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OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies?

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  OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies? "nuny@bid.nes" <Alien8752@gmail.com> - 2016-11-26 11:38 -0800
    Re: OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-11-26 12:28 -0800
      Re: OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-11-26 12:36 -0800
    Re: OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies? Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2016-11-26 12:33 -0800
    Re: OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies? Don Kuenz <g@crcomp.net> - 2016-11-28 05:43 +0000

#458186 — OT: Silicon-Carbon Lifeforms... For Realsies?

  For some time chemists have been making materials that incorporate silicon-carbon bonds not often found in nature and never in lifeforms.

  Now, some Smart Guys have "artificially evolved" some enzymes to do it even better, faster, and cheaper:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161124151217.htm

  The process works at room temp, in water. One mentioned "Nature could have done this herself if she cared to."

  So, how long until some complete idiot incorporates this idea into a microorganism (like yeast) to mass-produce S-C materials and it gets loose and displaces all mere carbon-based life?

  For that matter, maybe this is another kind of life we should be on the lookout for on other worlds.

  I don't recall any SF using this idea, but it should have.


  Mark L. Fergerson

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#458189

The article notes that silicon life was something science-fiction writers had 
imagined, and then cites Star Trek's Horta.

Just as the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" mentioned a grain 
called "Quadrotriticale" *after* scientists had produced a hybrid of wheat and 
rye by artificially doubling their genes, the episode "Devil in the Dark" came 
*after* speculation by scientists about the possibility of silicon life had 
caught the public attention.

I know, because I was there at the time, watching the Original Series unfold in 
its original run, and reading news about science.

John Savard

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#458192

On Saturday, November 26, 2016 at 1:28:50 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> The article notes that silicon life was something science-fiction writers had 
> imagined, and then cites Star Trek's Horta.
> 
> Just as the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" mentioned a grain 
> called "Quadrotriticale" *after* scientists had produced a hybrid of wheat and 
> rye by artificially doubling their genes, the episode "Devil in the Dark" came 
> *after* speculation by scientists about the possibility of silicon life had 
> caught the public attention.

I have now found

https://books.google.ca/books?id=TkEEAAAAMBAJ

an article by Ray Bradbury in the October 24, 1960 issue of LIFE magazine that references this.

John Savard

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#458191

On 11/26/2016 11:38 AM, nuny@bid.nes wrote:
>   For some time chemists have been making materials that incorporate silicon-carbon bonds not often found in nature and never in lifeforms.
>
>   Now, some Smart Guys have "artificially evolved" some enzymes to do it even better, faster, and cheaper:
>
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161124151217.htm
>
>   The process works at room temp, in water. One mentioned "Nature could have done this herself if she cared to."
>
>   So, how long until some complete idiot incorporates this idea into a microorganism (like yeast) to mass-produce S-C materials and it gets loose and displaces all mere carbon-based life?
>
>   For that matter, maybe this is another kind of life we should be on the lookout for on other worlds.
>
>   I don't recall any SF using this idea, but it should have.
>
Its entirely possible that there was early silicon-carbon life very 
early on but it was out competed by straight up carbon life.  (I seem to 
remember something about the kind of "organic silicon" molecules that 
would fill the same functions as organic carbon molecules aren't as 
energy efficient or something.)

-- 
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey.
Fall 2016 survey began Sep 01 and will end Nov 30

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#458320

nuny@bid.nes <Alien8752@gmail.com> wrote:
>  For some time chemists have been making materials that incorporate
> silicon-carbon bonds not often found in nature and never in lifeforms.
>
>  Now, some Smart Guys have "artificially evolved" some enzymes to do
> it even better, faster, and cheaper:
>
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161124151217.htm
>
>  The process works at room temp, in water. One mentioned "Nature could
> have done this herself if she cared to."
>
>  So, how long until some complete idiot incorporates this idea into a
> microorganism (like yeast) to mass-produce S-C materials and it gets
> loose and displaces all mere carbon-based life?
>
>  For that matter, maybe this is another kind of life we should be on
> the lookout for on other worlds.
>
>  I don't recall any SF using this idea, but it should have.

The Smart Guys compete to eliminate all of Earth's biological domains
and thereby earn the first and only Supreme Darwin Award. :0) Shades of
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" (Joy) [1] and "The Catalyst" (Yohe) [2].

Note.

1. https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
2. http://www.mpietrangelo.com/hbio/unit/2_biochemistry/The%2520Catalyst.pdf

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

From an evolutionary point of view, man has stopped moving, if he ever
did move. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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