TINY Creatures that Absorb Water Vapor from Air

Source - Wikipedia.org

Crabs, lobsters, crayfish and shrimp all share one physical attribute - they all have external skeletons. This skeleton surrounds nearly all their body organs and protects them from predators.
One structure of their body, pleopods, exists outside their skeleton. 


Pleopods of creatures on land

Source - animalcrossing.wikia.com

Source - derelia.com

Land-living brethren of crabs and lobsters, pill bugs, have succeeded in colonizing land by adapting their pleopods to absorb water vapor from air that is not saturated with moisture.
Pill bugs can loose as much as 30% of their body-moisture and still survive by replenishing this loss by absorbing water vapor in unsaturated air.
Their major loss of body-moisture is through evaporation from the body surface. One of the reasons to roll up into a ball is to reduce the body surface susceptible to promoting evaporation.


Other creatures that absorb water vapor

Flea Larvae
Source - en.wikipedia.org

Book lice
Source - asktheexterminator.com

Silverfish
Source - silverfishbugs.net

Other creatures that absorb water vapor from air are flea larvae, book lice, silverfish, meal worms and ticks.










Why are all of nature's creations that can absorb water vapor from the air, so tiny? Is this a dependency on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere? Is this a dependency on the size of the water vapor absorbing body structure?

We ALL Live in a Hygroscopic (Water) World

We are aware that fishes live in a world of water. We believe that everything else, including us, exists in a world of air. Recent advances in science, however, are revealing that a layer of water covers everything that exists outside bodies of water i.e. everything on land.


Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor any Drop to Drink

Ship Sinking in a Whirlpool
Source - spiralwishingwell.com

This, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, relates the life-changing experience of a person who is the sole survivor of an ocean voyage and returns to tell of the dangers and challenges faced on the voyage. And, of course, the point he makes is that even with all that water around him, there was really no water (of the kind he could drink) to quench his thirst.
How the Gecko Walks On a Ceiling

Source - wallpaperbydesign.com

As the post dated 3/5/11 explains, there is a layer of water on the underside of ceilings, that enables each foot of the gecko to strongly adhere through the unique properties of water molecules, to the surface of a ceiling, with more than enough strength for the Gecko to walk upside down on the ceiling, while defying gravity.


Is Anything Ever 100% Dry?

Laser penetrating water-film
Source-Nano Letters, 2003, 3 (1), pp 19–20

Recent scientific research shows that water films are omnipresent in nature.
These films control interactions at bio-chip surfaces, coatings that prevent and facilitate surface-to-surface interaction and how electrical charges are transmitted from thunderclouds. 
Whether knowingly, or by chance, we need to find ways to control, direct and modulate the impact of these water films in everything artificial.


Hydropholic and Hydrophobic Surfaces
There are some surfaces, called Hydrophobic surfaces) that are resistant to the existence of water films.
At low humidity levels, less than 15%, the water film is difficult to detect, but is there. At higher humidity levels, the water film is clearly visible using scanning probe microscopes.


Strange as it may sound, everything on land also exists in a watery world.

Oxygen Isotopes and The Water Cycle

Water molecules tagged with different isotopes of oxygen have different tendencies to evaporate and condense.


Isotopes

An Atom
Source - antonine-education.co.uk 

An element is defined based upon the number of protons contained in its atoms i.e. different elements contain different number of protons in each atom.
With the number of protons being the same, the atoms of an element can contain a different number of neutrons. 
Isotopes are atoms of the same element or compound that differ in the number of neutrons contained in their atoms.


Oxygen Isotopes

8N and 10N Isotopes of Oxygen
Source - mhhe.com

The Oxygen atom has 15 isotopes of which 3 are stable while 12 are unstable (radioactive) with very short half-life. These unstable isotopes have variants, defined on their mode of decay, that increase their number beyond 12.

Stable oxygen Isotopes
Source - web.sahra.arizona.edu

The 3 stable oxygen isotopes have 16, 17 and 18 neutrons in the nucleus of each atom. 
The 16-Neutron isotope is the most abundant - 99.762% of all Oxygen atoms have 16 neutrons in oxygen atoms.


Primary and Secondary Isotopes of Oxygen
The 16-neutron oxygen isotope is known as the primary isotope as it is postulated to have been created by stellar evolution. The 17-neutron and 18-neutron isotopes are called secondary isotopes because their existence requires "seed nuclei" and they are created on earth.


Oxygen Isotopes and the Hydrological Cycle

Isotopes in air, ocean and ice
Source - wwnorton.com

Water molecules are tagged with the different atoms of oxygen. Thus, water molecules can be tagged with oxygen isotopes with either 16 or 17 or 18 neutrons.

Source - eesc.columbia.edu

Glacial ice, the oceans and the vapor in the air, all contain water molecules tagged with the most common 16-neutron isotope. However, concentrations of the 16-neutron isotope are different in ice, oceans and air. This difference is ultimately due to the slightly higher tendency to evaporate, of water molecules tagged with the 16-neutron oxygen isotope.

Oxygen Isotopes and the Water Cycle
Source - web.sahra.arizona.edu

Conversely, there is a slightly higher tendency of water molecules to precipitate (condense) that are tagged with oxygen atoms containing 18 neutrons.
In fact, the different isotopes of oxygen in water molecules seem to influence evaporation and condensation.


Harvesting of moisture (precipitation i.e. rain) contained in air and wind can, thus, be stimulated by the 18-neutron oxygen isotope that can be artificially created. 

Water has influenced languages all over the world

Water has inspired words, symbols and all kinds of communications between people all over the world


Chinese Character for "Political Order"

Source - Geographictravels.com

The concept behind 'political order' has always been about controlling the populace. 
It's interesting to note that the Chinese symbol for "Political Order" is simply a combination of two symbols:
- One to represent a "river" and 
- The other represents a way to control the flow of water in the river i.e. a "Dike."
It is estimated that the Chinese language and its component characters are at least from 1000 BC. The relationship between water and 'control' is, obviously, a very very old one.


The English word - "Rivals"

Source - overclock.net

The English word "rivals" has as its root the Latin word "Rivalis" that means "one taking from the same stream as another." 
Obviously, here the implication is that only one can (and eventually, will) possess what both want.

Water in Kanji
Source - waterstation.us

Japanese character for "Rice"
The Kanji symbols for water and rice too are nearly identical. 

Rice Symbol
Source - japanese-symbols.org

Water Needs Thinking on a Massive Scale

The fate of the world in the 21st century is tied closely to the ability to get the right quantity of quality water when and where nature and humans require it. 
The challenge, posed by the daunting variety of solutions required, can only be resolved through thinking on a massive scale.


The Challenge's Daunting Variety 

Source - asianews.it

Source - yousaytoo.com

Source - keetsa.com

Usually, we think of water only when we have a problem with either not having enough water or having unsafe water. 


Having too much water is a problem too.




The Challenge's Daunting Geographical Distribution

Source - gfdl.noaa.gov

Source - earthtrends.wri.org

Floods, droughts and unsafe water exist everywhere on Earth. 
Any effort to solve the challenge must recognize these multi-location issues and that if custom solutions are developed and implemented for every location and its specific water issue, water issues will always exist all over the world.


The Solution
Keeping the daunting variety of the challenge in mind, it is necessary and prudent to think of ways to resolve a vast variety of the challenge with the least number of solutions.


Such thinking will invariably turn towards attempts to increase supply from the water-laden air everywhere. Finding a way to extract moisture (both the liquid, but more importantly, the water vapor) from the atmosphere remains the ideal solution.