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Life came to Earth from comet?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6255863" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>YOu know, all this mention of "fire" might be better replaced with "fire" when we are talking about the tool humans use and "oxidation reaction" when we are talking about the chemistry going on in our cells.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, Robert L Forward has written "Dragon's Egg", which discusses life on the surface of a neutron star. If I recall correctly, those creatures don't have a "biochemistry", as on the surface of the neutron star, what we think of as chemicals and molecules do not exist. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You already do - if your body did not shed excess heat, you would bake and die. Why do you think the summer is uncomfortable, and why do you think you sweat?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, silicon has similar chemistry to carbon, and seems to be pretty common. However, while similar, it is somewhat less varied in what compounds it will make. Boron has even more varied chemical properties than carbon, but boron seems to be pretty rare in the universe. But, you could at least imagine a silicon-based life form, instead of carbon based.</p><p></p><p>Not all Earthly life forms need oxygen for energy. But, systems that have an appropriate agent like oxygen to accept electrons at the end of the metabolic path are typically able to get more energy out of the same sources. It may be possible to substitute another chemical - like chlorine - to do the job. But, again, chlorine seems to be less common out in the universe, and chlorine has a stronger tendency to be bound up in minerals (salts, mostly), meaning it is tougher to build it up in an atmosphere.</p><p></p><p>We could also imagine life forms based on a solvent other than water - ammonia seems pretty common out there...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>When we started using fire, it wasn't that we were not able to bring the necessary energy to bear. However, use of fire has an effect we might consider... pre-digestion. Using fire makes it easier to access nutrients and calories in a great many foods. So, while we could bring that energy to bear, we didn't *have* to - cooking is more efficient. By cooking, we got more out of our food than animals that didn't cook, and that's a competitive advantage. We could get by with less food, or put forth greater effort on the same amounts of food we used to eat.</p><p></p><p>Now, humans have so adapted to cooking that we aren't really suited to eating a raw diet. We've lost some of the machinery - our intestines are comparatively shorter than those of other primates, our teeth aren't very impressive, and so on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6255863, member: 177"] YOu know, all this mention of "fire" might be better replaced with "fire" when we are talking about the tool humans use and "oxidation reaction" when we are talking about the chemistry going on in our cells. Well, Robert L Forward has written "Dragon's Egg", which discusses life on the surface of a neutron star. If I recall correctly, those creatures don't have a "biochemistry", as on the surface of the neutron star, what we think of as chemicals and molecules do not exist. You already do - if your body did not shed excess heat, you would bake and die. Why do you think the summer is uncomfortable, and why do you think you sweat? Well, silicon has similar chemistry to carbon, and seems to be pretty common. However, while similar, it is somewhat less varied in what compounds it will make. Boron has even more varied chemical properties than carbon, but boron seems to be pretty rare in the universe. But, you could at least imagine a silicon-based life form, instead of carbon based. Not all Earthly life forms need oxygen for energy. But, systems that have an appropriate agent like oxygen to accept electrons at the end of the metabolic path are typically able to get more energy out of the same sources. It may be possible to substitute another chemical - like chlorine - to do the job. But, again, chlorine seems to be less common out in the universe, and chlorine has a stronger tendency to be bound up in minerals (salts, mostly), meaning it is tougher to build it up in an atmosphere. We could also imagine life forms based on a solvent other than water - ammonia seems pretty common out there... When we started using fire, it wasn't that we were not able to bring the necessary energy to bear. However, use of fire has an effect we might consider... pre-digestion. Using fire makes it easier to access nutrients and calories in a great many foods. So, while we could bring that energy to bear, we didn't *have* to - cooking is more efficient. By cooking, we got more out of our food than animals that didn't cook, and that's a competitive advantage. We could get by with less food, or put forth greater effort on the same amounts of food we used to eat. Now, humans have so adapted to cooking that we aren't really suited to eating a raw diet. We've lost some of the machinery - our intestines are comparatively shorter than those of other primates, our teeth aren't very impressive, and so on. [/QUOTE]
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