New answers tagged biochemistry
10
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Accepted
Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
So would an organism that uses XNA not be affected by any bacteria, viruses, etc., that would affect a normal, DNA using organism?
Viruses yes; bacteria no. The "immunity" to these ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
Replacing the alphabet for how the organism internally work might make it safe from infections due to DNA/RNA based organism, making the two mutually incompatible.
However you cannot exclude that the ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
If you're completely replacing the CTGA alphabet with something different, then existing pathogens wouldn't be able to interact with it. It would generate a completely different set of proteins which ...
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17
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
It might complicate the existence of retroviruses, because they insert themselves into the host's DNA. RNA viruses would not be affected unless the RNA also changed.
Bacteria would not be affected at ...
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6
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
"Affected" is a broad term. If the creature operates under completely separate information carrying molecules, but everything else is familiar, then on a couple counts maybe. If not then the ...
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5
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Accepted
Carbon planet gardens
You are focused on the wrong details
As a general rule, evolution will care more about your environment than your building blocks. If an organism has the capacity to evolve and adapt to its ...
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Carbon planet autotroph
Suppose that the planet has surface temperatures similar to Earth, in addition to having a sun similar to Earth's. Then the specific hydrocarbons used as a biosolvent are probably some mixture of ...
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Plausibility of a planetary ocean containing both $H_2O$ and a form of potassium?
Creation of metallic potassium and reacting it with water would appear to be extremely inefficient to say the least, if it is possible at all. Given the vastness of the possibilities available to ...
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Plausibility of a planetary ocean containing both $H_2O$ and a form of potassium?
Not the way you're implying.
Potassium (metal) has a powerfully exothermic reaction with water, forming potassium hydroxide (which is cheerfully soluble) and hydrogen gas, which also generally does ...
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What vampires get from blood
Live Red Blood Cells
As other answers have pointed out, all the same basic chemicals and elements present in human blood can also be found in equal or greater quantities somewhere else in nature. But ...
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What vampires get from blood
Iron: Blood is rich in iron, an essential mineral that plays a crucial role in many bodily functions, including the production of red blood cells. If a vampire's body cannot synthesize iron, they may ...
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What vampires get from blood
amino acids
your vampire's digestive system is a mess and they have trouble extracting any amino acids from most proteins so they require hemoglobin to get them iron would be the second best answer, ...
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What vampires get from blood
Vitamin D
The vampires have a skin allergy to sunlight, and so can't get vitamin d the usual way. As such, they drink blood to get all their nutritional needs.
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Creating a scientifically semi-valid super-soldier, part 2: nervous system
Reaction speed is based on two main things: nerve fiber diameter and myelin sheath thickness. Improving either or both would increase reaction speed.
The effect of increased nerve fiber diameter on ...
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