Did we ever learn what the prof had in mind...?
If we did, I missed it... Been missing a lot these daze...

~xy~ wrote:
> Did we ever learn what the prof had in mind...?
> If we did, I missed it... Been missing a lot these daze...

XY,

I didn't see the original thread, but went back and found it. As
others have said, the prof didn't make a lot of sense. Salt isn't a
food, it's a mineral that we use as a seasoning. But being soluble in
water doesn't make it influenced by the sun.

In the last twenty years or so, many chemo synthetic communities have
been discovered. Instead of photosynthesis, energy from light, these
communities use sulfur dioxide for their energy. Near vents in the
ocean floor, bacteria break apart the sulfur dioxide molecules and get
energy, then filter feeders, such as mollusks, eat the bacteria, then
other things eat the mollusks, and so on. These communities are
thousands of feet deep in the ocean, well below the influence of light,
and they don't rely on detritus sinking from above. Since finding
these communities, others have been found in Yellowstone National
Park's hot pools and other places.

The problem is that the dear professor has said it can't have anything
to do with water, and the answer isn't somewhere deep in the ocean. I
just love it when a professor says he's right, and damn all the facts.
He/she should have said, "That's one place, but I'm thinking of
another."

I too am very curious what the prof's answer is. Maybe it's a trick
question, and we didn't get the whole thing in the student's telling.
But I have no idea what the prof's answer is.

Ken

Ken wrote:

> I too am very curious what the prof's answer is. Maybe it's a trick
> question, and we didn't get the whole thing in the student's telling.
> But I have no idea what the prof's answer is.


The person I'm getting annoyed with now is the student. How hard could
it be to get back to us to tell us what the prof's answer was, even if
that answer was unsatisfactory?


--Lia

~xy~ wrote:
> Did we ever learn what the prof had in mind...?
> If we did, I missed it... Been missing a lot these daze...

I don't think the prof knows what he/she is talking about. In order to
be classified as a food a substance must contain either a carbohydrate,
a protein, a fat, or a combination of any of those three things.
Things like vitamins and minerals are not food since they don't
actually provide material for cell growth.