A Fictional Biology Question Pt 2

[Spacescifi]

I just wanted to know what science and physics would allow for, so those that know would be helpful here.

Imagine a scifi humanoid with small suction plates on fingers, palms, and the soles of their feet.

Since I am fully aware other methods of adhesion won't work well if at all, what if the suction plates were electromagnetic?

Strong enough that an adult of average weight could climb ferromagnetic metal surfaces without slipping or falling.

And since magnetism and electricity are related, they could also use static shock but at high enough levels to incapacitate or even kill.

 

Main question: What features would a humanoid body need to have to generate such power as well as survive it?

 

How much power would they need to generate to allow them to generate enough magnetic force to stick to metal surfaces as well as incapacitate people with static electricity via touch via suction plate?

 

How plausible is it? Or is it simply not at all... or would it require a non-humanoid creature?

Edited September 12, 2021 by Spacescifi

[cubinator]

There are snails in the deep sea that eat metal and incorporate it into their shell. So my guess would be that you'd just have an animal that eats a lot of iron and whose body can move that iron into a magnetic structure on their hands and feet. Maybe they could have muscles, bones, and neural circuits that pull the magnets back to the right distance if the surface they're climbing is too strong. This wouldn't require any electric power, but I think the creature would probably end up looking more like a night terror than a human.

Here's what I envision:

Maybe they could have metal plates acting as a capacitor, charging by mechanical energy from their body, and could occasionally discharge it. I don't see any reason why it couldn't exist, although it would be pretty weird to have an evolutionary advantage to eating that much metal.

I think that a creature like that would only evolve in a place that has a LOT of magnetic rock, so probably a volcanic planet with lots of fresh lava rock. The creature would also have to be eating that rock, so maybe the creature eats something that lives on or in the rock and eats up a lot of rock in the process of feeding.

Edited September 12, 2021 by cubinator

[Spacescifi]

20 minutes ago, cubinator said:

There are snails in the deep sea that eat metal and incorporate it into their shell. So my guess would be that you'd just have an animal that eats a lot of iron and whose body can move that iron into a magnetic structure on their hands and feet. Maybe they could have muscles, bones, and neural circuits that pull the magnets back to the right distance if the surface they're climbing is too strong. This wouldn't require any electric power, but I think the creature would probably end up looking more like a night terror than a human.

Here's what I envision:

Maybe they could have metal plates acting as a capacitor, charging by mechanical energy from their body, and could occasionally discharge it. I don't see any reason why it couldn't exist, although it would be pretty weird to have an evolutionary advantage to eating that much metal.

I think that a creature like that would only evolve in a place that has a LOT of magnetic rock, so probably a volcanic planet with lots of fresh lava rock. The creature would also have to be eating that rock, so maybe the creature eats something that lives on or in the rock and eats up a lot of rock in the process of feeding.

 

They are a designer made race, created as one of many iterations of a kind of ubermensch... using science.

Humans were used as a template... with extra abilities added on to create the OP.

So lots of iron eh? They would both weigh more and be slower than a human of equivalent size. Likely tire quicker too unless they eat foods nurtient and energy rich enough to compensate.

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

What kind of environment are they designed for? 

 

Useless adaptation unless most surfaces are ferrous.  Stainless is generally not very magnetic if at all, plastic not at all. 

Magnetic only really benefits if the surface is smooth and otherwise untraversable.  If not smooth - then friction is likely better than magnetic 

[kerbiloid]

Once it has found a thing to stick, it sticks forever. Cuz constant magnets.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What kind of environment are they designed for? 

 

Useless adaptation unless most surfaces are ferrous.  Stainless is generally not very magnetic if at all, plastic not at all. 

Magnetic only really benefits if the surface is smooth and otherwise untraversable.  If not smooth - then friction is likely better than magnetic 

 

They were settled millenia on the 1g world they call their homeworld.

