Water is more than just Life, it is Alive
Water Shares so Many Properties of Life it Just Might be Alive
The Myriad Anomalous Properties of Water
“Vos has quemado el agua otra vez (you’ve burnt the water again), Sean” was a common refrain from my friends in Argentina whenever I tried to fix Mate, their national drink. They meant I had boiled the water before allowing it to cool to a drinkable temperature. At first, I found it difficult to believe that one could taste that water had been boiled. Yet, after a few weeks of drinking mate I too could detect a significant difference between water heated to the perfect temperature to make tea and boiled water. Since then, not even the strong flavor of coffee, my favorite vice, can mask the flat, scalded flavor of boiled water. This change, that takes place when water is boiled, is only one of the unusual properties of the substance that covers 71% of the Earth and makes up a similar percentage of our bodies.
Even the commonly held belief that water freezes at 32 degrees F is not entirely true. Water only freezes at the ‘freezing point’ if it has a solid to freeze onto, known as a nucleating catalyst. Bacteria, ever present within and without us, is one of the most effective nucleating catalysts for freezing, but any impurity, such as dust, will do. Even silver iodide, the bactericide used in cloud seeding.
We learn in school that liquids are denser than gases and solids are denser than liquids. This is true with almost every non-living material, except water. Solid ice floats on liquid water because water’s solid state is less dense than its liquid state. But wait, it gets stranger, water is densest at 39 degrees F. So, water at 39F water sinks to the bottom of lakes while less dense 32F water rises to the surface and freezes, nucleated by ever-present bacteria. The frozen surface of the lake then acts as an insulator, slowing the cooling of the warmer, denser water below it. This phenomenon is what enables aquatic life to survive in freezing climates. A 1 minute explanation can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rGf8P4wz8
Frozen lakes made me think of ice skating. After a little research, I was blown away to discover that ice rink operators use hot water to form ice; heating it to at least 110F before spraying it on the supercooled concrete under the ice rink. They know from experience that hot water freezes faster, forms a tighter bond with the concrete, and creates smooth glass ice instead of the rough, hexagonally structured ice that freezing cold water produces. This phenomenon, which still makes modern physicists squirm, was noted by keen observers as early as the time of Aristotle. Incidentally, have you ever noticed how common hexagons are in natural processes? Ice naturally crystallizes in a hexagonal structure, mud flats crack in hexagonal patterns as they dry out, honeybees craft hexagonal wax combs, giraffe skin displays a distinctive hexagonal pattern and many species of fish have hexagonal scales.
Water also has the incredible ability to remove heat from its surroundings when it evaporates. Our bodies use this to great effect to control our temperature, prompting us to sweat when we are hot, the sweat then evaporates from our skin and significantly cools our body temperature. As water is also a poor conductor, it tends to maintain a constant temperature, a property which we also use to regulate our body temperature when it’s cold. So, when we are dehydrated, we can neither sweat sufficiently to cool our bodies in the heat or maintain a steady temperature to keep warm in the cold.
The properties of water that allow us to stabilize our body temperature, also make water the primary stabilizer of Earth’s climate. We know that the dramatic extremes of temperature in deserts are caused by lack of water. Might it be that climatic instability is in fact due to the dehydration (desertification) of 38% of all land on our planet?
No other non-living substance shares the unique properties that water exhibits. Properties which physics are still struggling to explain. Might it be that water is alive?
Does all life not deserve our respect? A mistreated mule will kick, a beaten dog with bite, while a respected mule will carry almost any load and a well-loved dog will do anything its master asks. If we give water the respect it deserves, it just might return the favor. It’s time to recognize our living ally for what she is; an integral part of Life ourself. The Future Starts Now.
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