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65 comments on Earth Day Open Thread

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clifman on April 24, 2006 - 9:10am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Think of the lowly fish, with it's magic "membrane", the gill, that splits hydrogen off water to get it's oxygen, talk about your "high tech membranes""

Fish gills don't dissociate water.  Rather a fish combs the oxygen that exists in its free state between the water molecules.  This is known as dissolved oxygen (DO) and is what gets consumed in fertilizer driven algal blooms leading to fish kills, etc.  The gill is an impressive apparatus, but it is no magic membrane.  

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Leanan on April 24, 2006 - 3:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yup.  And that's why fish can suffocate.  The dieoffs you see when there are algae blooms, or when some clueless would-be fishkeeper puts too many goldfish in the tank.  

If fish could really break the bonds of H2O, the would never suffocate as long their gills were underwater.  But that is not the case, as any fishkeeper can tell you.

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