XPost: rec.arts.sf.science, rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: mvp@web1.calweb.com   
      
   In article ,   
   Christian Weisgerber   wrote:   
   >Hal Clement was fond of ammonia-based body fluid.  I don't know how   
   >plausible that is.   
      
   He also delighted in playing games with the ammonia-water   
   eutectic.  Fun stuff.   
      
   Ammonia is a polar molecule, so it possibly would work for   
   life as we don't know it.   
      
   (Memories of a cartoon I saw decades ago in some magazine or   
   book -- a Gahan Wilson one, probably -- of an alien crawling   
   across a lifeless desert, moaning "Ammonia... Ammonia...")   
      
   >Assuming for a moment, for argument's sake, that there was intelligent   
   >non-water based life with our level of general chemical understanding,   
   >could they predict these things from first principles for (from their   
   >point of view) hypothetical water-based life?   
      
   "It's life, Blorgt, but not as we know it."   
      
   --   
   Mike Van Pelt       |  "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."   
   mvp at calweb.com   |   -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane   
   KE6BVH              |      Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)