Please remember to spread the word about this :(
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Wel, every single human who breathes Oxygen dies eventually. Just saying.
It's a decent hypothesis, but you'll never gather enough data to convince the naysayers.
"The results just aren't in yet, look at all the people alive"
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Oxidation is the loss of electrons, whereas reduction is the gain of electrons. The mnemonic is OIL RIG: Oxidation Is Loss, Reduction Is Gain.
Oxygen is highly electronegative (second only to fluorine), meaning that it will strongly attract electrons. So, oxygen is good at oxidizing things. It's good at stealing their electrons. (When the oxygen takes the electron, the oxygen becomes reduced!)
The reason that oxygen is so important in your body for respiration is because of its high electronegativity. It is used as the final electron acceptor in a chain of chemical reactions that are used to convert high energy molecules that you've eaten into different high energy molecules that your body can use.
Think of the analogy of a staircase and a ball. The ball is an electron and the stairs are energy states of different molecules along the metabolic pathway. As the ball goes down the stairs, the electron loses energy (which is usually converted to ATP or NADH). At the bottom of the stairs is oxygen, once the electron gets there, it doesn't have anymore potential energy to lose, unless maybe you have some fluorine around. The final, reduced state of oxygen in this pathway is carbon dioxide. It's no longer useful for respiration and thankfully can just be exhaled. How convenient!
An oxygen missing an electron (an oxygen radical) is highly reactive. This is not good. It'll just steal an electron from whatever molecule is nearby. That may be DNA or any other molecule that it's in your best interest to keep intact. Antioxidants are helpful as electron donors, neutralizing radicals before they do damage.
Ok, I'm going to make a new nutritional supplement: "oops! all electrons!"
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It's a decent hypothesis, but you'll never gather enough data to convince the naysayers.
"The results just aren't in yet, look at all the people alive"
fair. I guess only history remains to prove me right.
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Pure oxygen is actually toxic for humans, leading to hyperoxia. People who breath pure oxygen such as scuba divers need specific training.
Oxygen toxicity - Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity
wrote on last edited by [email protected]hyper - meaning high,
ox - meaning the animal Ox,
-ia - meaning presence in blood.
High Ox presence in blood. You can imagine how dangerous that is.
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wrote on last edited by [email protected]
The 'Death Breathers' thing is a primary plot point /story device / world mechanic of the ludicrous, over the top, MARS ATTACKS! from 1996.
::: spoiler Just any case anyone hasn't seen it and wants to avoid spoilers, don't open this
Basically, it barely makes any actual sense, and... thats part of the point, to be a parody of how stupid 50s schlock alien movies were...
The Martians only breathe Nitrogen, and seem to asphyxiate if their helmets and pressure suits are removed or comprimised.
This makes no fucking sense whatsoever for multiple reasons:
Nitrogen is much, much less chemically reactive than Oxygen, and it seems quite unlikely that any kind of Nitrogen based metabolism could evolve basically anywhere, in any organic being, because of this...
Earth's atmosphere is like... ~70% Nitrogen.
Do... they... need literally 100% Nitrogen?
It... doesn't seem like the oxygen in the atmosphere is like... causing them to internally combust/melt the way say mustard gas, chlorine gas, makes a human melt from the inside out, by nature of being way way way more chemically reactive than oxygen.
What they do is act like ... they're asphyxiating, they gasp for air, not cough and vomit, eyes watering and burning/melting the way mustard gas fucks up people.
Also, at one point, a ludicrously disguised as a human, martian... is able to go undercover, with no protective pressure suit... because they have... chewing gum, that... releases nitrogen.
Again, if oxygen had a similar effect on them as chlorine gas has on us... this disguised martian should... still be basically burning/melting from being exposed to all the oxygen, and thats overlooking the ludicrousness of... nitrogen releasing chewing gum
:::
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You didn’t mention the book name, so how are we to read it?
I did say the name in my post... It's called Ice World and it's an older sci-fi book from either 50's or 60's. It's only about 200 pages long.
