Author Topic: Black Smokers  (Read 9106 times)

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« on: February 24, 2005, 03:07:52 AM »
I'm working on figuring a metabolic system for black smokers.  If you don't know what that is, google it, there's all kinds of information.

I have thus far:

H2S + O2 + CO2 -> nrg + S + H20
S + H20 + O2 -> SO4 + nrg

As the two metabolic processes.

I don't know what happens to the SO4.  Does it get split and turned into H2S and O2 by the intense heat of the black smoker?

Other than that, I think this could work really well.  A black smoker would be a comparitvely long tub that emits H2S and alot of heat along the bottom of the screen (would only really make sense in pond mode).  The heat and Hydrogen Sulfide would dissipate into the environment.

You could edit the smoker attributes either through the options panel or by clicking on it during the simulation.

Organisms that contain this sulfuric metabolism are poisonous to most bots that aren't adapted, but if a carbon cycle organism learns to eat black smoker life forms some how it could develop a niche.

So many possibilities.

Offline k0zm0

  • Bot Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2005, 03:29:21 AM »
Erupting chemicals - H2S, FeS, H2, NH4, NO2, CH4
O2 and CO2 are still dissolved in seawater

CO2 + H2O + H2S +  O2  -> CH2O + H2SO4
FeS+H2S ->FeS2+H2+free energy

H2SO4 is soluble in water.

H2SO4  <-> H3O + + HSO4 -
HSO4 - <-> H3O + + SO4 2-
SO4 is dissolved in water
« Last Edit: February 24, 2005, 03:32:22 AM by k0zm0 »
I'm not crazy and I'm not normal.
If I were normal, I would go crazy.

Offline Zelos

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 707
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2005, 06:19:31 AM »
okej its fun whit chemistry, but why take it up here?
« Last Edit: February 24, 2005, 06:42:02 AM by zelos »
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2005, 09:30:30 AM »
Quote
okej its fun whit chemistry, but why take it up here?


Because this is what we intend to do with the e-grid.

We want to simulate real chemical cycles in the environment. Create niches where different robots can metabolize different things to create an ecosystem.

 :D  PY  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2005, 09:36:10 AM »
Quote
Other than that, I think this could work really well. A black smoker would be a comparitvely long tub that emits H2S and alot of heat along the bottom of the screen (would only really make sense in pond mode). The heat and Hydrogen Sulfide would dissipate into the environment.


From top down view, a black smoker could be a point source (or a group of point sources) which takes up one cell of the egrid each. From settings panels we can define how much stuff comes out of the smoker. If we want more stuff in a small area then we can just use several of them  together.
Sulfer and heat will gradually spread out using the mechanisms that the e-grid already has in place.

Same really applies to pond mode.

The point is that very close to the smoker is a place where many robots will not want to be. Very hot and very poisonous.

 :D  PY  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Botsareus

  • Society makes it all backwards - there is a good reason for that
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 4483
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2005, 10:42:45 AM »
I thought all this e-grid stuff will be randomly located by the program and change locations over time...

...^ you can add that as an option though :rolleyes:  ;)  cant you?
...^ change cant be too fast or robots will have no time to addapt , change cant be too slow or we get hunters that dont like to search for food and travel because the food is always nearby, and we get plants that dont invent unique patterns of plasing there babys

OK from what you guys have been talking about I figured out this :

Quote
1) Robots can mutate into who ever they want. The 4 things they can mutate into are are 1# waste feeder 2# Plant 3#Plant Eater 4#Hunter

2)The e-grid is the thing that determins what robots will mutate into

Did I get it right? If I did cool that will be the smartest thing that ever happend in DB






 :ph43r: Bau :ph43r:
 :o PY creaped me out just now he changed te color of the board on me , AAA!
« Last Edit: February 24, 2005, 10:43:46 AM by Botsareus »

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2005, 10:52:41 AM »
Quote
PY creaped me out just now he changed te color of the board on me , AAA!


But do you like it though? There will be a vote soon.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2005, 10:58:26 AM »
Quote
I thought all this e-grid stuff will be randomly located by the program and change locations over time...


