Announcement

**aironoeus** · 07 August 2005, 06:00 AM

Item #38 part 1
The Real world Science items:
1) Establishing life on a habitable but lifeless planet (ecogenesis).
2) Extinct/endangered/threatened species here on earth.
3) DNA Altered Earth plants and animals.

We are at the beginning of DNA alteration of plants and animals and animal cloning of formerly extinct species.

How it could be used on SG1
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Not every strategically important off-world planet will have life on it. However it has been demonstrated so far on the SG1 show that all worlds are, or at one time were habitable (unless I missed an episode).

AN INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE OF HAVING SOLDIERS OFF-WORLD ON A LIFELESS PLANET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All soldiers take leave. Not all soldiers will take their leave at the same time because it wouldn't work. Once an off-world outpost has reached a certain size it becomes expensive to have all of them use the stargate to take their leave back on earth. Soldiers who take their leave generally want to get away from the military life while they are on their leave. A common thing would be going fishing, hunting, camping, etc..

Therefore, it becomes financially and psychologically justified to establish animal and plant life on that planet. Furthermore, it is very likely that after a while the military would become overwhelmed with the continous requests of personell off-world for trees and fish and other wildlife. Most likely a portion of the requests would have done their homework on endangered/extinct/threatened earth wildlife and asked that they be brought over so as to put MORAL PRESSURE ON THEIR SENIORS TO GET THEIR REQUESTS APPROVED.
Also to be blunt the soldiers are going to want to eat something other than military food and would enjoy hunting crab, deer, bison, etc..

Not only would this pressure the american government side but the other earth countries involved with the stargate too. So, now the american government is going to have to stick out its chest and competitively take the moral high ground and establish an official post (the other definition of post - job) to establish endangered/threatened/extinct/life on these lifeless planets.

THE LIFE ESTABLSHMENT OFFICER
-----------------------------
The life establishment officer would be a military scientist with the duty to establish a biosphere on a lifeless planet which biologically and psychologically supports and preserves the presence of humans with the secondary duty to bring back to life those earth species that have or would have otherwise likely perished. So obviously, that means that bringing back predators that could potentially hunt or cause problems for humans is out of the question. The rule of thumb would be something like the ratio of threatened/endangered/extinct species to non-threatened/endangered/extinct species is to be 85% to 15% excluding microscopic and extremely small parasitic life, with leeway given to the L.E.O. to use his own discretion.

Obviously the L.E.O. would have a number of people under him such as vetenarians, biologists, geologists, geneticists, with secondary backgrounds in physics. Collaboration bewteen the officers of each planet would have to be done via email transmitted through the gate with the regular military tranports that occur which is to be relayed by earth to the other off-world outposts.

A SCIENTIST'S MOTIVATION
------------------------
Habitable planets (having a sufficient pressure of nitrogen buffer gas, good temperature, sufficient gravity, a magnetosphere, and more than 15% oxygen) without a biosphere already established could offer a unique opportunity for Earth scientists on the show.

Seeking to establish a biosphere on another world with only our limited knowledge of biology that uses earth as the model can be an ongoing effort which the SG1 unit can occasionally become involved in when things get rough. It seems most likely to me that given that opportunity and having more than one planet to do this with, scientists would naturally want to slightly vary the colors, sizes, appearances, and evolutionary versions of certain key animals and plants so that each planet would have its own unique set of lower lifeforms. Another way to look at it is selectively adding only the species you want. Also it could be used as a way to make amends for mankind by bringing back species that man was responsible for killing off. I suppose that at some point a slightly more advanced fictional race or single being can try to sit in judgement of mankind for this and since we would be actively making amends all would be made well.

NOTHING CAN OCCUR UNTIL NITROGEN IS "FIXED"
-------------------------------------------
Before any animal life can occur, plants have to be established.
Before plants can be established, nitrogen has to be "fixed" and put into, and on to the soil. Fixed means that it has to be turned into ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate so that the plants can absorb it into themselves and use it.

