What If Alien Life Were Silicon-Based?

For clarity: estimates for diatom oxygen production mentioned at 13:36 range from 20%-50% on an annual basis. If there’s any specialists in the audience who could provide greater clarity about diatoms and oxygen production, please reply to this comment!

This reminds me of a rare event in the game Stellaris where you find a cavern full of buildings and extremely detailed statues deep within a planet. After researching deeper, turns out the civilization wasn't long extinct, but instead was Si based, and when you broke through the cavern wall, the chamber flooded the area with O2, it turned them all into stone. Kinda scifi and quite a grim discovery, but a pretty cool storyline!

In a distant planet in a distant galaxy, a silicon based TV host explains if carbon could be the basic building block for life in a strange world, since it is so simmilar to silicon.

about 50 years ago Isaac Asimov (the sci-fi author, yes, but also a professor of biochemistry) wrote a series of essays on this very subject, starting with why carbon was the only option for Life As We Know It (i think the title was "The One And Only") and carrying on with various options for the life-giving solvent (methane, ammonia, etc) - well worth the read if you can find them these days.

So thats why endermen take damage in water

“It’s … sand. It’s coarse and rough. And it gets everywhere” A man of culture indeed.

This is an exceptional video. I studied biochemistry and the way you built up an understanding of what it takes for life to happen while making it accessible to the general public was just fantastic. Love this channel.

2:27 the molecule shown is not nitroglycerin, it's trinitrotoluene (TNT)

Dendrocnide excelsa - stinging tree, the hairs on the leaf are silica based and so small, even a slight brush of skin along the leaf, the hairs will just penetrate, and will give you an indelible pain and rash, until your body eventually replaces that skin. I love pointing out this tree when with friends and come across it in nsw bush, its just a remarkable piece of evolution,one of very few biology on our planet that uses silicon, and yes something has evolved to eat those leaves! There is a beetle, that has long legs and so can walk on the leaves with impunity. Just amazing.

The reason why arsenic is toxic is actually fascinating, I’ve never heard that anywhere before and I took a lot of science courses and been watching channels like this for a large portion of my life now

This topic has been done to death by other YouTubers, but PBS Space Time has really shown how to properly address this topic, bravo!

Alan Dean Foster wrote a great story titled "Sentenced To Prism". It explored and did a nice job of describing silicate life and its interactions with carbon life.

Thank you, Matt, for all you do for PBS Space Time! At 83 years old I'm too old to do a lot of things, but never too old to listen and learn!! You're the best!

I am now convinced that the Sandworms from Dune are silicon-based. Their aversion to water and huge production of sand seem to align with being silicon based.

When dealing with stuff of this nature, the answer is always "yes it is possible". The real question is what's probable.

The chemical structure shown in the graphic at around 2.24 is TNT, not nitroglycerine.

"Life is an ongoing chemical reaction" is perhaps one of the cooler scientific descriptions of life that I have heard in a while.

When I was a kid, learning this stuff felt like a chore in school. Now it's just really interesting. I'm glad things like this channel exist so I can still learn even though I missed my chance in school.

Meanwhile in other planet's youtube, "What if alien life were carbon-based"

"Sand is course and rough, and gets everywhere." You, sir, HAVE THE HIGH GROUND.