evolve the wheel. Every time the thing turned, the nerves and blood vessels serving it would get hopelessly twisted."
Don't be so sure. A flesh-and-blood wheel might use the umbilical hookup found on some merry-go-rounds. Tape one end of a piece of ribbon to a tabletop and the other to the bottom of a compact disc. Turn the CD over so that the ribbon drapes over the side. Now move the CD so that it "orbits" the ribbon clockwise, at the same time rotating the disc clockwise, two rotations per orbit. (Not the easiest thing to explain without diagrams, but think of it as an IQ test.) The wheel turns, but the ribbon doesn't twist. Would it be easy for a living wheel to evolve something along these lines? Maybe not, but who's to say it's impossible? (Thanks to Usenet denizen "softsofa" for reminding me of the preceding demonstration.)
"I give up," you say. "Why didn't animals evolve wheels?" Best guess: no interstates. Wheels are fine if you've got roads but next to useless on rough terrain. For quick starts, stops, turns, climbing, et cetera, legs are hard to beat. (For more, see McGeer, "Principles of Walking and Running," Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology 11, 1992.) We've got plenty of roads now, though, and natural selection presumably continues apace, for us as well as our forest friends. Eons hence, who knows? There may be a whole new meaning for the expression "Hey, nice wheels."
Is there something you need to get straight? Cecil Adams can deliver "The Straight Dope" on any topic. Write Cecil Adams at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611; e-mail him at [email protected]; or visit "The Straight Dope" area at America Online, keyword: Straight Dope.