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS
--------------------
There are 2 exceptions. The first is Leguminous plants such as peas, beans, and clover which have the direct N2 fixing bacteria attached to them. The nitrogen fixing bacteria (Rhizobium) invade the roots of the plants and become spcialized cells that establish a symbiotic relationship with the leguminous plant. The bacteria switch over to fixing nitrogen from the air by changing and thickening the structure of their cell walls to keep out oxygen and let nitrogen through. They then fix the nitrogen and provide it to the plants roots. In turn the plant supplies the bacteria with carbohydrates or another words the plant takes the carbon fixing job. The whole process looks like the plant has caught a disease in its roots because they get inflamed and form these little ugly lumps.

So, leguminous plants are a quick "cheat." That is, they can convert both the carbon dioxide and nitrogen gases in the atmosphere into an organic form. This eventually decays, once it is dead, it remains in the soil providng nutrients to the next generation.
This is a good way to try and get a head start on the whole process. The LEO can just go around planting these all over the place next to rivers and most lands.

The second way of sustainably fixing the nitrogen out of the air is by Cyanobacteria. They do the same thing as the Rhizobium in the roots of the leguminous plants, except that this happens in the cyanobacteria itself. The first of the two of these is Nostoc punctiforme. It looks like a pearl necklace and grows like a plant taking CO2 out of the air except when it becomes ammonia deprived (remember ammonia comes from dead bacteria and plants in the soil). Then some of the "pearls" become heterocysts which take the N2 out of the air and turn it into ammonia and supply the rest of the "pearls" with it.
So they can live freely without being symbiotic with a plant. You can see pictures of them at http://www.csun.edu/~mls42367/Summer...s%20review.pdf

The same thing goes for Anabaena sperica. You can see a picture of it and one of its cells that has turned into a heterocyst at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterocyst

USING THE SEWAGE FROM MILITARY PERSONELL
----------------------------------------
If you establish Leguminous plants with Rhizobium attached, adjacent to human sewage dumps, then most of the plants will have enough ammonia and nitrates already in the soil to convert to proteins and the remainder can survive via their Rhizobium bacteria.
The fruitng parts of these leguminous plants can be picked of their "fruit" and the fruit can be thrown into a large vat and Azotobacter (a bacteriium) can be added and they will directly take the nitrogen out of the air and feed on the fruit carbohydrates as a carbon source. They also convert to ammonia and nitrates upon decay. This is a rapid way of making nitrogen containing biomass which can then be poured onto the ground. The L.E.O. can have a truck with this big vat on it that he drives around while he is pouring water into it and letting it drain out onto the ground to spread the Azotobacter.

Azotobacter directly oxidatively uses the carbohydrates without any fermentation or organic acids and they also have a fast metabolism. This strategy would be a good "one two punch." The other Leguminous plant materials such as the stems, roots, and leaves not needed by the Azotobacter can be spread around so as to disperse their nitrogen containing proteins.

Before the L.E.O. starts trying to grow plants he first has to find out what life has already been established from human sewage and garbage. Human sewage and garbage will be releasing nitrogen containing molecules, into the ground and water. The most obvious example is Urea. Naturally humans will bring along with them certain microorganisms which feed on the sewage. Some of them are...
Escherichia coli
Campylobacter jejuni
Salmonella
Vibrio cholerae
shigellae
And various parasites. The point here is that human sewage already establishes the start of nitrogen fixation by directly converting proteins and other nitrogen containing molecules that are in sewage into smaller things and ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites.

So obviously the first thing the L.E.O. is going to do is to try to spread the human sewage around. That can be done by watering down the area where the seepage pit is and/or periodically replacing the soil above the seepage pit or tank with fresh soil and spreading the used soil around or the seepage pit or tank can be located near a river so that a maximum dispersal of ammonia containing compounds and bacteria can be spread via water current. The water for the outpost could come from dehumidifying air/water concetrators which sterilizes it if there is that need.

