/sci/ - Science and Mathematics

>>2266

Absolutely. At some point you simply can't pack enough mass in to overcome the required surface area needed to support your airfoil. Not to mention the nutrition requirements to sustain a body that large and active.

>>2268

Pack small enough mass in, I mean. This is a problem with modern airplanes as well. To create something like NASA's fully solar-powered Helios UAV, ultra light but simultaneously strong strong materials like carbon fiber and kevlar were required.

>>2268

>>2269

So where's the limit for a living creature? Quetzalcoatlus up there is said to have had 11m wingspan. That's pretty big. But is that the limit or can you go bigger? Or was this pterosaur already too big and probably more of a glider than flyer?

>>2268

Perhaps, nuclear fission dragons as in Strata? Of course, I know that for evolution to create such a machine would be highly implausible but then again I do not have any strong arguments for the nuclear reactor to be an irreducibly complex organ to evolve. Perhaps, if we ever find life on other planets we will have more knowledge of what things are easy for life to evolve?

>>2275

A fission powered animal would need an alternative to DNA that is robust against radiation, or at least some kind of defensive barrier. Might occur given enough time in a radioactive environment.

A fission powered creature is a different case, it would only be likely to occur inside a star, and then there are a load of challenges to overcome for out to keep going, unlikely.

>>2321

So a giant Dragon could work but it'd need a more extreme power source than just food. That's where fission comes in, fission had a low power to weight ratio.

>>2318

There is a typo, second paragraph should be fusion.

>>2275

> Oceanic worm-shaped Venus flowers. Lure animals. Digest them externally. Thick skin to prevent damage.

> Prey is weak to heat. Evolve to use heat to kill prey.

> Heat is wasteful. Evolve organ to recover energy from heat differential.

> Learn to use oceanic vents as heat source for free energy.

> Learn to separate out vent chemicals to use for obscure proteins with evolutionarily useful abilities.

> Come across magically plentiful source of uranium. (out of the vents?)

> Accumulate it in the heat organ because it isn't filtered out.

> Evolve protection against radiation.

> Heat organ is plated in heavy metals gathered from vent.

> Compressing/shrinking heat organ yields slightly more radioactivity heat. Design is free to optimise.

> Ocean dries up.

> Forced to evolve locomotion, scales, teeth to fight predators and each other (the latter probably already learnt).

> Predator/prey arms race. Dragons uniquely powerful due to uranium power, but as nourishing as mammoths.

> Evolve proto-wings for sexual selection purposes.

> Evolve flight to escape predators.

> Cataclysm kills predators, dragons survive.

>>2335

the problem with that idea is that you would need a neutron shield, and i don't think anything evolutionary could allow that to be developed. it would lead to too many disadvantages for survival to reproduce, like lead poisoning/cancer and other various shit a dense enough shield would cause.

>>2340

Thorium would be a more probable bet.