Boron-based life

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Boron-based lifeforms that use ammonia as a solvent and respires methane & hydrogen, with an atmosphere of mostly methane, hydrogen, nitrogen and in smaller percentages, acetylene & other elements. The temperature of the lifeforms' planet is -10 Celsius, with the pressure being 25 atmospheres. We will call them boracoids. The intelligent life-forms are bipedal with four limbs but have a bird-like stature (not upright). They're also not that big, being about twice the size of a raven.

A boracoid in a desert on some planet, wearing a spacesuit.

The boracoids don't have a specialized gas transport molecule but rather rely on diffusion and solubility, with hydrogen and methane diffusing into the cells. In a reducing atmosphere, the roles of oxidizer and fuel are reversed, so the hydrogen is the fuel, and acetylene is the oxidizer. Acetylene is breathed in from the atmosphere as it can be produced through incomplete combustion of methane, although I have no idea what process makes that happen on such a planet.

On energy currency, acetylene will be used as it, or rather, a diborane molecule with some phosphorus attached. But I will rather talk about the acetylene, and how it can be used. Acetylene is converted to ethane through hydrogenation - the breathing process described above! With this, we can also convert ethane back into acetylene (i think through converting it into ethylene then converting the ethylene into ethane, not sure.).

As for encoding information, the boracoids use diborane and other boranes for it, polymerized into large chains, with phosphorus and nitrogen being used, so it's essentially just DNA, although I have no idea on whether this is a feasible encoding system.

There is an unusual abundance of boron, while oxygen and other chemicals such as chlorine, fluorine, and bromine are all either not present or locked up in minerals. Along with the boron, there exists an unusual abundance of metal & phosphorus in the boracoids' planet.

One thing is that the boracoids breed and use another type of lifeforms called meranchees, which are polyoxometalate-based lifeforms that rely on metals as their building block. The polyoxometalates can be assembled through metals in an acid solution in the presence of a heteroatom. So we just need a way for them to produce acid and etc... which the boracoids exploit, once a colony of meranchees has grown enough they will take it and break it down to pure metals.

I have several questions:

1. are all of the things I described above a feasible system? or just straight-up wrong?

2. the section I have issues with the most is the encoding system, second to that is how they respire - is hydrogen soluble in ammonia? what can we use as the encoding system instead of diborane?

(note:) excuse me for my chemistry, I'm not really good at it though I do like worldbuilding and stuff like that.

EDIT (due to a reply from earlier): I'd like to say dismissing unlikely biochemistries doesn't help. I posted this with knowledge that boron biochemistries are far less versatile and far more rare than organic biochemistries. I've seen this argument multiple times, but I'm not looking for an alternative to boron. I want to explore it. Thank you.

posted over 4 years ago

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