CARBON FIXING
-------------
Carbon "fixing" is not really an issue because plants and algae will do that by taking it right out of the air. But then again, THERE HAS TO BE SOME CO2 IN THE AIR TO START OUT WITH OR YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GROW PLANTS INDOORS OR OUTSIDE RIGHT NEXT TO HUMANS. There are also plenty of microorganisms that are able to take carbon that has been bonded to some other element in the ground or in the air as CO2 and directly fix it, which converts it into a biological form.
The main problem is getting enough plant life to live and die fast enough in order to get an adequate amount of organic carbon and nitrogen into the soil to be able to introduce animals.
This leads to the situation where you must have a way of supplying CO2 into the atmosphere. And this leads us to discuss how much CO2 was in the air in the first place. And then this in turn leads us to the discussion of how hot the planet is so let's handle that first.

GREENHOUSE CONDITION OF THE LIFELESS PLANET
-------------------------------------------
Presumably there will be some small amount of CO2 in the air already pre-existing in some small amount and re-inforced by the fact that humans are there. So that means THAT ANY OFF-WORLD BASE THAT HAS A LOW LEVEL OF CARBON DIOXIDE, AMMONIA, AND METHANE IN THE AIR ALREADY, HAS TO BE A "COLDER THAN EARTH" TEMPERATURE. SO, IF THE PLANET IS DEPICTED AS BEING WARM ALREADY THEN IT IS TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN AND ADDING ANIMALS TO THE PLANET WILL ONLY INCREASE THE CO2 IN THE AIR AND RAISE THE TEMPERATURE TO ABOVE THE HABITABLE POINT UNLESS THERE ARE TOO MANY PLANTS COMPARED TO ANIMALS IN WHICH CASE THE PLANTS WILL START DYING FROM SUFFOCATION. IN OTHER WORDS THERE IS A BALANCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
Animals and plants have to be balanced and that would be up to the L.E.O. Temporarily unbalanced sytems are fine. Nature will balance out the plant/animal balance but not human chemically produced CO2.

**aironoeus** · 07 August 2005, 06:13 AM

#38 part 2

WARMING UP A COLD LIFELESS PLANET
---------------------------------
The fastest way to do that is by using combustion vehices or apparatus. A good example is the use of small versatile vehicles that burn "water gas" (see post #32 in this thread on the general discussion forum). The "strongest" super greenhouse gases are perflurocarbons also called PFC's for short. Those can be made if needed at though it would require a good deal of energy.

FICTIONALLY CHEATING WITH THE STARGATE
--------------------------------------
A quick cheating way to add CO2 to a planet might be to ask the asgard to shut off the normal relative atmospheric pressure differential disabling feature of the stargate so that you can pump greenhouse gases from a planet that has been greenhoused with CO2 by a dead civilization that has a stargate. You can use some large pump and hose.

Another cheating way to establish a topsoil super fast, is to have part of the L.E.O.'s team dial up a designated set of planets that already have life on them. When you are on the other side you "clear cut" a couple miles of forest and grind it up into micron sized powder using that machine called the windhexe (see previous post #8 this thread). Then you dial up the original planet and pump the powder back through to the other side using a vaccumm and hose. This might entail having a small vehicle that can unfurl and then truck around the stargate and also a truck that rides around with that winhexe machine on it. Oh yeah, and a lot of chain saws.
The powder would be dry and wherever you are grinding it up, the air will smell of the starting material.
Once the powder is sent back to the military base planet and bulldozed around, a square mile or so can be made into a meter thick layer of micron sized powder (made of bushes and wood and leaves). Then it can be watered and a bunch of worms can be thrown into it. After a couple weeks you can start planting in it.

Here are examples and some of my ideas of DNA altered species, or extinct/endangered species that could be brought back to life and/or placed on another world so that each planet has its own unique biosphere.

