Re: Kassi oral anatomy (was Re: Kassi Kiss (...))

> Date:         Thu, 29 Nov 2001 02:11:05 -0500
> From: Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
>
> Nik Taylor wrote:
> >They're adapted to hot climates.  Their planet is quite a bit warmer
> >than ours.  They would find our tropics to be comfortable, and
> >subtropics to be bearable, but would not venture into more temperate
> >climates, were they to visit Earth.  Their planet's atmosphere also has
> >more oxygen and more carbon dioxide.  I'm estimating ~23.2% oxygen.
> >Atmospheric pressure is around 1.2 atmospheres.
>
> That'd ought to land us on a oxygene partial pressure of about .28
> atmospheres, which'd make fires extremely rapid and difficult to extinguish
> (I've seen claims that an oxygene pressure of .23 would make the Earth's
> continents effectively uninhabitable due to making forrest fires and
> flashfires effectively unextinguishable). Do the birdheads use fire at all?
> I hope lightning is uncommon on their planet ...
I'm sure that's true if you took plants that have evolved *here*
(oxygen partial pressure about 210 hPa) and populated the continents
of a 230 hPa world with them. But I'm also sure evolution would come
up with a way to avoid burning off whole continents every September.

It's interesting to consider how animal life might have developed
under such circumstances, though. To start with the older orders, the
increased oxygen pressure would allow insects to grow quite a bit
larger. I also think that it would reduce the evolutionary incentive
for fish to replace their gills with lungs and crawl onto dry land ---
enlarged gills might work adequately in the oxygen-rich air, and it
would be better to stay amphibian and jump back in the water when the
forest fires came by.

That would get us a world where the continents are green with fast
growing annuals and biennuals, consumed by the late summer fires and
by hordes of beetles that grow from buried grubs in spring to reach
two feet or more --- and a littoral and ripine civilization of gilled
merpeople with a strong taboo about fires: no metal work. All for the
price of 20 hPa of oxygen.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

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