Biotechnology for zerg, Na'vi etc types: tough sans titanium

[Idhan]

Basically, this is for ideas for biological "technologies" for folks who don't use convention steel-and-gear type technologies but are still powerful -- like the Zerg from Starcraft, the Na'vi from Avatar, and other squishy-but-tough types.

Alternatively, it may be used as a supplement for conventional technology folks.

Ideas?

Bio-kevlar:

Normal kevlar is made of terephthalyl chloride (Cl-CO-Ph-CO-CL)and p-diaminobenzene (NH2-Ph-NH2). I think bio-kevlar would be a bit different -- by anology with other bio-polymers, I think it would be based on p-aminobenzoic acid (NH2-Ph-COOH) instead. PABA is already well-documented as a biochemical compound. Bio-kevlar wouldn't be that different from DuPont's version otherwise, except for the fact that each strand has an N-terminal and C-terminal direction. For optimal hydrogen bonding, strands pointing N --> C should alternate with C --> N strands in a sheet of the stuff.

Although I kind of feel like this idea is shooting too low, actually.

Flamethrower / Dragon breath:

Fire-breathing dragons need to do two things. One: create an aerosol of flammable lipids. This part is simple enough that I don't feel any need to go into great detail -- the trickier issue is to prevent the resulting fire from excessively harming fuel-emitting orifice. Two: ignite it. This is where I'm not sure what approach would be best: use some sort of piezoelectric protein to create a spark to ignite it? Use a shift in electrolyte balance (Na+/K+ pumps) in some sort of electrical organ like an eel to generate a potential difference? Some sort of mixture of chemicals which ignite spontaneously stored separately in vivo but mixed upon emission? (hydrogen peroxide and aniline?)

[Sir_Elderberry]

You're hitting way above my knowledge of biochemistry here, but don't the Na'Vi have a particular material named in the movie, something about their skeletons being made of <blankety-blank>?

[Levi]

I think the two biggest problems for biotechnology (In warfare, at least, which is where your post seems to lead) are a lack of ranged weaponry and a lack of speed. A biological wheel and gun are necessary. I think a wheel could be possible with an exoskeleton. I'm not sure how to go about creating a gun, though. Some sort of air-powered device?

[Idhan]

You're hitting way above my knowledge of biochemistry here, but don't the Na'Vi have a particular material named in the movie, something about their skeletons being made of <blankety-blank>?

Was it something about carbon nanotubes? I think that was it.

[Robert'); DROP TABLE *;]

You're hitting way above my knowledge of biochemistry here, but don't the Na'Vi have a particular material named in the movie, something about their skeletons being made of <blankety-blank>?

Was it something about carbon nanotubes? I think that was it.

I thought it was just "plain" carbon-fibre.

Also, Levi is partly right, in that conventional biological constructs aren't really suitable for war. However, I'd argue that if a species is at the level of engineering biological war machines, they should just take a step down and engineer the underlying nanomachine to do whatever they want.

[Josephine]

It's kind of like steampunk scenarios. We used metal and silicon, but some other civilization in some other circumstance could've advanced equally with something else.

[Sir_Elderberry]

I think if you as a species were engineering biological war tanks, you probably also have the tech to build a highly lethal airborne pathogen targeted to your enemy. (For intra-species wars this is less applicable but still.)

[Levi]

If you allow for engineered diseases then it's a bit boring.

[Pez Dispens3r]

Wouldn't actual firebreathing be pretty damn inefficient? I mean, you need a whole lot of calories just for a yeast culture to produce a beer-strength liquid, and to distill it further requires near-boiling levels of heat. And that's a lot of effort suddenly lost just to badly burn someone when you're big enough to swat them into a wall.

Wouldn't a more efficient form of "firebreathing" just involve concentrated acids? Getting acid spat into your eyes is pretty fucked up.

[Josephine]

there's always hydrogen producing bacteria. Now how to light it...

[RoadieRich]

For armour, would some kind of mineralised structure work? A sort of laminate of a shellfish and an insect's exoskeletons,

For weapons, you've always got peristalsis, and hydraulic action. And then, if you've got working bioelectricity, you could always use a railgun.

[Pez Dispens3r]

there's always hydrogen producing bacteria. Now how to light it...

hydrogen is, unfortunately, far too explosive. once lit it will travel backwards and ignite the hydrogen reserves inside the dragon. meanwhile, the breath will have no range, because it will ignite in one ball in the dragon's face rather than trace a nice flamethrower blaze.

[bigglesworth]

I think that for ranged weaponry, a sort of catapult method would be most effective. An olympic shot-putter can throw 7kg 20 metres. And that's just a human. Trebuchets launch much farther and harder, and are not outside the realm of the biological, being made of wood. Launching an explosive (that itself could guide itself down with small wings) would allow for a mortar system.

