Hello to my two dedicated, sniff, followers! I am planning a BIG project for the blog. More followers should help. I urge you to tell your friends about this blog, as I am not going to personally advertise and I promise the more attention this blog gets the more attention I will pay to updating the blog. Also, I appreciate and reccomend giving comments, it will help me improve. Now to today's amazingly well thought out and difficult topic:
Pectin and Arsenic are both found in apples. Throughout the day, I was wondering what the advantages where of both pectin and arsenic. So, what are the advantages of pectin and arsenic for the apple?
Good question, myself. I am no apple pro, but I can shine some light on the topic. First, if you don't know what pectin or arsenic are, I will tell you. Pectin is a heteropolysaccharade (these are polymeric carbohydrates) used as a source of fiber and a sweetener. Arsenic is a deadly poison. First I will start with arsenic, I am fairly sure of my answer. Arsenic is only found in the apple seed, which is normally cut out of an apple and its traces are to small to kill humans, fyi. I'm guessing when the seeds reach the ground, they contain arsenic in order to prevent small creatures from eating them, which leads to a larger production of apple trees. For pectin, I had no clue until I finished this sentence. Pectin is used as a sweetener, so I'm guessing once Mr. apple falls of his tree, they want animals to eat it but leave the seeds so they can expand.
With another difficult topic behind us, I have decided to possibly accept some requests, so if your interested, I won't yell at you for asking :p)-akward smiley face, I'll be using these from now on.
-Mwahahahahaha, but my friends call me Mwahahaha for short-
However, I do not see how it would be evolutionally beneficial for apple trees to have apples which have tasty pectin in them, encouraging animals to eat them. Fruit are usually used to provide the seed with nutrients as the fruit rots, or if the fruit is eaten by animals with the seeds intact, so that the seeds can be deposited by the animal's feces in a different place. However, your hypothesis that apples have arsenic in their seeds to deter animals from eating them contradicts with this. So, if we take your first hypothesis about arsenic to be true, then therefore the function of the apple is to provide the seed with nourishment. However, your second hypothesis contradicts this. Therefore your hypothesises contradict each other. Evolutionarily, why would apples have developted pectin? Or, if you believe in intelligent design, why did the intelligent designer design apple trees to have pectin?
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to read my abnormally long comment. Now go do something more useful with your time. :p)
Ahhhhh, Bob, I was hoping someone would mention this, thank you very much. I came up with a new hypothesis, actually...Apples contain pectin, a polymer carbohydrate (almost said carbon) ao they can nourish this seed. Simple. Sorry for the confusion, you do not know how stumped I was until 11:00 this morning.
ReplyDeleteHpefully I'll do better.
-Mwahahahahaha, Bob caught me-