Plants and Trees
================

The ******* Quiver Tree:
This tree has entertainment value because it looks so weird. It has a sort of Dr. Seus type of look to it.
Images.....
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...ll_images.html

It grows in harsh conditions of a semi-desert habitat and provides moisture and perches/nests for birds.
-----

The Bristlecone pine:
Unusual looking short tree is the oldest living thing in the world. The flowering is very pretty.
images.....
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...ll_images.html

info....
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/intro.html
-----

The date palm of Judea:
Much praised in the Bible and Koran as the tree of life, recently three seeds were found and one has been germinated!
http://www.curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=26&i=91

-----

Coco-de-mer (Lodoicea maldivica):
This Palm has entertainment value because of its very large nuts. Look at the size of these nuts, the largest in the world!
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...ll_images.html

It also has the longest leaves and the longest male flowers in the world.
Info....
http://www.sif.sc/vdm/coco_vdm.htm
-------

**aironoeus** · 07 August 2005, 06:18 AM

#38 part 3

Pitcher plants:
Everyone is familiar with this one. Entertainment value is in its look and that it eats insects. They of course could be made larger genetically.
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...penthes_rajah/
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...nia_oreophila/
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...agascariensis/
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...hes_pervillei/

-------
The Draco tree (Canary Islands):
Not to be confused with the very fast growing Dragon Trees this one GROWS EXTREMELY SLOW AND LIVES A VERY LONG TIME but it has entertainment value because WHEN VERY OLD, not competing for sun, and historically unwatered it looks like one of those trees that you would see on the lord of the rings with the very large mushroom like top, like super-sized brocoli. It doesn't have rings like normal trees and the only way to figure out the age is to count the number of splits in the branches because it splits every fifteen years when it flowers. It has an edible fruit and the sap of the tree is dark red and looks like a gem when hardened.

The only way to realisticly plant these offworld FULLY GROWN 600 YRS/+ is to have a civilian private collector donate his fully grown trees. That is unlikely unless you let him come too, with the promise of being able to establish a large landscape of them. Because if you go grab one from one of the cliffs of the Canary Islands or from one of the famous gardens they are probably being watched by environmentalists. You can turn lemons into lemonade and have him be in possesion of a perfectly preserved embryo or piece of the now extinct flightless pigeon of the canary islands embedded in the sap of one of his trees which some theorize was the primary means by which this tree was able to spread its seeds. The preserved DNA specimen for the flightless bird can be used to clone more.

Images...
http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/sydney_...ing_template34
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...ll_images.html

Info....
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...more_info.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/dracaena-plant

They can been DNA manipulated to be more robust and fast growing by finding the gene that regulates high uptake of nitrogen in the Chinese Dragon trees and turning it on in the Draco.
Chinese dragon Tree ....
http://www.dragontrees.com/dragonpi.html
Coincidentally the dragon tree would be a good fast biomass production method.
-------
Titan Arum:
This unusual looking thing stinks really bad. I know because I've been around one before.
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...ll_images.html

Info....
http://www.news.wisc.edu/titanarum/facts.html
-------

Hawaiian silversword plant:
It has visual entertainment value if growing on an otherwise lifeless volcanic plain....

http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...tml?size=large
-------

Mpingo:
I don't know about you but I've never seen a tree with regular colored bark and black wood inside.
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/pl...tml?size=large
It might have visual entertainment value as a construction wood in an offworld building project. It has multiple uses in the real world and is very valuable (timber fetches up to $13,000 per m³)
----------------------------

Land Invertebrates
=====================
The coconut crab:
It's a very large land hermit crab. Only the young confiscate shells to protect themselves. It breaks open coconuts! They can lift objects with their claws as heavy as 28kg.
images....
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/in...ll_images.html
Info....
http://www.coconutcrab.co.uk/
It reminds me of a replicator.
-----

The giant freshwater crayfish:
Everyone knows what a crayfish is. This one is particularly large. On SG1 they could be DNA altered to grow twice the size so as to make a good family meal. They are omnivorous so they won't concentrate on eating just one thing.
Info...
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/in...more_info.html
-----------------------------

