Questions tagged [biochemistry]
For questions regarding the chemistry of living organisms.
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Is it possible to use PNA as a replacement for DNA in an alien living being?
I am working on a project that involves creating alien life from scratch and I was wondering if PNA would be a good replacement for DNA, since I want it to be able to function with a carbon-based ...
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Could hydrogen be used as a cryosolvent? [closed]
I've been thinking, could there be life that could drink and live off of liquid hydrogen. I heard it could dissolve complex protein-like lipids from this site https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/...
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Would it be possible for a living being the size of a planet to survive? [closed]
I've been thinking what is the theoretical size limit of a living being? I asked myself this question:
Could a living being grow to the size of a planet?
This super massive organism would have its own ...
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How much Methane could reasonably exist on a world with 6% (60,000 ppm) Oxygen in the atmosphere?
Let’s say I have a world that has an atmosphere similar to both Titan (lots of Nitrogen and organic compounds) and Earth during the Boring Billion. Oxygen is present on this world, but only about the ...
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Is Tasting and Smelling Bad A Viable Way of Not Getting Eaten? [closed]
Would it be possible for humans to use some combination of soap, lotion, perfume/cologne, etc to deter most predators from eating you by virtue of your smell and taste? After all plenty of other ...
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How do floating plants get their trace nutrients?
The planet is a cold ammonia world. Its ocean is mostly made ammonia, with some traces of ices (mostly water ice) at the bottom of the ocean. The ambient temperature is 225ºK, and the pressure is 4 ...
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How plausible is a Cryovenom?
In my science-fantasy world there is a creature that secretes a venom (called a cryovenom) whose proteins catalyze a spontaneous crystallization of the water inside the interstitial fluids and ...
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Evolutionary advantage of a venom compound that makes pain pleasurable
On the world of Ruquelis, the combination of reincarnation and the drug Hialutabu allows the inhabitants to do some truly awful things to each-other and justify it to themselves as good.
Hialutabu is ...
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Is this super soldier viable and grounded?
Below is a excerpt of a set of notes that I have compiled that is the basis for a science fiction story that I am writing. I have spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with a close/hard/sci-...
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Feasibility of a bio-engineered, floating tree lifeform in the Venusian atmosphere?
Would it be possible, given many advances in genetic engineering that today remain speculative, to design a lifeform capable of withstanding the hostile conditions of the Venusian atmosphere?
I'm ...
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Could an organism breathe SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide) and reuse the sulfur atom for bones made of S8 (Octasulfur) and AlO3 (Aluminium Oxide)?
Problem
Background
I want animals on my fictional planet to use 6 SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide) instead of 6 O2 (Oxygen) to react with C6H12O6 (Glucose), to make 6 CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), ATP, 6 H2O (Water), and ...
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Will it be possible to prevent cancer by introducing ECC on genome?
Could it be possible to drastically improve DNA repair capabilities by introducing error-correcting codes into the human genome? Would it be feasible to reduce the probability of cancer while slightly ...
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A Better Genetic Polymer?
This is a long one. (TLDR at the bottom)
The prospect of alternative genetic polymers has attracted the interest of people for almost as long as we have known about DNA. Indeed, many alternative ...
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How could an alien race convert an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere into a Methane one?
For a story I'm working on, humanity meets an alien race of aggressive methane breathers, whose technology is as much biological as it is mechanical. When they locate a suitable planet for ...
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Xeno Nucleic acids on an ammonia planet
Background
I am currently building a planet that weighs about 4 earth masses and is 2.3 earth radii long. It is an ammonia planet (as the title suggests), and has ammonia oceans with some dissolved ...
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