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There's a reason life is carbon-based, and it's not random. It's the only element that works, due to abundance; ability to form many bonds; bonds that are just
by caymanjim 1y ago
There's a reason life is carbon-based, and it's not random. It's the only element that works, due to abundance; ability to form many bonds; bonds that are just durable enough but not too durable. There's plenty of sci-fi about silicon-based life, but that's infeasible fantasy. And no other elements have any hope. If you have carbon-based life, you need water as solvent and medium.
It's a pretty safe assumption that all life requires water.
- marcosdumay 1y ago> due to abundance; ability to form many bonds; bonds that are just durable enough but not too durable Well, the thing is that all of those are environment-dependent. We do have data on a somewhat diverse set of environments, and it's enough to confirm what we knew about the flexibility of carbon. But it's not enough to disprove the alternatives.
- Animats 1y ago> There's plenty of sci-fi about silicon-based life, but that's infeasible fantasy. Right. Silicon dioxide is quartz. Longer analysis.[1] [1] https://www.the-ies.org/analysis/does-silicon-based-life-exist https://www.the-ies.org/analysis/does-silicon-based-life-exi...