PumpkinSkink
@PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
- Comment on Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1b may have a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, The innermost Earth-like planet in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system might be capable of supporting a thick atmosphere 2 days ago:
I always like when people talk about potentially habitable exoplanets. It’s like “this planet is not literally on fire or frozen solid, and it’s atmosphere is 80% carbon dioxide with a measly 20% hydrochloric acid”. Like we’ve got a planet here that we’re struggling to not kill ourselves on from doubling the Co2 from 250 ppm to 500 ppm. We’re never getting to that other planet, bro. If we were gonna, solving climate change would be trivial by comparison.
- Comment on 10001 2 months ago:
This is actually how chromatography works. The mobile phase is 0.1% formic acid and 0.3% blood of the innocent.
- Comment on What’s a game you can 100% without hating by the end? 4 months ago:
Golf With Your Friends
- Comment on TikTok sues the US government over ban 7 months ago:
Noone is saying that. The argument is pretty much that people want more scrutiny applied to other companies beyond tiktok, and ideally not be under constant surveillance by any of them, not that people want to be monitored by all police states equally.
- Comment on Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests 1 year ago:
There’s good reason to presume carbon is required. Carbon has some nice, and totally unique properties that allow it to facilitate life.
The most important features to carbon in this context are:
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Stable catenation of atoms. Carbon atoms can bond to other carbon atoms in a long chain, and that chain does not become appreciably more reactive. This allows for the construction of very large molecules with specialized mechanical functions.
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Ability to form multiple bonds. Carbon can for single, double, or triple bonds with itself (and oxygen and nitrogen), which allows carbon-based molecules to have ridgid shapes. Double bonds are found all over the place in life because they allow molecules to have sections that aren’t just wiggly noodles of atoms.
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Bond stabilities that fall in a kind of “goldilocks zone” where carbon bonds to other atoms are strong enough to resist falling apart, but weak enough to be broken later.
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Nearly identical electronegativity to hydrogen. Carbon pulls on the electrons in its bonds about the same amount as hydrogen. This allows it to make stable bonds that are non-polar, which, when used in conjuction with other, more electronegative atoms (particularly oxygen and phosphorus) allow Carbon-containing molecules to be hydrophobic, hydrophilic, or both simultaneously. This property is what allows for complex structures like Lipid bilayers and proteins to be formed.
No other atom, even silicon, has this set of properties, and it’s very hard to imagine how you would make all but the most simplistic verson of life without these.
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- Comment on Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests 1 year ago:
I mean, I can agree that simple autocatalytic reactions can occur with chemistry based on other elements… but it’s a stretch to say that suggests “alien life might not be carbon-based”. Maybe very, very simple, life-like chemical systems, but life as we know it is defined by large, many-atom molecules, and no other element can do this the the way carbon can (not even silicon, whose bond energy decreases with catentation of more silicon atoms link, which, combined with it’s poor ability to form multiple bonds ruins the possibility of silicon-based life). Anything that we can conceivably think of as “life” beyond simple self-reproducing chemical, or bizzare Boltzmann brain-esque systems will have carbon-based chemicals in it.
- Comment on What to play after experiencing Chrono Trigger? 1 year ago:
I’m kinda surprised how few people have mentioned Chrono Cross. It’s not the same game, but it has a lot of cross over, and might help scratch that itch for “more chronotrigger”.