Unlike Earth it has a lot more iron, so much that the planet has orange soil and yellow plants and grass all over.

From space people would see a lot of yellow, with blue ocean and patches of orange deserts.

All life on the world was settled there... nothing is actually native living there. as the planet itself was one of many that was terraformed ages ago.

The environment has enough iron in it that does not take long for the humanoids living there to figure out they can stick to ferromagnetic metals.

 

As an ability, it most useful for niche situations, like working and repair high off the ground, and the static shock is useful for self defense.

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Once it has found a thing to stick, it sticks forever. Cuz constant magnets.

Electromagnetic... as in they can turn it on and off at will.

 

When on the suction plates glow and will also shock if they touch a person.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Spacescifi

[jimmymcgoochie]

Why would there be that much ferromagnetic material on the surface of a planet to begin with? It’s incredibly rare to find metals that aren’t almost completely inert (like gold) just lying around freely on the surface of any planetary body, most of it would form minerals with oxygen, water, sulphur, silicon or various combinations. Or put another way- park an old vehicle out in the open for a few years and what you end up with is a big lump of rust. Some minerals do exist that are naturally magnetic, such as the aptly named magnetite, but it would be very surprising to see an entire planet with a high enough concentration of those minerals to make having magnets in your limbs be beneficial enough to counteract the effects of metal poisoning you’d get from trying to store that much free iron inside a living body.

Also consider that iron is used widely in biological systems- such as haemoglobin in blood, the “haem” part refers to the iron at the centre, and a variety of metabolic enzymes crucial to energy production- and sticking magnets into the mix could cause problems; also consider the potentially horrendous internal damage that can be caused by swallowing magnets which then stick together and punch holes through internal organs and then you realise that having magnets inside you is probably A Bad Idea- you could get stuck to something and be unable to escape without ripping the magnet(s) off or just cause damage to yourself or someone else without even realising it if you were asleep.

As for electromagnets rather than permanent magnets- yes, some organisms can generate considerable electric currents (electric eels, for one) but that’s a relatively fast burst and is usually focussed outside their own body, and used to stun or kill prey by frying their nervous systems. Trying to produce a sustained current strong enough to support their own weight with magnetism on a surface that might only be marginally magnetic without ruining your own nervous system or consuming huge quantities of energy would be a real challenge.

If anything, stick to conventional adhesion systems- clever microscopic structures such as on lizard feet, suction type stuff as for cephalopods or using appendages such as claws to hook into a surface. I wouldn’t particularly fancy living on a planet with that much iron around as it usually comes with other metals which are even less friendly for living things to deal with.

[Spacescifi]

9 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Why would there be that much ferromagnetic material on the surface of a planet to begin with? It’s incredibly rare to find metals that aren’t almost completely inert (like gold) just lying around freely on the surface of any planetary body, most of it would form minerals with oxygen, water, sulphur, silicon or various combinations. Or put another way- park an old vehicle out in the open for a few years and what you end up with is a big lump of rust. Some minerals do exist that are naturally magnetic, such as the aptly named magnetite, but it would be very surprising to see an entire planet with a high enough concentration of those minerals to make having magnets in your limbs be beneficial enough to counteract the effects of metal poisoning you’d get from trying to store that much free iron inside a living body.

Also consider that iron is used widely in biological systems- such as haemoglobin in blood, the “haem” part refers to the iron at the centre, and a variety of metabolic enzymes crucial to energy production- and sticking magnets into the mix could cause problems; also consider the potentially horrendous internal damage that can be caused by swallowing magnets which then stick together and punch holes through internal organs and then you realise that having magnets inside you is probably A Bad Idea- you could get stuck to something and be unable to escape without ripping the magnet(s) off or just cause damage to yourself or someone else without even realising it if you were asleep.

