Live Review of Alien Worlds ep 2

Doing a livestream where I will attempt to take a closer look at the NetFlix series: Alien Worlds LIVE while keeping an eye on your comments in the chat. This will be on episode 2 and to avoid copyright blocks I created a re-rendering of the interesting bits of the episodes using still frames, text-to-speech and public domain music.

[@JontyLevine]

I wanted to like the concept of polymorphism as depicted in this episode. Unfortunately, one of the problems I saw right away is that it isn't remotely stable on a evolutionary timescale. First of all, it's implied that both forms _do not_ occur within a single individual's lifetime - it can be thought of as more of an either/or thing (there was no reference made to them being migratory animals). So lets suppose you have this creature that, for some strange reason, distributes its larvae from a watershed location where the wind could either carry them in either direction. And the offspring will switch genes on and off during development, depending on where they land. It's all going to go wrong when one of these creatures inevitably has a mutation that gives it a survival advantage in one environment but not the other. For example, a lower metabolism might allow the ones on the summer side to go for longer between meals, yet the ones on the winter side with this same mutation might freeze to death because they need a fast metabolism to maintain their core body temperature. Only the ones that blow towards the summer side are going to survive long enough to reproduce. And very soon you'll end up with a separate breeding population that is specialised for life in hot climates. Another population might also specialise for cold and dark climates, perhaps losing the biologically expensive eyes and relying on their other senses. There is very little advantage to be gained from these populations interbreeding with each other. And prospective parents of both types would stay away from that watershed location since the larve are a costly investment. And they face an evolutionary pressure to make sure they don't waste resources by allowing these to blow towards the 'wrong' side of the planet. Before long, you have two entirely different species of pentapods (almost called them polypods by mistake because of Biblaridion). It _does_ make sense to have polymorphism in ants though because both the soldiers and workers are needed for the survival of the colony. But if there is an evolutionary advantage from being able to grow and survive in one of two radically different environments, then I'm afraid I'm not seeing it. Specialisation for a single environment would come at very little cost to these critters, and offer a range of advantages.

[@anon6000]

The trilaterally symmetrical aliens he mentions are the Amphorans by Povorot, in case you were curious what they look like but cannot determine exactly what he is saying.

[@gregpallister7907]

Hello I can hear you . I enjoyed the tv show in question and have seen many of your youtube documenteries . The idea of exoplanet zoology is wonderful keep up the good work .

[@eybaza6018]

By far my fauvorite episode

[@VirgoShelter]

Sad I miss this

[@Simon-ow6td]

Is it just me, or is the volume incredibly low for large parts?

[@StonedDragons]

They are probably blue due to the light absorbed by their chloroplasts, Earth plants typically absorbing the blue and red but actually reflect the peak wavelengths of the sun away. A red dwarf star likely isn't producing much blue light however so as highly energetic as it is (which makes it worth it for earth plants despite not being the peak wavelength) it probably isn't worth it for the chloroplasts to absorb around a red dwarf and so it's reflected.

[@TheEbrithil2]

Do you know "Mars and Beyond" from Disney? It's from 1957 so it's not really up to date, but they had some interesting ideas.

[@kacperxt371]

there's a game named "cell lab" in which you can create your own organism from cellular level. Unfortunately it's on android cell-lab.net/