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| Mithochondrias... Mithochondrias everywhere | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 16 2017, 03:30 AM (539 Views) | |
| Victorbrine | Sep 16 2017, 03:30 AM Post #1 |
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Adult
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I really need some biochemists here. You see mithochondrias are a very imortant part of our cells. It converts the air we breathe (for our cells: cellular respiration) and the food we eat into ATP, the "currency" of cells, in order to produce energy. But is ATP only produced by creatures that breathe in oxygen? In aerobic conditions? Or can it be in anaerobic conditions? How about an atmosphere were there isn't that much oxygen. And if it cannot be possible then what can replace mithochondrias and ATP? |
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“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest." "No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?” "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire." -Voltaire "So if you wake up in the morning and it's a particularly beautiful day you'll know we made it." -Capa "One of those capsules hit a wing." Victor said. "Had to do an emergency landing." He pointed to a crumpled plane a couple dozen meters behind him and shrugged. "Not my most elegant landing." -me in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" (Act 3) "but by rule 34 of the multiverse, if it exists, there’s a world full of it." -Tet "I must ask you to leave now." -Everyone (not realy though) in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" Projects Status My Blog (SE Blog) Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyBzYPIsLp0uHoPtT6ZEyww | |
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| colddigger | Sep 16 2017, 03:41 AM Post #2 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion The important thing about mitochondria is that it creates an ionic inequality between two solutions, that is, it puts a bunch of H+ on one side of a wall and removes H+ from the other side. It then opens a hole that the H+ want to move through to have an equal amount on both sides, and this hole is a part of a mechanism that forces together ADP and a phosphate to create ATP. Oxygen is used to drive the pumping of H+ to the one side, as an ultimate resting point for the electrons used to drive the system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate ATP is produced by all cells with a metabolism, whether anaerobic or aerobic. The adenosine portion can be replaced with other sugars, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanosine_triphosphate or other molecules can be used for energy transfer such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleotide_phosphate . Both those examples exist in real life metabolisms. The most important part of the mitochondria is the ATP synthase, which, as far as I know could theoretically function with any ion gradient, any situation where there is a bunch of ions on one side of a membrane and none on the other side. As long as the parts involved with those ions are specific to those ions. Ours happen to be H+. There are options other than our classic mitochondria, though they may not be as productive. Assuming we are trying to create a eukaryote, you could rely more heavily on photosynthetic bacteria, the light dependent reaction in photosynthesis can be a source of this ion gradient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-dependent_reactions as the light is used to break apart H2O and provide an increase of H+ on one side, and feed an ATP synthase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain Learning more about the electron transport chain would be good, since this system in concept seems to be a lot of what your questions are about, such as using alternatives to oxygen. Edited by colddigger, Sep 16 2017, 04:11 AM.
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| Victorbrine | Sep 16 2017, 08:19 AM Post #3 |
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Adult
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If the atmosphere is primarly Hydrogen, then are Hydrogenesomes a good solution? |
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“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest." "No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?” "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire." -Voltaire "So if you wake up in the morning and it's a particularly beautiful day you'll know we made it." -Capa "One of those capsules hit a wing." Victor said. "Had to do an emergency landing." He pointed to a crumpled plane a couple dozen meters behind him and shrugged. "Not my most elegant landing." -me in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" (Act 3) "but by rule 34 of the multiverse, if it exists, there’s a world full of it." -Tet "I must ask you to leave now." -Everyone (not realy though) in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" Projects Status My Blog (SE Blog) Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyBzYPIsLp0uHoPtT6ZEyww | |
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| colddigger | Sep 16 2017, 12:01 PM Post #4 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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It looks like those actually produce hydrogen from H+, so they would not be using atmospheric hydrogen. Besides that, such an atmosphere may be problematic due to the demand for very high gravity just to maintain it, such as Jupiter level gravity. If hydrogenosomes is actually your intent, then maybe an ocean of nonaqueous liquids, such as ammonia not being water, and then making it highly acidic with H+. Edited by colddigger, Sep 16 2017, 12:01 PM.