You are partly right.

The program actively spreads stuff about so that eventually all cells of the e-grid will be the same. This is a slow process.

The idea of smokers, waste runoffs or whatever is so that we will have point sources which will continuously add certain things to the grid in specific locations. For example the smokers will be surrounded by zones of higher heat and Sulfer than surrounding areas. Both will slowly spread out and a certain amount will need to be lost at various places (possibly sinks, possibly robot metabolic proceses like coral reefs removing calcium from the sea, possibly by loss of volatile substances to the atmosphere above the pond) to balance the input.

 :D  PY  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Botsareus

  • Society makes it all backwards - there is a good reason for that
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 4483
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2005, 11:01:38 AM »
Quote
The program actively spreads stuff about so that eventually all cells of the e-grid will be the same. This is a slow process.

after that happens what kinds of robots are we left with?

As long as in the end all robots dont die , and we got plants and animals I am cool
« Last Edit: February 24, 2005, 11:03:02 AM by Botsareus »

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2005, 11:41:51 AM »
Just remember that all robots and plants will take something from the grid and put something else back.

For example a plant will grab up all the available CO2 around it and exude O2 so it will be in an area which is locally very high in O2 but low in CO2. The program will spread this around so that the plant doesn't suffocate in its own waste(O2) and has a steady supply of new CO2 to metabolize.

 :D  Py  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Guest

  • Guest
Black Smokers
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2005, 12:12:38 PM »
ic , now check out my fix to the huge numbers mutating problem

Offline Botsareus

  • Society makes it all backwards - there is a good reason for that
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 4483
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2005, 12:14:44 PM »

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2005, 12:41:24 PM »
Quote
Erupting chemicals - H2S, FeS, H2, NH4, NO2, CH4
O2 and CO2 are still dissolved in seawater

CO2 + H2O + H2S +  O2  -> CH2O + H2SO4
FeS+H2S ->FeS2+H2+free energy

H2SO4 is soluble in water.

H2SO4  <-> H3O + + HSO4 -
HSO4 - <-> H3O + + SO4 2-
SO4 is dissolved in water
How does that fit in with the equations I listed?  I took them (unbalanced of course) from my bio text book.

I'm just trying to figure out all the possible metabolic types.   :ph43r:



I think we should have the option to randomly kill of a smoker from time to time.  From what I hear, this happens in the real environment.  Then bots might evolve to go into nomad mode, and search out anotherone.

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2005, 01:15:16 PM »
Quote
I think we should have the option to randomly kill of a smoker from time to time. From what I hear, this happens in the real environment. Then bots might evolve to go into nomad mode, and search out anotherone.

Don't much like the idea of randomly turning a smoker off.

Seems to me that black smokers are a very stable environment. Whole comunities of creatures live around them. Most (if not all) of these would be incapale of surviving long enough to migrate to a new smoker if theirs should suddenly stop smoking as it were.

I don't know much about how this works in real life but I would have thought that a smoker would have to be extremely long lived and stable in order for creatures to adapt to living on it through evolution.

Do you have any references to the fact that they sometimes stop smoking? I would like to read up on ths a bit more.

This is one of the best sites I have found on them.

 :D  PY  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Black Smokers
« Reply #14 on: February 24, 2005, 01:24:22 PM »
I can't find the link, but I'm fairly certain (read: I am positive) that I read somewhere that they returned to one vent they visited and found the vent dead.

So the question is how did the organisms evolve in such a way that they can survive the unpredictability of the vents?

For that matter how did the organisms spread from vent to vent?  Maybe its a similar adaptatin that land animals use to adapt to summer / winter.

Reminds me of Asimov's Nightfall.  One of the scientists muses that life cannot devlop in a binary or single star system because it would be dark for part of the day.  I think, no matter how extreme the conditions, if we're careful we can evolve organisms that adapt.

We should certainly be careful about hard coding our own prejudices into any simulation.  The mroe options the better  :D
« Last Edit: February 24, 2005, 01:26:59 PM by Numsgil »