As for electromagnets rather than permanent magnets- yes, some organisms can generate considerable electric currents (electric eels, for one) but that’s a relatively fast burst and is usually focussed outside their own body, and used to stun or kill prey by frying their nervous systems. Trying to produce a sustained current strong enough to support their own weight with magnetism on a surface that might only be marginally magnetic without ruining your own nervous system or consuming huge quantities of energy would be a real challenge.

If anything, stick to conventional adhesion systems- clever microscopic structures such as on lizard feet, suction type stuff as for cephalopods or using appendages such as claws to hook into a surface. I wouldn’t particularly fancy living on a planet with that much iron around as it usually comes with other metals which are even less friendly for living things to deal with.

Rare?

 

It has iron concentrations similar to a planet in our own solar system!

 

It's like a 1g mars with breathable air and plant and animal life imported over.

 

Adhesion while retaining the humanoid look is simply impossible.

 

Why?

 

Surface area required to adhere is greater than hand width, and even high tech adhesive tech we have made is still wider like basketball wide).

 

Magnetic is the only way to retain the human form.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Spacescifi

[jimmymcgoochie]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

Rare?

It has iron concentrations similar to a planet in our own solar system!

It's like a 1g mars with breathable air and plant and animal life imported over.

Adhesion while retaining the humanoid look is simply impossible.

Why?

Surface area required to adhere is greater than hand width, and even high tech adhesive tech we have made is still wider like basketball wide).

Magnetic isthe only way to retain the human form.

Did you even read what I said? Iron might be abundant, but finding free iron is incredibly unlikely and magnetic ores of iron aren't all that common either- certainly not in the sort of abundance that would justify a hypothetical organism using magnets in its body to stick itself to the side of a cliff.

The costs of having these magnetic appendages (in terms of not dying from metal poisoning and the physiological cost of growing said appendages) would have to have a huge payoff against not having them- as in you need to be magnetic or your reproductive ability is zero or close to it, whether that's a plain old "magnets or you die" or a slightly more nuanced "magnets or you just don't breed as much/at all"- so perhaps you can explain why your hypothetical organism needs to use magnets to stick to magnetic surfaces?

[kerbiloid]

It can be an endemic inhabitant of sunken steel ships evolved from the sailors' remains.

Can't. The rust isn't magnetic.

[KSK]

Evolutionary fitness isn't an issue here (although I agree with @jimmymcgoochie's comments) since we're discussing engineered species. Presumably, whoever did the engineering thought that magnetic hands would be neat.

I do question the notion that adhesion whilst retaining the human look is impossible. 

If Wikipedia is to be believed, then the feet of a mature 70g gecko are capable of supporting a mass of 133kg. For a non-political, non-controversial question such as 'how come a gecko's feet are so sticky', I'm assuming that Wikipedia is a decent enough quick reference. But anyway, 133kg seems comfortably enough to support the average human (Wikipedia again - average North American weighs in at about 81 kg), plus clothing, some equipment and a safety margin. 

Now I have no idea how big that gecko's feet are but I'd be surprised if I couldn't fit a couple of gecko feet on the palm of my hand.  But lets look at the numbers, again from Wikipedia:

"Use of small van der Waals force requires very large surface areas; every square millimeter of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae. Each seta has a diameter of 5 μm. Human hair varies from 18 to 180 μm, so the cross-sectional area of a human hair is equivalent to 12 to 1300 setae. Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae.  Each spatula is 0.2 μm long  (one five-millionth of a meter), or just below the wavelength of visible light.

The setae of a typical mature 70 g (2.5 oz) gecko would be capable of supporting a weight of 133 kg (293 lb): each spatula can exert an adhesive force of 5 to 25 nN."

• For simplicity, lets assume 25 nN per spatula and 500 spatulue per seta , so approximately 12,500 nN per seta.
• Lets also assume 14,000 setae per square mm, so 175 million nN per square mm or 0.17 N per square mm.
• A mass of 133 kg requires approximately 1300N of force to hold it against Earth gravity. That would require approximately 7,650 square mm of setae.
• The palm of my hand is approximately 70mm x 60mm or 4,200 square millimetres.

