Re:Why don’t fish freeze to death in icy water?
by hudibras on Thursday April 20, 2017 @10:13AM
(#14156782)
I don't understand it either, but the article makes a stab at explaining why:
"Verifying the functions of these glycoproteins requires precise measurements of the normal growth rates of crystals over time. Yet this is difficult to do so on the Earth because of the natural convective flow around the growing crystal induced by gravity."
Re:Why don’t fish freeze to death in icy water?
by isk517 on Thursday April 20, 2017 @10:18AM
(#14156821)
In the article they say that convective flow does not occur in micro-gravity which makes it possible to accurately measurement the ice crystals as they grow.
Re:Why don’t fish freeze to death in icy water?
by mauvehaus on Thursday April 20, 2017 @01:06PM
(#14158569)
That makes sense, thank you. If you're already removing the flow that comes from the fish's own circulatory system, you may as well remove the remaining (comparatively small?) effects of the convective flow.
Since none of the fish on Earth, which survive these conditions, live in zero-gravity, what is the reason for doing the experiment in zero-G? Given the immense cost of sending stuff to the ISS, there's clearly something about doing the work in zero-G that's either necessary, or highly advantageous.
Clearly the effect that keeps the fish alive works just fine under normal Earth gravity, or we wouldn't have an interesting question to answer.