Mammals
========================
The La Plata River dolphin, the tucuxi, the Baiji, the Boto (Inia geoffrensis), and the susu - all freshwater dolphins
info...
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/ma...more_info.html
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/ma...more_info.html
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/ma...more_info.html
-------

The Fossa:
This is a small predator that is related to the hyena but it looks like a mountain lion!
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/ma...more_info.html
http://www.nwf.org/internationalwild...000/fossa.html
------

The tazmanian marsupial tiger/wolf - maybe made domesticated. This is a pretty well known extinct animal.
http://www.stormpages.com/shadowwolf/tasmanianwolf.html
It's being cloned.
http://www.austmus.gov.au/archive.cfm?id=788
------

The mammoth - you gotta eat. The large size makes for a good meat source for humans and a way to spread dung around.
Cloning a mammoth:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...agenbroad.html
-------

Coelacanth - because it has been found recently and is said to be close to vertebrates having live young.
http://www.dinofish.com/
-------

Greater prairie chicken - you gotta eat right?
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i3050id.html
-------

Passenger pigeon - there should still be some DNA left somewhere and I think they look better than our current pigeons.
http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/passpigeon.htm

-------

Pronghorned antelope - you gotta eat.
http://www.nature.ca/notebooks/english/prongant.htm
-------

Wild yak - food, clothing, fertilizer, blah blah blah.
http://www.animalinfo.org/species/artiperi/bos_mutu.htm
-------

Heath hen - you gotta eat.... something slightly different.
http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/ext_heathhen.htm
-------

The giant Moa - you gotta eat.
How about some bones to extract DNA.
http://www.rsnz.org/publish/jrsnz/2002/009.php
-------

Sawfish http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/organi...ark12news3.htm
On a planet with salt tolerant crops and inland marshes with grazers eating the crops (not the salt storing portions) this species might evolve to trip the grazing animals and then feed on them.
------

Tapirs - because they look really weird and it's probably an easy one to transplant offworld.
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/ma...more_info.html
------

Vicugna - unusual grazer, fast even in low oxygen, source of food and clothing.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.ed...a_vicugna.html
------

Kakapo - The fattest flightless long lived parrot in the world. Unusual traits.
It might make a good pet. If kept as a pet maybe its lack of self preservation skills can slowly be improved by proximity to other pets.
http://www.kakapo.net/en/
------

The Kea - Said to be one of the smartest birds in the world but if you study them for any length of time you will come to think that they ARE the smartest in the world even before crows.
http://www.nzbirds.com/Kea.html
------

**aironoeus** · 07 August 2005, 06:24 AM

#38 part 4

Powelliphanta superba prouseorum - The largest carnivorous land snail about the size of your fist.
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/medi...atforsnail.asp
------

The Giant earthworm http://www.thegreencommunity.org/giant_worms.html
Can be altered to have longer telomeres so as to have a longer life span
Can be altered to only vigorously reproduce later in life. Their eggs sacks can be altered to have an organic cyanide coating or the same can be made to be part of its lubricant secretion so as to lower its predation.
------

Salt tolerant crops: http://www.arcadiabio.com/
Potatos, tomatos, corn, etc.. that can tolerate up to 40% the salinity of sea water. Not only are they tolerant but they remove some of the salt restoring the soil. If implanted on a world together with mangroves, an alternative scenerio of evolution could arise where we have some of the sea crabs and snails coming ashore to predatorize small rodents. This can also go to a slightly larger scale where there are cattle (sheeps goat and deer) type grazers and crocodile type predators both hanging out within a couple miles of the sea shore. Where there are small fresh water rivers outflowing to the sea and where there are inland salt marshes. Since the plants would take up a portion of the salt that would leave water with less salt in it which might lead grazers to developing a habit of digging out small little channels towards plants with their hooves in order to gain fresh water. That would lead to interesting evolutionary traits on their feet. The lake/land to ocean salt comparison would be less dramatic and so more cross-migration would occur.
Notice that Arcadia (link above) has also been able to turn on a gene that utilizes more of the nitrogen in the soil for various crops making them much more hearty. That technique alone can lead to very large versions of common earth crops.

