Why is water so important for life?

Answer 1

Water is essential to life for a number of reasons. It is a useful solvent that exists as a liquid at the ideal range of temperatures for life as we know it on Earth, behaving as a perfect medium across which biochemical reactions can occur.

Your cells transport resources across the spaces within and between them facilitated by this medium, just as your blood serves as the ideal medium for transporting oxygen-carrying corpuscles and a rich soup of nutrients, hormones, and even waste products being sent for filtration.

The very structure of your tissues is reliant upon water content; consider the difference between a fresh loaf of bread and a stale (dry)one that can be crumbled between the fingers.

Plant cells, just like animals cells, require hydration to function, too. In fact, right down to unicellular life forms, life as we know it on this planet relies upon water existing as a liquid in order to function on a biochemical level.

Your cells also rely on electrolyte concentrations inside and outside of its cell walls to maintain fluid balance. When this balance is thrown off kilter, cells become turgid or explode, or lose the ability to function normally. Cell death occurs as a result of structural failure or toxification.

Blood volume and absorption capacity are diminished, so oxygen levels drop and the heart struggles to pump the blood faster to compensate. Organs overheat as the body stops sweating and blood vessels constrict, eventually failing as tissues die.

Under normal conditions, it could take as little as two to three days for the average human to die without water.

On a grander scale, water plays a huge role in maintaining a life-supporting climate, even transporting heat around the planet to maintain moderate zones comfortable for life.

Soup Analogy

If we think of water as the thing that gives life we can imagine a packet of dehydrated soup, not very 'active' and definately not very appealing. Now add warm water and you can not only smell the aroma, but you can also see it moving as the convection cycles inside the soup attempt to stabilize. In a very simplified way we can think of this as homeostasis, just the right amount of all the ingredients, herbs and spices, salt, water, and temperature. All living things live in a kind of a 'soup'. Single cell organisms have to be sure to find a kind of a soup that they like to live in because they cannot make their own. Examples of this include ocean water, or lake, river, or pond water. It can also be in the 'water' of multicell organsims. This is when foreign microbes find a way into your body and decide to take up residence there; sometimes called an infection. As for multicellular animals that are made up of trillions of cells all working together, they create their own internal environment, or inner 'soup' that we call interstitial fluid. The volume of this liquid is about twice the amount of blood, or 8-10 quarts for the average size human. This fluid is also considered by some to be the 'primordial sea' in which life began on Earth. So, now if you think about your own interstitial fluid, it is what keeps the internal environment of your body just right, in relative stability called homeostasis, so your cells have exactly what they need to keep functioning; including the temperature, salinity, all the nutrients, and the ability to remove all their wastes. And, though different types of animals have their own preference for a different recipe for their own versions of this internal soup, what is really amazing is that even individual members of each species have their own individual preferences because every living organism is, even just a little bit, different than all the rest. So, with that in mind, what's your favorite soup recipe?

Answer 2

Water allows things to breath, believe it or not! It also is used to wash our body of unwanted things when we drink water. Water keeps our planet from frying, it keeps out overall body moisturized so that we don't crack up. Is that a good enough question?

Answer 3

Every known form of life on earth, from the largest mammals to the smallest microbes, relies on water. Why? Because water is an extraordinarily versatile molecule - it's the perfect liquid medium in which to dissolve nutrients for ingestion or wastes for excretion, to transport important chemicals or even be used as one. Water has two particular physical properties that are unique among natural molecules: it remains liquid over an extremely broad range of temperatures, and it decreases in density when converted to solid phase (frozen). While this may seem a relatively minor point, its consequences (that ice floats) are critical to the evolution of life. If ice were more dense than water and the earth cooled slightly, ice formed on the oceans would sink and push the already cold water from the bottom to the surface, where it too would freeze and sink, repeating the cycle until all water on the planet was frozen. Not all scientists believe that the presence of water is "concrete" evidence of life, but liquid water certainly improves the likelihood of life taking hold and finding a hospitable environment. This should not be confused with ice, however, which we know is present in many planets and moons in the solar system. Remember that ice may not be only frozen water, but perhaps vapor from other gases - in either case not as conducive to life.

Answer 4

because water is a best solvent for variour molecules