[Levi]

For armour, would some kind of mineralised structure work? A sort of laminate of a shellfish and an insect's exoskeletons,

For weapons, you've always got peristalsis, and hydraulic action. And then, if you've got working bioelectricity, you could always use a railgun.

I'm not sure a railgun would be such a good idea. The terrible things it does to metal rails would be much worse for biological ones.

[RoadieRich]

For armour, would some kind of mineralised structure work? A sort of laminate of a shellfish and an insect's exoskeletons,

For weapons, you've always got peristalsis, and hydraulic action. And then, if you've got working bioelectricity, you could always use a railgun.

I'm not sure a railgun would be such a good idea. The terrible things it does to metal rails would be much worse for biological ones.

Biological systems do have the useful property of healing themselves.

[Robert'); DROP TABLE *;]

Yes, but a railgun isn't very useful if it's reload time is measured in weeks.

[broken_escalator]

I think acidic saliva is one of the standard weapons for projectiles. It would have to be developed in a way to spit relatively long distance and also have like a mucus lining to protect its innards. Although, distance might not be so important if they are an agile hoard, then it only really needs to be very effective acid/venom spit so that when they do zerg through the enemy lines it will be worth it.

[Idhan]

Acid seems pretty viable. I know I can emit some hydrochloric acid from my mouth -- although, it's not fun and I'd rather avoid it.

there's always hydrogen producing bacteria. Now how to light it...

hydrogen is, unfortunately, far too explosive. once lit it will travel backwards and ignite the hydrogen reserves inside the dragon. meanwhile, the breath will have no range, because it will ignite in one ball in the dragon's face rather than trace a nice flamethrower blaze.

A less serious issue is that it would just lead to a brief moment of intense heat. Effective fire-based weaponry, AFAIK, is more based on stuff that's sticky and clingy and keeps burning and won't come off (e.g., napalm). It's really horrible stuff, but that's war.

As for the ignition issue -- could fast-twitching muscles rubbing rough, chitinous or cornified surfaces together really quickly generate enough heat to light a fire?

[Whelan]

There was some BBC program that went into the theoretical biology of Dragons. I seem to remember their solution to the firebreathing problem was that the dragon gnaws on rock faces that have a particular mineral in them that catalyses the fluid (Possibly methane, because they were using a bladder of that to decrease density so flight was plausible) into igniting.

[Josephine]

There was some BBC program that went into the theoretical biology of Dragons. I seem to remember their solution to the firebreathing problem was that the dragon gnaws on rock faces that have a particular mineral in them that catalyses the fluid (Possibly methane, because they were using a bladder of that to decrease density so flight was plausible) into igniting.

I watched that on youtube. That's where the hydrogen idea came from. It was platinum. Can anyone shed light on whether platinum+hydrogen=flame?

EDIT: This lecture demo instruction seems to say it catalyzes the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen.
http://www.chem.umn.edu/services/lectur ... tinum.html

[Antimony-120]

Yeah, Platinum does catalyse the Oxygen-Hydrogen reaction, but we've already mentioned why a hydrogen based flamerthrower is a bad idea.

Also: I don't think we should look to Avatar for ideas to make these sort of things plausible. They just spewed "carbon nanotubes" and "Unobtanium" whenever required. Also at one point in the background one of the scientists seems shocked that a biological creature is using electricmagnetic signals. One wonders where he got his degree from.

Not that that's necessarily a bad way to tell a story, I enjoyed the original Star Wars Trilogy which made no attempt to explain whatsoever. I dislike Avatar for completely unrelated reasons.

[Izawwlgood]

Oh man oh man oh man, I love this shit;
When I was touring grad schools, I visited a lab at UCSB that was creating transgenic mollusk shell proteins... It went like this;
Mollusks secrete protein from their mantle, which sequesters calcium from seawater, and makes calcium carbonate crystals in highly ordered lattices. These lattices have myriad differing properties, from highly tensile to extremely brittle to extremely resistant to crushing to very smooth and thus difficult to grip, etc, etc... Mollusk shells are pretty rad all in all, especially when you think about the fact that they're made of chalk.

So anyway, this lab was creating protein variants that utilized other minerals, and the guy I spoke to was doing some really neat lipid bilayering technique to identify the right conditions to use some solubilized form of tungsten as the ion of choice for this trangenic protein. And it worked. I.e., imagine with me, if you will, snails that make not only their shells out of TUNGSTEN, but their radula (teeth bits) as well.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Also, in response to the 'what about fire breathing crew', have you ever heard of the Bombadier Beetle?

[Pez Dispens3r]

Also, in response to the 'what about fire breathing crew', have you ever heard of the Bombadier Beetle?

