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Pastimes : IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kinkblot who wrote (439)	3/27/2004 7:25:04 PM
From: Volsi Mimir	Respond to of 480

Send stuff to the MOON, Alice!!!!!!! transorbital.net I'm ma thinking about sending some cheese. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mad Scientist -- ask a question, get an answer-- www.madsci.org Date: Mon Dec 8 14:50:02 2003 Posted by Theresa Grade level: 7-9 School: Hudson Middle School City: Hudson State/Province: Ohio Country: USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In science we are building aliens, and we hvae a planet to suite his/her needs to. They must be as advanced in technology as we are, or further. Our group believes that it is theortically possible to not have to breath. They chemical anatomy of the body may be different than ours, and they may have a different way of making energy. This proves that aliens do not have to breath, correct? Date: Thu Dec 18 02:15:54 2003 Posted by Steve Mack Position: Post-doc/Fellow, Molecular and Cell Biology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Theresa, This sounds like a very fun project! I think that you are absolutely right; there could be aliens that don't breathe. This is all really a matter of opinion of course, depending on how you define breathing, but lets take a look at what breathing is, and why animals do it. We need to breathe because we require oxygen in order to carry out the process of respiration. Respiration is the process in which we generate energy from food (the example of "food" we we usually use is glucose), and because we use oxygen for our respiration, we are described as aerobic (which just means that we need oxygen) organisms, or simply as aerobes. Basically, aerobes combine glucose with oxygen to obtain energy, and the byproducts of aerobic respiration are carbon dioxide and water. Animals that breathe use specialized breathing organs, like lungs or tracheae, or gills to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the air, and for some organisms, the specialized breathing organ is their skin. Plants use oxygen for aerobic respiration too, so depending on how you define it, you could say that plants breathe too. However, there are some organisms that carry out respiration without oxygen. These organisms are called anaerobes (which just means that they don’t need oxygen), and their respiration is known as anaerobic respiration (or fermentation). Here on earth, the anaerobes are mostly single-celled organisms, such as bacteria and archaea. Some fungi (like yeast) can also live as anaerobes if necessary, but they prefer to use oxygen. Instead of producing carbon dioxide and water as the by products of respiration, anaerobic yeast produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as the byproducts of fermentation. Like yeast, we can carry out anaerobic respiration when necessary, but this occurs primarily in our muscles. When we feel sore after exercise, that soreness is due to the presence of lactic acid, the byproduct of anaerobic respiration (instead of carbon dioxide and water) in our muscles. The reason that all of the multi-celled organisms are aerobes is because we need a lot of energy to live a multi-cellular lifestyle. We can get a lot more energy out of our food by using oxygen in our respiration. For example, we get 2 ATP when a glucose molecule is oxidized to two lactic acid molecules, but we get 30 ATP when a glucose molecule is oxidized to six carbon dioxide molecules and six water molecules. In addition, there are some anaerobic archaea that carry out respiration using iron or sulfur and nitrate instead of oxygen. So,if your aliens don't need to breathe then that means that they can get all of the energy that they need from anaerobic respiration of their food. For example, they might have versions of the iron or sulfur and nitrate metabolisms used by some of the archaea. To meet your requirements, they would have to get these molecules from their environment through some method other than extracting them from the air or water – perhaps they eat rocks along with their food! Alternatively, they could carry out anaerobic respiration similar to yeast or muscle cells. Perhaps an abundance of alien glucose in their environment compensates for the reduced yield of alien ATP from alien anaerobic respiration!

To: kinkblot who wrote (439)	3/27/2004 7:39:10 PM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 480

Flame in microgravity-- microgravity.grc.nasa.gov Combustion physics—the science of fire—is an important area of study within NASA, especially at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Scientists and researchers from NASA, academia, and private industry conduct experiments in microgravity (also called "low gravity") in order to learn more about fundamental combustion phenomena. The more we know about fire, the more we can control it and save lives, property and money. microgravity.grc.nasa.gov Flameballs For years scientists have been conducting experiments on flames at low gravity—a condition called "microgravity"—by using drop towers and aircraft flying parabolic trajectories. These experiments have demonstrated a variety of new combustion phenomena which are hidden by the effects of gravity. One of the more remarkable findings of these experiments was the discovery of "flame balls," tiny, stable, stationary, spherically symmetric flames that occur in combustible gas mixtures having low Lewis-numbers, and only in microgravity. Dr. Paul Ronney, a scientist at USC, made the discovery in 1984 during a drop tower experiment. Dr. Ronney expected to see an expanding, spherical flame; instead the flame broke into individual balls that burned separately, without shrinking or dividing. These flame balls had never been observed before, although the phenomenon had been hypothesized (unbeknownst to Ronney at the time) in 1944 by the Russian physicist Dr. Yakov Zeldovich. Why Study Flame Balls? Surprisingly, we don't know the answer to the simple question for premixed combustible gases: Why do fires keep burning and what makes them go out? The SOFBALL experiments are designed to help provide an answer. By studying these fireballs—the first-ever balls of flame in space, and in many respects the ideal kind of flame to study—we can acquire a better understanding of near-limit combustion, which may lead to improvements in engine efficiency, reduced emissions, and fire safety.