Timeline for How biologically different would a species that used mercury rather than water be?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 17, 2022 at 15:54 | comment | added | user86462 | You can have micelles with a non polar main medium and a polar inclusion. Inverted cell walls are OK in principle. But mercury? | |
| Oct 14, 2022 at 17:49 | comment | added | jdunlop | @Matthias cell walls aren't made of water. They're made of substances that take advantage of the polar nature of water to have hydrophilic sides on the outside of the membrane and hydrophobic sides on the inside of the membrane - something that would be impossible to assemble with a non-polar substance. Cellular life as we understand it could not use a non-polar substance, because the cells wouldn't maintain cohesion. | |
| Oct 14, 2022 at 11:00 | comment | added | Matthias | @ Nosajimiki The clarification in the comments said "mercury is the fluid that facilitates their bodily functions". So a cell wall must not be made purely of mercury. | |
| Oct 14, 2022 at 1:27 | comment | added | user86462 | It's not just polarity. The polar/non-polar solubility rule is a simplification of a load of more complicated solubility trends. Mercury isn't miscible with oil, despite them both being non polar. Mercury is really only miscible with other metals. It does some complicated liquid metallic bonding. This means it's more or less useless as a biolgical solvent, unless you get very creative. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 15:37 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @Matthias OP is looking to use mercury which is by definition non-polar. So even if some exotic form of life was based on this idea, it would not match the OP's description. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 13:46 | comment | added | Matthias | @Nosajimiki What about a cell membrane with the polar sides on the inside and non-polar sides on the outsides? Obviously, it does not exist, but it does not seem completely implausible either. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 13:28 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @PrinceThomasthe42nd Trying to build a cell without a polar medium is like trying to build a car without tools. You don't necessarily need a specific set to tools to make it happen, but you cant just mash rocks and coal together with your hands and get a car. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 12:27 | comment | added | Prince Thomas the 42nd | But one is assuming that they are based on polar compounds, surely non-polar compounds such as oils and alkalis rather than amino acids, if one abandons the norms of terrestrial biochemistry, surly the possibility of non-polar life exists. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 12:11 | history | answered | IndigoFenix | CC BY-SA 4.0 |