Real world References:
----------------------
The first Blue rose:
http://www.physorg.com/news3581.html

Intro to RNA interruption:
http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=blank&id=CLI_RNAi

Examples of plant/animal RNA inerruption:
http://www.pi.csiro.au/rnai/examples.htm

Soft tissue available in fossils!:
http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news....tegory=Science

can we recreate extinct species? http://www.andrewgray.com/essays/recreate.htm

**_Owen_** · 07 August 2005, 08:53 AM

Well, that is some VERY detailed information you've got there, and some VERY long posts. However, they were very interesting, and you deserve some reputation, deffinetly.

Owen Macri

**aironoeus** · 08 August 2005, 06:11 AM

#39
The Real world Science items:
Porphyrin nanotubes

Details
------------
Porphyrins are light-absorbing molecules related to chlorophyll, the active part of photosynthetic proteins and light-harvesting nanostructures (chlorosomal rods). They are the active molecules in many other proteins such as hemoglobin, which gets its intense red color from a porphyrin. There are some researchers right now who are making them into hydrogen producers activated by sunlight. They coat the Porphyrin nanotube with platinum and they put gold inside with some of it sticking out of one end. They then attach tungsta to the gold blob sticking out.

How it could be used on SG1 and Atlantis
----------------------------

On Atlantis they could find the quarters of an Atlantean who decided on his own as a hobby to develop older obsolete energy technologies (the same way we have people who refurbish old model cars) and adapted them to an emergency back up power system for Atlantis in case of central power failure. It could be a sandollar shaped structure with a light-tube that could be released from its roof which floated to the surface and directed the light down towards the center of the structure where it would enter and strike the flooring of the structure which would be covered with a glass that has nanopatterning making the light bounce around many times after passing through instead of escaping [see previous post #12]. Underneath the glass would be the platinum coated porphyrin nanotubes with gold inside and tungsta (WO3) attached to the gold blob sticking out of it arranged in arrays where they are sticking out of a membrane which separates the 2 ends so that gas separation is not necessary. A control panel located somewhere inside the chamber would let ocean water into the chamber underneath the glass which would pass through nanofilters first. There underneath the glass the porphyrins would separate the hydrogen off and it would bleed upwards towards a central tubular area of the chamber where it would seem to pipe off into 20 separate fuel cell looking devices above that produce electricity. The reason for this is to start out with a lot of energy making it a lot easier to boost it up through "overunity" devices than starting out with only a little energy. Obviously the oxygen can be leaked into the city.

The "overunity" devices can be "radioactively" powered and made to boost the output of the fuel cells by orders of magnitude above normal.
This overunity I am talking about is called the PROTELF.
http://jlnlabs.imars.com/vsg/protelf.htm
You can see here that this french guy has reproduced the phenomenon in the real world using 2% thorium as the gamma ray source.
http://jlnlabs.imars.com/vsg/index.htm

This would be done many times by making the output wires of these fuel cells into multiple tiny wires and each one would be located near to a small gamma ray production source and then physically touching a source of lithium.
The lithium would be the source of the positive beta decay and the first set of wires that this is done on would be utilized by sacrificing one to produce the electric and magnetic field for the process to begin. From there it would become self reinforcing where each wire is radiating outwards an electric and magnetic field which is crossing into the space of the wires that are surrounding it. It would be all pulsed DC.
It would be sort of a large drawn out version of the ZPM where instead of crystals of lithium with embedded superconducting bismuth channels within polymers located near but further down the circuit (on a nano scale) after the Protelf process has occured all in a complicated compact system which requires it be hooked up to a superconducting Ancient circuit. This is more drawn out so as to lengthen the surface areas of the wires coming off of the "fuel cells".
There is no additional complicated set of manufactured nanostructures and efforts to force the lithium to temporarily beta-decay into only the high powered isotope of helium at top efficiencies. Instead it is allowed to give off heat and convert at lower efficiencies. The neutrinos are left to simply escape and radiate outwards in all directions Including splashing against the stargate and powering it up (SCI-FI SG1 page states that Naquada is powered up by neutrinos). It also is unlike the ZPM in which normally the PROTELF effect is radiating outwards near the immediate vicinity of the ZPM and affecting the oxygen and nitrogen in the air (causing them to also go into temporary beta decays) and thereby tricking part of the environments gases to participate in the energy.