That's the example that was floating in my head: not 'fire' fire, but burning liquidy mess in your eye ports.

The tungsten snails are pretty cool also.

As for the ignition issue -- could fast-twitching muscles rubbing rough, chitinous or cornified surfaces together really quickly generate enough heat to light a fire?

I think flint has specific properties, apart from its abrasiveness and hardness, that allow it to spark. I don't think cornified flesh would perform the same trick.

[iChef]

I always thought that the advantage of biological opponents was strength in numbers. You didn't need technology you just charge the enemy and take casualties until the survivors are clawing their way to victory, like the Zerg, or the Russians. Even your average insects would be horrifying if they decided to take on humanity. A horde of carnivorous, intelligent bees would be nearly unstoppable if they decided to go for world domination. Small, fast and a few trillion in number makes up for the fact that an individual can be taken down with a fly swatter.
I'm thinking some kind of carnivorous wasp with a potent venom. Every man they kill is food for 1,000s of larva that will mature in a few days to resume the fight. They don't need projectile weapons, they ARE projectile weapons. Small enough to set up hives behind your walls and in your vehicles. Avenging their enslaved brethren so we've been stealing honey from for generations. Will they also kill off the bears or bribe them with sweet, sweet honey to do their bidding.
Nature already has plenty of scary biotechnology, only most of it isn't actively trying to kill us, yet.

[Izawwlgood]

okay, here's another, that you reminded me of iChef;
Certain parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside their paralyzed prey, and the larvae eat their way out. This isn't THAT crazy. What the nature channel never mentions is that when the female wasp lays her eggs, she doesn't just deposit 'eat your way out and grow up to a new generation of wasps' larvae, she also injects 'compromise prey immune system' larvae.
Larvae who do nothing but attach themselves to certain host organisms, and secrete delicious immune system compromising juices, and themselves, never develop into wasps.

It's like how the zerg have their larvae, and the larvae can turn into new zerglings or hydralisks or stalkers, but they can also develop into hatcheries or sunken colonies...

Anytime you have eusociality, I think you open the door for stupidly specialized biological form. When eggs don't HAVE to develop into something with some reproductive potential, they can go anywhere. Wanna make a sessile wasp with a wall of eyes? What about a larval sack of really corrosive acid? Make it so!

[Ephemeron]

I think acidic saliva is one of the standard weapons for projectiles. It would have to be developed in a way to spit relatively long distance and also have like a mucus lining to protect its innards. Although, distance might not be so important if they are an agile hoard, then it only really needs to be very effective acid/venom spit so that when they do zerg through the enemy lines it will be worth it.

A creature could have separate glands to store hydrogen fluoride and antimony pentafluoride. Then it could spit fluoroantimonic acid, the strongest known superacid, at its enemies.

[Antimony-120]

I think acidic saliva is one of the standard weapons for projectiles. It would have to be developed in a way to spit relatively long distance and also have like a mucus lining to protect its innards. Although, distance might not be so important if they are an agile hoard, then it only really needs to be very effective acid/venom spit so that when they do zerg through the enemy lines it will be worth it.

A creature could have separate glands to store hydrogen fluoride and antimony pentafluoride. Then it could spit fluoroantimonic acid, the strongest known superacid, at its enemies.

I feel so used...

[Idhan]

A creature could have separate glands to store hydrogen fluoride and antimony pentafluoride. Then it could spit fluoroantimonic acid, the strongest known superacid, at its enemies.

Personally, I'm not seeing the practicality of this.

1. HF and SbF₅ are, even unmixed, reactive things. HF is, while not all that acidic per se, very corrosive and toxic to most life. SbF₅ is, AFAIK, reactive with water, which means it'd have to be stored in a dry environment -- inside an organism, no easy feat. Then, of course, once it's mixed, the fluoroantimonic also decomposes if it encounters moisture.

2. Antimony isn't an abundant molecule for biological organisms. I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem to be used much. Fluorides might be even more difficult -- it seems too hard to move around.

3. Buffers and levelling solvents (most obviously, water if you're fighting other biological beings) mean that a small amount of high-cost superacid isn't going to be as effective as a larger amount of a cheap strong acid, like HCl. I mean, if you're dealing with non-biological targets with no buffers or anything, like a metallic structure, maybe it could be worth it, but it seems kind of niche.

[Izawwlgood]

It's be more feasible, perhaps, to consider some sort of enzymatic acid, or a venom. Many snake venoms, I think, don't work by specifically binding to the [something receptor] in an organism, but by cleaving peptide bonds, or something equally general, and equally horrible.

[Ephemeron]

Personally, I'm not seeing the practicality of this.

