A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Not breathing oxygen is way more toxic, though. That will kill you in a few minutes.
Sure, I imagine off-world lifeforms having entirely different metabolism. Like when we hear “this planet has a methane atmosphere” it’s like holy cow, sounds rough, but alien entities would possibly think the same thing about our planet of water and nitrogen. Imagine how horrible it would sound to someone who was water-soluble. “H2O rains down from the sky!!”
We keep finding life on earth in places where we didn't think life was possible. And yet, when we look at the stars we have the nerve to talk about there being a "goldilocks zone" for planets in other solar systems, like that's the only way life could exist there.
I'm sure there's life out there somewhere, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if carbon/water based life turns out to be a minority in the universe.
Yes, water is a simple compound made of some of the most common elements in the universe, so it's reasonable to think other life might also evolve to use it. Carbon is also a really handy element for making complex molecules, and is also really common. But, it's a failure of the imagination to think that life elsewhere has to follow the same basic chemistry as here on earth.
Unfortunately, most life will likely be Carbon based, in some manner (synthetic life could be different). The key is forming the large, complex molecules that make life, life. You need an element that can form chains. You also need to attach things to those chains.
The only 2 atoms that can do this are carbon and silicon. Both can form "organic" type molecules. Unfortunately, silicon has an additional reaction pathway that makes the chain easily break down in the presence of water. The conditions for silicon based life are so odd as to be unlikely to happen on the scale needed by natural processes. There might be some work arounds we don't know about, they would be extremes.
Synthetic life is another story. Once you have active control over your environment, a number of other options open up. The first step is the kicker however, getting from abiotic natural rubble to a working replicator.
There's a reason we are looking in Goldilocks zones, they are the most likely environment for the only process that seems viable.
Man, I love science people. Like, are you guys aware of how cool you are? I love being around people who talk about awesome shit like this, even tho I don't understand most of it. Keep being you o7
You live on a world where the temperature is only on average 288K? It's so cold there that H2O exists in its solid form on the surface in places!!! How can you people even move let alone have any active biological processes?
Sent from LTT9779b
Fun fact: humans aren't responsible for the first mass extinction caused by organisms polluting the atmosphere with poisonous gas. Blue-green algae did it first, with "a decrease in the size of the biosphere of >80%".
Nobody complains about trees blooming, it’s all unfair for algae :(
People with hayfever probably do
We're going for the speed-run not the first completion 👍
The 100% run.
Aliens view earth like the rest of us view Australia
How do aliens view Australia then?
Oh yah, the DEATH BREEDERS
Oxygen eat ya baby?
Probably more like 'slowly corroding' from the inside.
Combustion is rapid oxidation, corrosion is slow oxidation, therefore corrosion is slow fire.
Are the aliens fusion-based lifeforms? They have to get their energy somewhere.
Eating hydrogen and letting out high-pitched helium farts?
Suddenly the Wow! Signal makes sense. Just aliens helium-farting into the mic to troll humans.
See: Humans Are Space Orcs
Not only is our atmosphere made of rocket fuel, but our planet's crust is made up of the most oxidizing substances in the universe.
Our whole planet is a massive bomb waiting for the right trigger to set it off.
The atmosphere is made of rocket oxidizer, not fuel. Fuel would be something that reacts with oxygen: Hydrogen, Methane, etc.
From the pov of an organism in a high-oxygen atmosphere, thats true. But on a planet with little to no oxygen in the atmosphere, it would have to be added separately, the same way we add fuel
That doesn't change the chemistry.
Plănts: We will make our own food and output a poisonous gas, that way nobody will bother us.
Animals: Allow us to introduce ourselves.
This reminds me of the Deathworlders series.
Is that the one where humans are consensually employed by all the comparatively more advanced alien species of our galaxy as their warriors or executives because even our weakest human is significantly more powerful to any of the nearest alien due to the nature of us all having been evolved from an ancient ape species that were prone to violence?
https://deathworlders.com/ - Dunno if it goes into that detail of us evolving from violent apes, but at least from chapter zero, seems to be mostly due to us being from a "high gravity" world and having "builtin combat drugs" (adrenalin)
Considering the amount of things that can kill us, both micro and macro, and the fact that we ingest poison (alcohol, drugs and even actual frog poison) for fun, it's pretty easy for any alien life to look at us and think "holy shit, those creatures are fucking hardcore!"
I second the recommendation, it's a great story. The writing isn't perfect, but it's absorbing and there's plenty of good world building and characters.
There's another series like that, the Human Chronicles Saga by T.R. Harris. Humans are super strong because the gravity on Earth is much higher than on other planets. Materials on the other planets are weaker too, simply because they don't need to be as strong, so the humans can break through walls easily.
We are a species that came to prominence by literally throwing ourselves at monsters until we won. Injuries (such as a giant beast's foot crashing at you at 80KmH) that would kill any other species 100 times over is basically a little medical treatment and a month of rest away.
Fun (and also not fun) Fact is that the reason why bullet caliber exists is because when settlers were doing their genocide they would often unload their entire magazine into warriors to no avail, they would just rush up unimpeded and chop the settlers to ribbons. The concept of stopping power was literally invented because of the sheer resilience of humans and the amount of damage we can take and survive.
The only lifeform on this plant which can take anywhere near the level of punishment we can are insects, and in those cases even one injury is often enough to permanently disfigure and condemn them to a crapshoot of maybe being able to reproduce before they eventually die, because for as resilient as they are, nature didn't really build them for long distance survival like we did through our monster-hunting exploits.
Regarding bullets in ye olde times, I suppose a significant portion of immediate survivors had a hellish time dealing with chronic pain and lead poisoning. Also worth nothing: it was common for pre industrial ammo to shatter on impact due to imperfections, acting much like current day hollow point, which shreds tissue in a nasty way.
So we’re like smart Klingons to them? Sweet.
At first I thought this was going to be about Scuba diving as the deaths caused by oxygen is a factor that needs considering.
Central Nervous System toxicity. Also, oxygen at over 160% starts to get deadly on its own.
We also have to regularly eat metal to live.
Why do we need to eat metals but cannot do allomancy with it? SMH we're living in the worst timeline.
When humans go out on space walks, they bring their death environment with them in bags.
Pretty sure there's some worms or something that live by deep sea vents which breathe sulfur not oxygen and are believed to live forever because of this.
Core takeaway: huff sulfur, live forever