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| Victorbrine | Sep 19 2017, 08:49 AM Post #5 |
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Adult
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That's the thing, these living organisms will evolve on a gas giant (and in my project, Saturn to be specific). This ammonia thing does interest me a little, problem is how much ammonia do we need in the atmosphere (in %). But if I make that ammonia more acidic with H+, enabling the usage of hydrogenosomes, won't that be damaging a little? Also all these mithochondriac sturctures that I mentioned and that we can use are part of what I can call "Earth's blueprint". Is it possible to "create" our own complex molecular structure resembling mithochondrias and that do not follow Earth's blueprint? Because I presume lifeforms elsewhere might not have any mithochondrias... and I don't think such structure is universal if you know what I mean. |
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“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest." "No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?” "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire." -Voltaire "So if you wake up in the morning and it's a particularly beautiful day you'll know we made it." -Capa "One of those capsules hit a wing." Victor said. "Had to do an emergency landing." He pointed to a crumpled plane a couple dozen meters behind him and shrugged. "Not my most elegant landing." -me in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" (Act 3) "but by rule 34 of the multiverse, if it exists, there’s a world full of it." -Tet "I must ask you to leave now." -Everyone (not realy though) in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" Projects Status My Blog (SE Blog) Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyBzYPIsLp0uHoPtT6ZEyww | |
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| Holben | Sep 19 2017, 08:19 PM Post #6 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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H+ isn't something that's directly added or taken away from a mixture- the concentration of H+ is always in equilibrium within a solution based on things like temperature and chemical composition. If you add sulphuric acid to water, it yields H+ such that there are orders of magnitude more such ions in the solution. Decrease the temperature and pH will (usually) increase. Ammonia is basic, and moves the equilibrium away from high H+ concentrations the more you add. Life is all about separating H+ from solution such that it follows a concentration gradient back to equilibrium and in doing so performs work, generating ATP. Mitochondria are a great way of compartmentalising large parts of respiration that gave eukaryotes increased fitness, but the vast majority of cells on Earth don't have mitochondria and use different strategies. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| colddigger | Sep 20 2017, 12:05 AM Post #7 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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I'm unsure what is all being said here. Not a language thing from either of you, just I think I'm missing something. NH4+ is an option, I suppose. Which is the acidic ammonium, as opposed to ammonia. This makes me curious about what could metabolize H2 molecules and nitrogen based molecules for energy.. Honestly I would think you would need enough ammonia in the atmosphere to form droplets in places. You need to consider the over all structure of the cell you are working with, especially if it's on a gas giant. A liquid cell, like ours, which is the only form we can reasonably discuss for the sake of reactivity, would most easily form in bodies of liquid. So maybe have your gas giant actually be a gas dwarf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_dwarf with a global ammonia sea? Then maybe a super criticallayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_fluid between the true gaseous atmosphere and the liquid sea could act as a transition point for atmospheric cells. Though that was just a brief thought off the top of my head, supercritical fluids typically are not environments welcoming to structural survival. https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Physical_Properties_of_Matter/States_of_Matter/Supercritical_Fluids Providing a very dense layer of true gas, perhaps.. xenon, would be a better option. Again just a brief consideration. Edited by colddigger, Sep 20 2017, 12:07 AM.
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| Victorbrine | Oct 2 2017, 11:14 AM Post #8 |
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Adult
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What are their strategies then? It might be those anaerobic bacterias right? |
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“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest." "No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?” "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire." -Voltaire "So if you wake up in the morning and it's a particularly beautiful day you'll know we made it." -Capa "One of those capsules hit a wing." Victor said. "Had to do an emergency landing." He pointed to a crumpled plane a couple dozen meters behind him and shrugged. "Not my most elegant landing." -me in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" (Act 3) "but by rule 34 of the multiverse, if it exists, there’s a world full of it." -Tet "I must ask you to leave now." -Everyone (not realy though) in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" Projects Status My Blog (SE Blog) Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyBzYPIsLp0uHoPtT6ZEyww | |
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| Icthyander | Oct 3 2017, 02:01 PM Post #9 |
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No, not just them. Every prokaryote (bacteria and archaea) lacks mitochondria. Remember, mitochondria are just bacteria that once took up permanent residence in a larger cell. |
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Movie Monsters- It Came from Beneath... Legend of Zelda- The Creatures of Zelda We have a discord. If you want to join, simply message me, Flisch, Sphenodon, or Zorcuspine. It's All About Me
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| Victorbrine | Oct 6 2017, 02:20 PM Post #10 |
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Adult
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Yeah but how do they work? |
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“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest." "No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?” "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire." -Voltaire "So if you wake up in the morning and it's a particularly beautiful day you'll know we made it." -Capa "One of those capsules hit a wing." Victor said. "Had to do an emergency landing." He pointed to a crumpled plane a couple dozen meters behind him and shrugged. "Not my most elegant landing." -me in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" (Act 3) "but by rule 34 of the multiverse, if it exists, there’s a world full of it." -Tet "I must ask you to leave now." -Everyone (not realy though) in Flisch's story "Spec Evo: Void Entry" Projects Status My Blog (SE Blog) Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyBzYPIsLp0uHoPtT6ZEyww | |
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