1. HF and SbF₅ are, even unmixed, reactive things. HF is, while not all that acidic per se, very corrosive and toxic to most life. SbF₅ is, AFAIK, reactive with water, which means it'd have to be stored in a dry environment -- inside an organism, no easy feat. Then, of course, once it's mixed, the fluoroantimonic also decomposes if it encounters moisture.

2. Antimony isn't an abundant molecule for biological organisms. I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem to be used much. Fluorides might be even more difficult -- it seems too hard to move around.

3. Buffers and levelling solvents (most obviously, water if you're fighting other biological beings) mean that a small amount of high-cost superacid isn't going to be as effective as a larger amount of a cheap strong acid, like HCl. I mean, if you're dealing with non-biological targets with no buffers or anything, like a metallic structure, maybe it could be worth it, but it seems kind of niche.

Curse you and your superior knowledge of atom-craft!

Maybe if a different hydrohalic acid and a different lewis acid were used, it might just work. Perhaps HCl and BCl₃, or HCl and PCl₅. Then again, this creature might live in a world where antimony is so abundant, it replaces phosphorus in living organisms (which given our recent arsenic findings doesn't seem too unlikely). Still doesn't eliminate the first problem though. And it might not be as 'super' as the superacid, which to me was the appeal in the first place. But then again, [point 3]. Still I think the ability to react with hydrocarbons and, by extension, anything oil-based would be useful somehow.

[grythyttan]

Hm, would anything like a scaled up version of the pistol shrimp claw be possible? Because sonic weaponry is pretty cool.

Other fun things:
Echolocation (does anyone else think "biosonar" is a more awesome word?)
That thing pigeons use to navigate.
A more advanced form of large scale constructions like beehives or termite colonies.
tetrachromacy. Or well, the whole eyes of mantis shrimp.

[Meteorswarm]

there's always hydrogen producing bacteria. Now how to light it...

One thing that was suggested in the "if dragons were real" show was diethyl ether. It's producible from ethanol by dehydration, and it's autoignition temperature is just 160 C, which could probably be obtained from a hydrogen peroxide decomposition, acid hydration, or whatever you like - it's not that high above water's boiling point, so with some tweaking, it's probably achievable, especially given that autoignition temperatures are fuzzy.

Would a mantis-shrimp claw provide enough temperature locally to ignite it?

Once you have it ignited, you can move on to picking a primary flammable substance that doesn't also ignite your dragon.

[scarecrovv]

If you want your fire breathing dragons to stand a chance against a prepared human military, they're going to have to take on jet fighters. Which is why you need supersonic dragons. And flapping your wings is only going to get you so far. I recommend that you have two types of dragons (perhaps different genders, perhaps 2 symbiotic species) one of which acts like an oil refinery, using some biochemical process to produce some kind of hydrocarbon fuel. The supersonic dragons refuel appropriately, and then use a jet turbine made out of very hard bone-like structures which were secreted during childhood. As children, the engine parts are encased in flesh to hold them together during assembly. As adults, the flesh recedes, leaving jet engines. Or the supersonic dragons could skip the high rpm mechanical parts and use some sort of pulse detonation engine. Whichever.

In any case, the supersonic dragons will need something with a higher energy concentration than your typical fatty tissue, and a higher power to weight ratio than muscle.

[Levi]

Another dragon species is unnecessary. It could be some sort of plant instead. I'm not sure that supersonic dragons would be an absolute necessity, though--I think there are ways of defeating fighter jets without requiring a dragon to go the same speed. I would suggest some sort of large insectoid missile.

[bigglesworth]

Why bother with that when you can just fill the air with aerial mines?

[Robert'); DROP TABLE *;]

Because aerial mines can be shot down?

[KrO2]

Invisible aerial mines? (Invisible meaning "like a fictional chameleon.")

[bigglesworth]

Because aerial mines can be shot down?

A hydrogen-buoyant mine could contain enough material to fill a fair bit of sky with shrapnel that would knock out any air-breathing engine. And it'd be cheap - you could even just drop seeds for it.

[Meteorswarm]

In fact, a "plant" that grew hydrogen balloons with requisite shrapnel, desiccated them, and grew another below it on a chain would be pretty effective - the functional balloons would be dead, and wouldn't need water (a significant issue when trying to grow something that floats up long distances). When they break off, new ones have already grown to replace them.

Are there any existing biological processes that produce molecular/atomic hydrogen? Are there biological materials that are light but could contain it in a dry state?

[Idhan]

Are there any existing biological processes that produce molecular/atomic hydrogen?

Oddly enough, I was just reading about lithotrophs (while reading about archaea in general) when I came across carboxydotherum hydrogenoformans, bacterial which basically convert carbon monoxide and water into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.