Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/September 10, 2023

Wheeled buffalo figurine

Rotating locomotion in living systems includes both the rolling of entire organisms, and the use of structures that propel by rotating relative to a fixed body, such as a wheel or propeller. Though the former mode is used by varied forms of life, including pangolins and tumbleweeds, the latter is only known to occur in bacteria using microscopic, corkscrew-like flagella. While other human technologies, like wings and lenses, have common natural analogues, multicellular organisms have apparently never evolved rotating propulsive structures. Such structures may be infeasible to grow and maintain with biological processes. Compared with walking or running on limbs, in natural environments, wheeled propulsion is rarely as energy-efficient, versatile, or capable of navigating obstacles. This is likely why wheels were regionally abandoned at least once in history. Rolling and wheeled creatures have appeared in speculative fiction and the legends of many cultures. (Full article...)

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swpb, what would you think about replacing "used by many types of organism, including pangolins and tumbleweeds" with "used in varied forms of life, including by pangolins and tumbleweeds"? google searches seem to suggest that the phrase "many types of organisms" is used roughly eight times as often as the phrase "many types of organism" is used, so i thought i might bypass the issue of whether or not we should use the plural form by rewording the sentence. in addition, i think "form of life" may more accurately describe the term "bacteria" than "type of organism" does. (the "life" article lists bacteria as one of "[v]arious forms of life".) furthermore, the proposed replacement is worded in such a way that pangolins and tumbleweeds are not referred to as forms of life, but rather as belonging to varied forms of life.

by the way, the current blurb is over the character limit, which i think can be resolved if we replace "rotating propulsive structures. Such structures may be" with "rotating propulsive structures, which may be". would that be okay with you?

courtesy pinging Dank. dying (talk) 08:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 11:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the first part, change "used in varied forms of life" to "used by varied forms of life", and I'm ok with it. The organisms themselves use the mode of locomotion; it is not used "in" them by something else, the way, say, a pen is used in writing (by a person). On the second change, I'm a hard "no". The sentence ending with "rotating propulsive structures" is already long, complex, and expresses a single, complete idea: that such structures have never evolved. The following two sentences have quite a different focus: the two categories of reasons given for why that is so: limitations of biology, and disadvantages of wheels. The first change nets us two characters; if we must cut a few more, I'd suggest changing "traversing or avoiding" to "navigating", or cutting "microscopic," since I'm pretty sure it's widely understood that bacteria are microscopic. I've taken out the whole phrase "despite their utility in vehicles", which really wasn't adding anything, so there shouldn't be any more issue with character count. —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 14:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Also, changed "often not" to "rarely". (If people think "rarely" is wrong, I'd recommend leaving "rarely" and changing "or" to "and"; it's indisputable that wheels are worse for accomplishing all three of those things.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It depends what "in natural environments" is modifying: all three listed items, or just the last. Because wheels are more efficient on hard, flat surfaces like roads, and roads are not rare – unless we're only discussing natural environments. I'll move the modifier to remove that ambiguity. —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 17:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]