Conclusions:

• Assuming I could fit both my gecko palms perfectly to a surface, I could hang from most surfaces.  Whether my arms could take the strain is another matter!
• My numbers seem a bit off for that 'gecko can support 133kg figure. Either that or geckos have much bigger feet than I'm imagining.

Either way, this very back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that adhesion whilst retaining the human look is possible, although  it would favour lighter humans and requires us to use the upper ends of the setae density and force-per-spatula numbers from Wikipedia.  Prehensile, setae-equipped toes would also be helpful for adding an extra safety margin.

Naturally, this only works if the climber is barefoot and barehanded, so it's of limited use in harsher environmental conditions.

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by KSK

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, KSK said:

If Wikipedia is to be believed, then the feet of a mature 70g gecko are capable of supporting a mass of 133kg.

(Imagines ceilings full of sticked gecko feet after something hunted the geckos).

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

Evolutionary fitness isn't an issue here (although I agree with @jimmymcgoochie's comments) since we're discussing engineered species. Presumably, whoever did the engineering thought that magnetic hands would be neat.

I do question the notion that adhesion whilst retaining the human look is impossible. 

If Wikipedia is to be believed, then the feet of a mature 70g gecko are capable of supporting a mass of 133kg. For a non-political, non-controversial question such as 'how come a gecko's feet are so sticky', I'm assuming that Wikipedia is a decent enough quick reference. But anyway, 133kg seems comfortably enough to support the average human (Wikipedia again - average North American weighs in at about 81 kg), plus clothing, some equipment and a safety margin. 

Now I have no idea how big that gecko's feet are but I'd be surprised if I couldn't fit a couple of gecko feet on the palm of my hand.  But lets look at the numbers, again from Wikipedia:

"Use of small van der Waals force requires very large surface areas; every square millimeter of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae. Each seta has a diameter of 5 μm. Human hair varies from 18 to 180 μm, so the cross-sectional area of a human hair is equivalent to 12 to 1300 setae. Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae.  Each spatula is 0.2 μm long  (one five-millionth of a meter), or just below the wavelength of visible light.

The setae of a typical mature 70 g (2.5 oz) gecko would be capable of supporting a weight of 133 kg (293 lb): each spatula can exert an adhesive force of 5 to 25 nN."

• For simplicity, lets assume 25 nN per spatula and 500 spatulue per seta , so approximately 12,500 nN per seta.
• Lets also assume 14,000 setae per square mm, so 175 million nN per square mm or 0.17 N per square mm.
• A mass of 133 kg requires approximately 1300N of force to hold it against Earth gravity. That would require approximately 7,650 square mm of setae.
• The palm of my hand is approximately 70mm x 60mm or 4,200 square millimetres.

Conclusions:

• Assuming I could fit both my gecko palms perfectly to a surface, I could hang from most surfaces.  Whether my arms could take the strain is another matter!
• My numbers seem a bit off for that 'gecko can support 133kg figure. Either that or geckos have much bigger feet than I'm imagining.

Either way, this very back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that adhesion whilst retaining the human look is possible, although  it would favour lighter humans and requires us to use the upper ends of the setae density and force-per-spatula numbers from Wikipedia.  Prehensile, setae-equipped toes would also be helpful for adding an extra safety margin.

Naturally, this only works if the climber is barefoot and barehanded, so it's of limited use in harsher environmental conditions.

 

You can hold your self up by your arms almost infinitely, its your grip who fails. You also want pads on your feet. 
Now the downside of this is that your hands might well become worse as manipulators and your feet less suited for running. 
For metal plates I simply use technology they don't exist without technology anyway. 
For climbers I go more like ape like, but humans has an excellent generalist design. Run 10 miles, swim 1 then climb an cliff and its not many mammals who does better but most of all we are tool users. 
 

