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Reference library for speculative exotic biochemistry and planetology
#1
This thread will serve as a library of published scientific papers and well-thought-out worldbuilding resources that are highly relevant to the topic of speculative biochemistry and planetary science, especially regarding exotic environments very unlike Earth.

I and others will add papers below, and as I get a chance I will edit them into this first post.

Scientific Papers

-Alternative Fundamental Water-Carbon Biochemistry

2021, Possibilities for an Aerial Biosphere in Temperate Sub Neptune-Sized Exoplanet Atmospheres

2019, An apparent binary choice in biochemistry: Mutual reactivity implies life chooses thiols or nitrogen-sulfur bonds, but not both (PDF)

2019, Many alternative and theoretical genetic codes are more robust to amino acid replacements than the standard genetic code (PDF)

2019, One Among Millions: The Chemical Space of Nucleic Acid-Like Molecules (no free version)

2017, Exploring astrobiology using in silico molecular structure generation

-Fundamental Exotic Biochemistry

2024, Alternative solvents for life: framework for evaluation, current status and future research

2024, Astrobiology Primer 3.0 Chapter 9: Life as We Don't Know It

2020, Can polarity-inverted membranes self-assemble on Titan? (also says that cell membranes may be unnecessary on Titan-like worlds)

2020, On the Potential of Silicon as a Building Block for Life

2017, Oxygen-free biochemistry: the putative CHN foundation for exotic life in a hydrocarbon world? (PDF)

2016, Titan as the Abode of Life

2015, Membrane alternatives in worlds without oxygen: Creation of an azotosome (note 2020 paper above rebutting this for Titan, but may be relevant for other worlds)

2014, Photosynthesis in Hydrogen-Dominated Atmospheres

2010, The Potential Feasibility of Chlorinic Photosynthesis on Exoplanets (no free version)

2007, The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems (book, free to read online)

2004, Is there a common chemical model for life in the universe? (PDF)

2004, Many chemistries could be used to build living systems (PDF)

1980, Life beyond Earth: the intelligent Earthling's guide to life in the universe (book, can be borrowed from Internet Archive with free account)

-Alien Flora

2023, Life Unknown: Preliminary Scheme for a Magnetotrophic Organism

2018, Biofluorescent worlds: global biological fluorescence as a biosignature

-Planetary Science

2024, The miscibility of hydrogen and water in planetary atmospheres and interiors

2022, CO2 ocean bistability on terrestrial exoplanets

2019, Diving into Exoplanets: Are Water Seas the Most Common?

Worldbuilding Resources

Structural Biological Materials, in Galactic Library

Worldbuilding Pasta

1996, World-Building (book, no free access)

Wikipedia Articles

Anaerobic organism

Foldamer

Hydrogenosome

Hypothetical types of biochemistry

Superhabitable world

Detailed Fictional Works

2023, The Living Crystals of Titan

2015, Ndiangu Mme Anwu System
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