You make it sound like drinking salt water would solve all of our humanitarian problems or something. Lack of resources is not our problem, lack of fair and reasonable distribution of resources is. Never forget that five or six men own as much as the rest of the world combined.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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They worked really hard for it though /s
I mean, they're probably really working hard on trying to exist with humans
According to this article, a longer loop of Henle in the kidney could be the secret to what allows some mammals to drink sea water.
For reference on why we didn’t evolve this naturally, this Stack Exchange answer suggests that most land animals live near fresh water.
This is the best answer.
Also, we need a lot of freshwater for our food (plants and animals). The amount we personally use for drinking is neglible.
It would solve nothing.
Now, if we could grow something like corn or soy with salt water... That would be a game changer.
On the other hand, we already have the technology to desalinate water. It's mostly a cost and energy issue, not a technology issue.
If we grow some crop with salt water, we will be literally salting the earth, so unless we are talking about hydroponics/aquaponics, that would be very damaging for the soil and environment. That needs to be consider as well.
hmm how about making a seaweed that grows meat tumors then.
Or just eat the seaweed. Tons of nutrients in there. Plus it tastes great as a salad!
"Nah, we had seaweed last night. Let's have meat-tumors."
Good point. Another reason to favor desalination.
It's a good point, but desalination has the same issue. Whenever you use seawater to produce something with almost no salt in it (be it desalinated water or crops), that means the salt has to go somewhere else. Probably in concentrated form.
Desalination may not salt the earth, but brine can create dead zones in the water. There are solutions like diluting it, and there are cases of operators who don't care. Either way, salt is an issue if you use salt water. Has to go somewhere.
Diluting it is just undoing the desalination on the water used to dilute it.
There are better ways to do this. Examples:
- Desalination plant provides town with fresh water
- Town's waste water is treated before going back into the ocean
- Brine gets diluted into that treated stream
In theory, this could give and take the same amount of salt water to and from the ocean, while still providing desalinated water for use.
Another way to dilute brine is to add it to the ocean in small bits in multiple locations, so neither location exceeds a certain salt concentration.
If you're growing salt-tolerant crops and only ever intend to use that land as farmland, that could arguably be a benefit, don't have to use as many chemicals to control weeds and pests if the weeds and pests can't tolerate the salt
Probably need to make sure that the salt is being contained to the farm area, and I'd imagine you would need to periodically flush it with fresh water or something if too much salt begins to accumulate in the soil for even your salt tolerant crops.
Probably need to make sure that the salt is being contained to the farm area, and I'd imagine you would need to periodically flush it with fresh water or something if too much salt begins to accumulate in the soil for even your salt tolerant crops.
That seems hard to manage. And there is also the risk of that salt to reach underground water. I would say that it's feasible to do it right, but at a high cost.
Hydroponics seems more manageable IMO.
There are some plants that already grow in seawater, perhaps one way to achieve that effect might be to go about it the other way round, and try to breed or engineer one of these plants into something that can be used as a staple crop? Some quick wiki searching suggests to me that a few species of such plants are edible, though most I could find are so as vegetable type plants and not used like corn or potatos or such. I did find reference to a salt tolerant plant that can be grown for cooking oil though.
And start farming the seabed to devastate even more ecosystems? I don't think so. The best solution is actually to have less people. Better use the CRISPR to create some fun viruses.
Thanks for answering the question instead of jumping on a soapbox to preach.
Great question. Since we evolved consuming “fresh”, non-salt, water our physiology revolves around certain set points for normal neurological, renal, and basic cellular function. Consuming salt water changes the osmolality of the blood, which then causes shifts of fluid to try and balance the change of osmolality which negatively effects neurological function since we evolved to function within a strict range of osmolality, sodium level, etc. The body manages this from the pituitary/ adrenal / and renal perspective to maintain neurological function. If you could create a situation where the normal isotonic function is reset to a more hypertonic environment then that would be the start. I’m only familiar with human physiology and pathology but perhaps someone who is familiar with fish physiology could comment on how fish stay “hydrated”.
Sea turtles have an organ that excretes the excess of salt near their eyes to deal with that.
Well I can't tell you the exact gene would need to be changed, there are plenty of animals able to deal with the salinity of sea water. Basically the kidney has a certain ability to concentrate salt. The greater the ability the saltier the animal's urine is and the saltier water can be consumed.
If I am remembering correctly the threshold for salinity of water that can be consumed is up to a level just below that of the threshold of the kidney's ability to concentrate salt.
So we would not need "super kidneys" just normal ones similar to those of one of many animals in the sea. But we might have a shortened kidney lifespan because of it.
This is such a great question. I have almost zero knowledge of biology so I can’t offer a meaningful answer. I just want to say this really is a genius question.
Sea birds have an organ that pulls super-concentrated brine out of their bloodstream, like a kidney on steroids. IIRC it's in their face. So, that.
However, we can't even grow normal human organs yet, let alone whole new ones.