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Run 10 miles, swim 1 then climb an cliff and its not many mammals who does better

and so thinks the police visiting the party.

[KSK]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

You can hold your self up by your arms almost infinitely, its your grip who fails. You also want pads on your feet. 
Now the downside of this is that your hands might well become worse as manipulators and your feet less suited for running. 
For metal plates I simply use technology they don't exist without technology anyway. 
For climbers I go more like ape like, but humans has an excellent generalist design. Run 10 miles, swim 1 then climb an cliff and its not many mammals who does better but most of all we are tool users. 
 

Good point about the grip - thanks. I did mention that pads on feet would help.  As for hands becoming less useful as manipulators, human hairs are moved (involuntarily) by muscles in response to temperature or other stimuli.

I can imagine that the hair structures responsible for adhesion could be raised or flattened by similar muscles but under conscious control.

Not a perfect solution but better than nothing.

Edited September 13, 2021 by KSK

[Spacescifi]

4 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Did you even read what I said? Iron might be abundant, but finding free iron is incredibly unlikely and magnetic ores of iron aren't all that common either- certainly not in the sort of abundance that would justify a hypothetical organism using magnets in its body to stick itself to the side of a cliff.

The costs of having these magnetic appendages (in terms of not dying from metal poisoning and the physiological cost of growing said appendages) would have to have a huge payoff against not having them- as in you need to be magnetic or your reproductive ability is zero or close to it, whether that's a plain old "magnets or you die" or a slightly more nuanced "magnets or you just don't breed as much/at all"- so perhaps you can explain why your hypothetical organism needs to use magnets to stick to magnetic surfaces?

Not sure why you presume a higher iron content implies they would not have to mine and process it like we do.

Giving them niche abilities does not mean they will be incredibly useful right away. In fact without processing iron the only ability that they really can still utilize is electric shock.

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It can be an endemic inhabitant of sunken steel ships evolved from the sailors' remains.

Can't. The rust isn't magnetic.

 

Rust is not magnetic, however if the rust is not fully rusted it still will be attracted.

 

Take a magnet near partially rusted metal and you may be pleasantly surprised how much rust... that still has some ferromagnetic qualities in it... is attracted.

I know this from experience. As a kid I killed a bug with nothing but rusted metal dust and a donut magnet. Dusted it with so much rust that his body BECAME  attracted to the magnet as some of the metal became stuck in folds and creases.

It died... for science. After being drawn to, sucked, and finally colliding with the magnet one too many times.

43 minutes ago, KSK said:

Good point about the grip - thanks. I did mention that pads on feet would help.  As for hands becoming less useful as manipulators, human hairs are moved (involuntarily) by muscles in response to temperature or other stimuli.

I can imagine that the hair structures responsible for adhesion could be raised or flattened by similar muscles but under conscious control.

Not a perfect solution but better than nothing.

 

I am not convinced gecko feet are an option to retain humanoids similar to us.

 

Sure if you lower the weight, but I was not doing that, since they would have to be smaller or else more hollow.

 

At first I thought it would be cool to shoot lightning too from the sucker plates... but I though that stretches plausibility too far.

 

Shocking via touch is fine. Also I presume shocking in water is to be avoided for obvious reasons.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

I presume shocking in water is to be avoided for obvious reasons.

Eels do it 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

So - let me offer some observations.  Humans, outside of the tool use and complex thinking super power, have two other superpowers that benefit us:

1. We are the premier endurance hunter, rivaled only by wolves 

2. We are utter generalists - from diet to environment. 

To take a page from the role playing genre - if you are going to give your engineered species a different super power - you probably need to take points away from some other ability.  I'm assuming you know this. 