All the output from these 20 separate fuel cell devices can be added in series and parallel and then again the PROTELF process can be done on one grand scale to further boost it up. That can be routed through the conductive passages that have been depicted as existing in the hallways. You can have someone on the team accidentally break the main device after a few months. This larger device can have the potential to last much longer than the regular ZPM's if the porphyrin nanotubes are given maintenance regularly. Otherwise if the Atlantis team has to replace the source wires which originally came from the fuel cells a long project would ensue.
------

SG1 could encounter a world that has more water on their planet than ours. Say... they have only one half the "above water land mass" as ours (don't count the arctics). The rest of the planet is ocean ... and the planet is slightly bigger in diameter because it gets hit with a lot more water rich meteorites (larger asteroid belt) that have water in them compared to Earth. So they have 103% of our gravity making them weigh a little more and they have a moon but it's only 2/3rds the size of ours so their tides are a lot smaller and they have a lot less volcanism and their mountains are not as tall as earths.
Their moon is just about to be released from its tidal lock and get flung out into space and so their planet has started to meander on its axis and the poles are melting and wandering around and they have very active weather and a shorter day/night (20.6 hours).

The various nations already knew this was going to happen so they had prepared for this by building these massive floating cities.

On top of that, the Ocean has less salt in it (8 parts less per thousand) making them less bouyant at sea. So they occasionally go to war over Land (which is very green by the way).
The ones at Sea have trained birds that go steal seeds from the people on land which is never noticed. They have also developed a special relationship with the large whale like mammals of the ocean. They milk them. The whale like animals are constantly running away from a superbig shark like predator like Megaladon on earth and the human territories are safe for them because the humans kill these Megaladons all the time with their military equipment.

They ride around on the ocean on these large city type ships. They've got the ocean all divided up into territories and there are these very large arrays of porphyrin nanotubes that make hydrogen and oxygen out of the sea water which are covered with transparent domes. They also have submarines. So they dock up to these domes within their territories and take in hydrogen for the fuel cells on their ships and the oxygen is reserved for the submarines and their own sea floor mining tunnels. There is plenty of shallow water areas within their territories where they install monster sized windmill arrays to generate electricity which they also dock up to.

Since they have to build ships despite having no land to mine minerals out of they do a weird sort of shallow water dredging in order to get their cheap easy minerals to build with. They also trade with the people on land to get materials they need such as wood.
The also have regular mining going on in which they drill into the earth in their shallow water areas but they have to make large concrete tunnels and docking ports for it in order to start the process. So they all have these mazes of underground tunnels and they bomb each others tunnels from up above in the water.

The land dwellers are always dealing with two opposite pressures of their communities. The first is to shave off the mountains and dump it on the beaches to increase their square miles of land and the other parts of the community that wants to keep the mountains there in case the land gets flooded even further and also the mountains collect fresh water. This is where the stargate comes in. They are in the middle of bulldozing the snow off of a mountain when they uncover the stargate.
What the heck, the ancients stuck one here just for diversity's sake. The people on this world have more oxidative stress than earth and since it has increased even further from the oceans rising and being full of diatoms they cultivate Sea and land vegetables full of polyphenols and ingredients which induce the production of natural antioxidants of the body (glutathione, catalaze, S.O.D., etc..). The whole planet is under the stress of natural selection favoring the shorter people that need less resources while at the same time the increased oxygen pressure is allowing larger growth but a shorter lifespan unless antioxidants are induced.

