Skyeels

[king of nowhere]

I'm actually surprised I've never seen too much discussion of this article on this board...

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/the-ecology-of-roshar-continued-quest-for-blood (I don't know how to do the cool link edit into text thing. Been a while since I've used anything other than 'spoiler' tags)

To me, that article is based on a flawed premise: that the oxygen-carrying protein must be based on something that evolved in the real world. That's not the case. there are millions of ways to do a protein like that, and among those there will be proteins with any possible color.

In fact there's no reason to assume that hemoglobin would be present in any alien ecosystem. likely, nature will have evolved a totally different protein to ccarry oxygen. So trying to find parallels is a bit moot.

It must still be a protein made of our 20 amminoacids (some tweaking allowed; there are modified amminoacids in nature, and our body can digest them), or humans wouldn't be able to eat them. but it can be a completely different sequence.

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

To me, that article is based on a flawed premise: that the oxygen-carrying protein must be based on something that evolved in the real world. That's not the case. there are millions of ways to do a protein like that, and among those there will be proteins with any possible color.

In fact there's no reason to assume that hemoglobin would be present in any alien ecosystem. likely, nature will have evolved a totally different protein to ccarry oxygen. So trying to find parallels is a bit moot.

It must still be a protein made of our 20 amminoacids (some tweaking allowed; there are modified amminoacids in nature, and our body can digest them), or humans wouldn't be able to eat them. but it can be a completely different sequence.

Let me be real with you: I don't understand half of those science school words, but it does sound cool. Does it matter though? I thought that the worlds were shaped by Shards or Slivers or what have you. Don't they typically throw humans in a world first thing? I would think that even finding a world that is generally suitable, you would sometimes have to change pieces of it like oxygen or amminophosphateproteitncarbons?

[king of nowhere]

Let me be real with you: I don't understand half of those science school words, but it does sound cool. Does it matter though? I thought that the worlds were shaped by Shards or Slivers or what have you. Don't they typically throw humans in a world first thing? I would think that even finding a world that is generally suitable, you would sometimes have to change pieces of it like oxygen or amminophosphateproteitncarbons?

do we know about the genesys of the shardworld?

We know mankind originated on one planet whose name I don't remember, and was then spread to other planets by the shards. But did those shards also create the entire environment, or did they pick a planet where there was already a biosphere capable of supporting human life? At least in the case of scadrial, I think it's established that ruin and preservation made the planet from scratch, but was it the same everywhere? Especially on roshar seems the opposite, I doubt the shards would have made something so alien; they are more likely to have used an already existing planet.

And if the shards made the planet, how long has it been since then? how much could natural evolution change the bits?

I don''t think we know enough about those questions.

 

Also, sorry if i bring very technical questions. I am a biological chemist (actually it's an obscure subfield of it, but let's not complicae things more than necessary), so it is normal for me to wonder that. I am thinking of even more technical questions about the biochemistry of life in the cosmere, but I'm refraining from posting those in the forum as I cannot write them in a form that would be comprehensible to anyone except another biological chemist.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

I think it's safe to assume most of Roshars ecology is based of oxygen. Or at least I hope so.

But I would love to read some Biological Chemist jargon.... I'd say let the Scientific analysis of the Cosmere begin!

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

do we know about the genesys of the shardworld?

We know mankind originated on one planet whose name I don't remember, and was then spread to other planets by the shards. But did those shards also create the entire environment, or did they pick a planet where there was already a biosphere capable of supporting human life? At least in the case of scadrial, I think it's established that ruin and preservation made the planet from scratch, but was it the same everywhere? Especially on roshar seems the opposite, I doubt the shards would have made something so alien; they are more likely to have used an already existing planet.

And if the shards made the planet, how long has it been since then? how much could natural evolution change the bits?

I don''t think we know enough about those questions.

 

Also, sorry if i bring very technical questions. I am a biological chemist (actually it's an obscure subfield of it, but let's not complicae things more than necessary), so it is normal for me to wonder that. I am thinking of even more technical questions about the biochemistry of life in the cosmere, but I'm refraining from posting those in the forum as I cannot write them in a form that would be comprehensible to anyone except another biological chemist.

Isn't it confirmed that Highstorms and that sort of thing are the effects of Shard activities? Their powers of creation could have made a planet extremely similar to Earth, put humans on it, and then their introduction of highstorms or something like that over time could cause the alien-looking planet you see. I mean TLR could just decide how close to the sun they were and things like that. I don't think we have to rely on natural evolution of particular proteins or anything considering Shardic ability to create that stuff on a whim. I know that isn't the answer to everything, but I don't think we should limit the possibilities based on what we know of our own natural world. Brandon puts a lot of science into his universe but..... magic.

[Shardlet he/him]

The tricky bit with that is that most of the plant and animal life on Roshar is well-adapted to the storms.  This leads me to two possibilities: 1) The Shards created the storms, plants, and animals (i.e., no evolution or adaptaion of lifeforms); or 2) Shards introduced humans (by creation or transportation) and investiture into a planet which had these raging storms and a biome well-adapted to the storms.

 

If Shards created the storms, then they had to have at least modified most of the biome to be able to survive the storms.  There simply has not been enough time for such a diverse biome to evolve naturally over say 10,000 years (i.e., ~5,000 years pre- and post-last desolation, seems safe).  I mean really, scientists figure humans have not fully adapted to consuming grains as a staple of our diet and they figure we have been eating grains for many thousands of years.  That seems a small adaptation that has not been accomplished compared to interspecies evolution.

[nightwatcher he/him]

don't be ridiculous-- more likely, they just eat the flying beans swept up by highstorms