Ammonia-Based Lifeforms
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
00:00
The Limits of Speculation
A hot planet might have liquid mercury still, but is that abundant enough and concentrated enough to offer ecosystems? Not much complex chemistry with big long protein analogs seems very likely in that level of heat. Life may never form on a place so cold it has hydrogen in the emotions, but somebody may have created some. Such a world might be home to an uploaded digital civilization enjoying the safety and computing efficiency of life under liquid helium motions at 4-10 billion years old. But for our purposes today, while ammonia based life definitely has some factors working against it, it does not break or push any of those categories.
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