From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
   On Thursday, December 12, 2019 at 10:10:48 AM UTC-8, Joel Polowin wrote:   
   > Hypothesis: Creatures of Faerie live via a nuclear fission/fusion field.   
      
    Hmm.   
      
   > Logic: They are poisoned uniquely by the presence of matter that   
   > contains no (or few) atoms that can be fused/split without loss of   
   > energy.   
      
     Then their biochemistry, despite appearance per "historical eyewitness   
   accounts", cannot be mostly CHON-polymers-in-H2O-suspension like ours.   
      
     Logic: They would also be at least severely inconvenienced by the presence   
   of anything we've ever used to moderate a thermal-neutron-flux-mediated   
   nuclear reaction like graphite, paraffin or water.   
      
     Beryllium bullets, knives, spears and arrowheads would be useful against   
   them possibly just by contact, no penetration necessary similarly to iron.   
      
     For that matter, penetrating weapons made of very radioactive isotopes like   
   those used in medicine might "set them off" so to speak.   
      
     (No wonder Nuada was so pissed at human technology in the Hellboy universe-   
   lacking magic we have to be more inventive than they can be.)   
      
   > Experiments to try:   
   >    
   > * Do they affect the half-life of (small) samples of fissile material?   
   > Tests should check for both detected decays and absolute decays.   
      
     Do they consume such materials? Do their tissues, in situ or after section,   
   emit radiation? Is their sweat (if they sweat), faeces (if they defecate) and   
   other excretions radioactive? If they breathe, is their breath radioactive?   
   What isotopes are    
   present? Can they make non-radioactive air radioactive?   
       
   > * Might they be useful fusion catalysts?   
      
     Is heavy water the solvent their tissues use to transport materials the way   
   ours use water? They would be a good source of it- they could be "smelted" for   
   it.   
        
   > * Could they be part of small nuclear devices, including small power   
   > sources as well as low-yield explosives?   
      
     If they operate by some sort of nuclear fission mediated by their tissues,   
   encasing them in the materials we use as neutron reflectors should work.   
      
   ----------   
      
     All of this reminds me of something I wanted to post some time back but   
   forgot about...   
      
     In demon folklore (I was jogged by episodes of the TV series "Supernatural")   
   when demons appear they are often accompanied by the smell of sulfur. Is   
   sulfur just the energy difference between their "dimension" and ours,   
   manifested as convenient matter    
   rather than inconvenient energy?   
      
     What aroma accompanies the appearance of angels?   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)