1y ago

Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests

www.space.com Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests

Intriguing 'autocatalytic' reactions appear to be far more common than scientists had thought.

Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests::Self-sustaining chemical reactions that could support biology radically different from life as we know it might exist on many different planets, a new study finds.

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2 questions:
Can we eat non-carbon based life forms?
Can we fuck non-carbon based life forms?
- You can eat them if they have the nutrients you need. Non-carbon-based just means it won't use carbon as the foundation of its molecular and cellular workings. By mass, there's relatively little carbon in living organisms and on earth, so whatever's out there could still use carbon and other elements enough that it has something we could eat. There's barely any telling what kinds of chemicals will be found in an organism like that, but it could easily be a mix of things we can digest and things we can't. Even carbon-based life is like that. Wood for example is biologically very similar to us, but is mainly made of cellulose, which we can't really digest at all.
  yes, if it fits.
  
  By mass, there's relatively little carbon in living organisms and on earth
  Some quick googling tells me about 60% of our body is water, and of what is left, almost half is carbon. This would include all of the fats, carbohydrates and sugars that we need for energy.
  If you ate a non-carbon based lifeform, you might get some water or iron and other minerals you need a little of in your diet, but the reason we need to eat so much is to ingest different forms of carbon to digest.
  An alien that died on earth would probably not even rot because our food chain is so dependent on our proteins.
  
  An alien that died on earth would probably not even rot because our food chain is so dependent on our proteins.
  That is a super interesting idea. Presumably it would bring it's own bacteria though?
  
  Bacteria that breaks down life forms might not be necessary for life. The ancient Forrest's that became oil deposits didn't have bacteria to break them down. This caused them to become oil. It's why there won't be any new oil (naturally occuring).
- We can probably do it once, but we might have to choose one or the other.
- Both of these are matters of will.
- God I hope it's slime girls
  
  Nah it'll be something with a thorax that breeds like a mantis.
  
  Fucking hot!
  
  Kinky!
- Both of those questions will depend on what kind of environment they need to survive. They might need pressures higher than we can or a pH that would be corrosive to us, or exposure to an chemical that is toxic to us like oxygen was to most life that was around when photosynthesis started producing it.
  If we can make physical contact with it, we'll be able to eat it. But if it is based on a different chemistry, I doubt there will be much nutritional value for us as our proteins and vitamins are all based on our chemistry. Hell, there's a good chance we won't get much nutrition from alien life based on the same chemistry because they might have evolved with a completely different set of proteins that might do things similarly but connect with each other a bit differently. There's a symmetrical set of proteins that look like mirror images of ours and would behave exactly the same, but aren't compatible with ours.
  
  Opposite sugar would be the best "sugar free"/zero calorie alternative. If we had some alien vegetation that grew this. Obesity, diabetes and tooth decay would be a thing of the past. Real sugar, completely indigestible to humans.
  
  If it even binds to our taste receptors.
  
  We can all ready do that L glucose tastes like sugar (D glucose) but can not be broken down
- 1st question: no.
  2nd question... Depends how horny and desperate you are.
- Is there anything we can't fuck?
  
  Lava?
  
  Only once

57 comments