5 ms·
Too bad the theoretically cheapest way (mirror-image microorganisms) is an enormous ecological risk.
by Metacelsus 4y ago
Too bad the theoretically cheapest way (mirror-image microorganisms) is an enormous ecological risk.
- kulahan 4y agoCan you please elaborate on this? I tried googling it and just got a lot of seemingly unrelated stuff.
- actually_a_dog 4y agoMirror image microorganisms process and produce molecules of opposite normal chirality as a result of their metabolism. Since there's no a priori reason why life should prefer either left handed or right handed molecules, the way we got here is the result of the first proto-metabolic processes billions of years ago just happening to choose what we use today. If we introduced mirror image microorganisms into the ecosystem, the danger is they could outcompete existing organisms while simultaneously contaminating the environment with their mirror-image waste products.
- grogenaut 4y agoin tl;dr scifi parlance, we could make it so that we'd have bountiful food and starve because we turned earth into an alien planet
- brookst 4y agoWho you calling "we", l-grogenaut?
- herrrk 4y agoPresumably they would be poisoned by the large amount of right handed biochemistry thats everywhere already.. It might be super hard to keep them alive in nature at all. But if youre in the lab and thinking about it could ya whip us up some C-F eating/mineralizing micros? Talk about whats poisoning the biosphere..
- dooglius 4y agoWouldn't they be at a strict disadvantage because they cannot eat other typical-chirality-producers for resources?
- AlanSE 4y agoI think the idea is that we would keep them in a lab and feed them whatever works.
- kibwen 4y agoFor anyone interested in this concept, without spoiling too much, you should read the sci-fi book Starfish by Peter Watts. He has the entire text of the book up for free on his website, in glorious 1990s handcrafted HTML: https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm
- kulahan 4y agoThanks so much for breaking it down - fascinating topic!
- vazma 4y agoI am also interested to know that!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- canadianfella 4y ago
- throwawaymaths 4y agoMicroorganisms generally eat glucose, it's plants that make them.
- ctoth 4y agoCurious, did you remove the green goo post because you found something wrong with the reasoning or did you judge it to be an infohazard?