But the other thing to remember is that a superpower unused becomes very quickly dropped by the organism in favor of more efficient energy use.  Take the endurance hunter aspect.  Far easier to stay in shape once there than it is to regain the ability.  I know this for a fact.  20 years in the Marines and I could run 15 miles nonstop with a pack on or sprint out 3 miles in under 20 minutes for both decades.  Follow that up with a single decade of relative laxity and occasional illness and today I can't run two miles. Not so much because I'm lazy (OK that is a part of it) but because my body has literally changed the way it processes food and builds muscle. This anecdote aside - there are hundreds of articles on this stuff. 

So if you have an engineered species that does not live in an environment that demands the use of its designed abilities - those abilities are going to disappear. 

[KSK]

8 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I am not convinced gecko feet are an option to retain humanoids similar to us.

Sure if you lower the weight, but I was not doing that, since they would have to be smaller or else more hollow.

Please yourself. I just pointed you at a reference (numbers taken from here) that says gecko feet are an option but feel free to find a counterexample.

As for weight - the numbers I gave you were for suspending a 133kg mass by gecko feet.  Take a look at the chart on this page for average human mass by country.  Average male weight apparently ranges from about 55 to about 100 kg, average female weight from about 50 to about 98 kg.  There's plenty of room within that natural variation to favour lower mass humans without invoking hollow bones or whatever.

Edited September 14, 2021 by KSK

[Scotius]

Your hypothetical EM-climbers would be Big Eaters, so i hope they are very, very good at agriculture too.

Someone better at math than me can hopefully calculate how much energy you need to run through electromagnet, to keep circa 100 kg stuck to a wall for any appreciable length of time - but i can assure you that normal human body can produce only a fraction of required power. Your EM-aliens will need to eat a lot to cover nutritional needs. Which will require very robust digestive system. And equally robust nervous system\conductive structures to transfer produced energy to hand and feet. Robust = big. Unless you want to stuck micro fusion reactors  from "Back to the Future II" in their bellies.

Aside from basic body plan, i don't think your creations would be very human-looking in the end.

[kerbiloid]

Got it.

They need superconducting bioelectromagnets to save the energy.

So the feet should be cold.

But they should live at cryo temperatures and should be veeery slooow.

So, a question: is there a way to magnetically stick to the layer of the natural metastable metallic hydrogen?

Edited September 14, 2021 by kerbiloid

[jimmymcgoochie]

28 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

metastable metallic hydrogen?

You expect to store a material that only forms at GigaPascal pressures (i.e. tens/hundreds of thousands of atmospheres) inside a biological system??? Assuming there is such a thing as metastable metallic hydrogen at all, you don’t want that stuff inside you.

About the whole “electric shock” thing- it would work underwater because water conducts electricity, hence electric eels et al which use it, but not nearly so much in air which is a very poor conductor of electricity. You’d need an extremely short distance or a lot of electricity (is it current or voltage in this case? I’m not an electrician) to get any sort of range; factor in the biological processes and structures to produce and store this electricity and then deliver the shock without overheating and/or damaging yourself in the process and you’d probably end up being better off just using all that iron lying around to make swords or guns.

[magnemoe]

You can make an permanent magnet with an mechanical on/ off switch. You will need two magnets, one who can be rotated. 

 

[Spacescifi]

15 hours ago, magnemoe said:

You can make an permanent magnet with an mechanical on/ off switch. You will need two magnets, one who can be rotated. 

 

 

Nice... so I can use this instead of electromagnets.

 

So they will lose the shock ability, but will retain the suction plate glow via bio-luminescence when the magnetic field aligns.

They will use a type of chemical permanent magnetic fluid that is flows back to their bones when they do not want to do the magnet trick.

Their bones likely have  a lot of metal content too... with lots of iron.

 

Likely have to be some weird alien bones that grow and repair like normal bone but heavier and more durable. Harder to break.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Likely have to be some weird alien bones that grow and repair like normal bone but heavier and more durable. Harder to break

Could do a nano-robot symbiosis that adjusts the crystal matrix of the bones as needed. 

Mimic the natural process of osteoblasts