Real world References:
----------------------
Porphyrin nanotubes into hydrogen phtocatalysts:
http://www.reactivereports.com/44/44_4.html

Nano filtration
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-05zb.html

Just in case....
KX industries:
http://www.kxindustries.com/corporate/corp_faq.asp

eMembrane
http://www.emembrane.com/

**_Owen_** · 08 August 2005, 04:25 PM

You have very nice ideas, they are very well though through, and each of your posts is so detailed. If I could give you more rep I would.

As for the idea, it has potential, as for adapting it as a back up for Atlantis' power systems, I am not sure if the Ancient would have done that, lots of people rebuild old cars, but the majority of them are not sold at dealerships as new.

Owen Macri

**aironoeus** · 11 August 2005, 05:29 AM

#40
The Real world Science items:
Zeaxanthin.

Details
------------
Zeaxanthin is a chemical that you have to get from your diet in order to avoid going blind.
It is used by the center of the retina to block the blue and UV light from causing oxidation of the fats in there. The body uses lutein on the outer portions of the retina and uses zeaxanthin in the center. Lutein is assymetric, zeaxanthin is symmetric.
The body tries to make a copy of it out of lutein which is called meso-zeaxanthin but it doesn't perform as well as the real thing.

How it could be used on SG1
----------------------------
One of the Asgard can have his food destroyed while in a fight and ask us for some egg yolks or orange peppers. They have very large eyes and it would follow that they would need high amounts of Zeaxanthin due to a larger retina.

Real world References:
----------------------
Zeaxanthin is the dominant component within the central macula:
http://www.macular.org/nutrition/zeaxan.html

**Gregorius** · 11 August 2005, 09:11 AM

One of the Asgard can have his food destroyed while in a fight and ask us for some egg yolks or orange peppers. They have very large eyes and it would follow that they would need high amounts of Zeaxanthin due to a larger retina.

You're making a thought error here (I haven't read your other posts due my lack of time, so I'll only reply to this one for know). You assume they have the same physiology as humans while it's highly likely they don't need Zeaxanthin.

**Three PhDs** · 11 August 2005, 10:14 AM

Originally posted by Gregorius

You're making a thought error here (I haven't read your other posts due my lack of time, so I'll only reply to this one for know). You assume they have the same physiology as humans while it's highly likely they don't need Zeaxanthin.

And on what grounds do you assume they won't? After all, you state it's "highly likely" they won't.

**_Owen_** · 11 August 2005, 12:50 PM

We can neither assume that they have the same physiology as us or assume that they do not. As we don't know. If in fact they did evolve completley separatly from human life, then it is more likley that they will not, however, it is still possible that they will. It is like growing two chickens on oposite sides of the Earth and assuming that they will both live the same amount of time.

Owen Macri

**aironoeus** · 12 August 2005, 05:58 AM

I think that it is pretty well established that anything that breathes air has a retina in its eye. I mean, I can't think of anything that breathes air that doesn't can you? This isn't necessarily a human thing but a mammal thing.

**_Owen_** · 12 August 2005, 02:43 PM

Yes, but everything that you could possibly think of lives and has evolved on Earth. The Asgard are aliens, how do we know that they even fit the definition of mammal.

Owen Macri

**aironoeus** · 12 August 2005, 04:58 PM

How do we know that....How do we know that.... how do we know that....
Come up with something original. I'm not gonna write all the stupidly obvious "how do we knows" after every single item.
The title of the thread is "could be used on SG1" not "have to be used on SG1."
Really, short attention span posts are not worth much.
If the best you can come up with, is read the shortest post I make and make a stupidly obvious "how do we know that" comment then I'd rather you not make it.
I have to admit that there are eye physiologies in the insect world that I am ignorant of that might use other chloroyphyll type assemblies and other supporting molecules but I haven't studied much about insects yet.
Barring that, I believe that the retina concept is pretty prevalent throughout the animal kingdom including underwater animals.

Announcement

Real world science items that could be used on SG1 - continued

Real world science items that could be used on SG1 - continued

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment