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[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, I totally missed those temperature figures.

You have an excuse--they were posted after your post.
But now we know it's probably a good idea for us to make the people ectothermic.

307 Kelvin is pretty high; it's about 5-6 degrees Farenheight short of human body temperature. We could probably go ectotherm. Less heat problems, and lowered metabolic requirements. So...let's go with that, shall we?

I might not be a fancy genetic engineer like some of ya, but I'm pretty sure 307 Kelvin is around 38 Fahrenheit, or as we in Europe like to say "1 degree above the point where water freezes", 326 Kelvin is respectively 20 centigrade (room temperature)

If that's true, then the Google conversion thing is off, because it claims that 307 Kelvin is about 92 degrees.
And I'm no fancy...whatever you are like you are, but if it went from freezing to around room temperature would the planet be described as "warm"?

[a1s]

Ran into a faulty conversion site. 307 Kelvin is of course 307-273=34 centigrade, not 1 (I should have known that) or 92 Farenheit (which I wanted to look up, and failed).

[My Name is Immaterial]

For future reference: Kelvin + 273 or so = Celsius.
Also: Fahrenheit = 9/5*(C+32) = 9/5*(K+295)

[GreatWyrmGold]

34 Centigrade is 93 Farenheight, so I'm close enough.

For future reference: Kelvin + 273 or so = Celsius.

Indeed.

[Grek]

The stated issues with the environment are as follows: The water is too scarce, the air is too thin, the gravity is too high and the surface is too hot.

Paradigm shift time:

The problem with this colonists is that they sweat out all of their vitally needed water, have fragile bones and are unable to pressurize their internal air supply. Proposed solution:

-Develop a non-perspiratory method for cooling the body, such as feathers or capillated hairs.
-Increase bone strength by modifying the mineral content towards something stronger.
-Modify the epiglottis to shift from an inhale-exhale cycle to an inhale-compress-decompress-exhale cycle without fiddling with the delicate avolli.

That third one may not work if, by "thin air" they mean the air lacks oxygen, rather than it having a normal oxygen percentage at unhealthfully low air pressure.

[RAM]

Just make them smaller to deal with the gravity. Also try to develop a hybrid heat-sink/exoskeleton.

[a1s]

-Develop a non-perspiratory method for cooling the body, such as feathers or capillated hairs.

How bout we just raise the normal body temperature to 48 centigrade (220 Kelvin) so they would not need too cool down as much (instead they'd need to keep warm most of the time, like earth people do)

[Grek]

If we want to increase the average body temperature, we have to go in and fix all the proteins in the body that denature (ie. stop working) at that temperature so they don't break. That would be a whole lot of work.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The stated issues with the environment are as follows: The water is too scarce, the air is too thin, the gravity is too high and the surface is too hot.

Paradigm shift time:

The problem with this colonists is that they sweat out all of their vitally needed water, have fragile bones and are unable to pressurize their internal air supply. Proposed solution:

Sweat's not too bad but your proposed solution is hardly the only one; reptiles don't sweat and are a lot more common in the desert. Toughening bones isn't the only solution, and making them stouter would probably work better and be more nutrient-efficient. Finally, efficient respiration works for birds and so we don't need to pressurize the air inside.

-Develop a non-perspiratory method for cooling the body, such as feathers or capillated hairs.
-Increase bone strength by modifying the mineral content towards something stronger.
-Modify the epiglottis to shift from an inhale-exhale cycle to an inhale-compress-decompress-exhale cycle without fiddling with the delicate avolli.

1. Maybe, but I still think ectothermy would be quite helpful.
2. Meh.
3. I don't think this would be the best idea. Simpler to improve respiratory efficiency.

That third one may not work if, by "thin air" they mean the air lacks oxygen, rather than it having a normal oxygen percentage at unhealthfully low air pressure.

No, the GM said the oxygen content was fine.

Just make them smaller to deal with the gravity. Also try to develop a hybrid heat-sink/exoskeleton.

Making them smaller would bring a host of new issues, not to mention make heat regulation a pain. Ectothermy is simpler. And I'm not sure if the proposed hybrid would work, unless maybe the exoskeleton had plates or something to radiate away heat.

If we want to increase the average body temperature, we have to go in and fix all the proteins in the body that denature (ie. stop working) at that temperature so they don't break. That would be a whole lot of work.

Indeed. Especially with that kind of temperature. Why even have it so high?

[a1s]

That third one may not work if, by "thin air" they mean the air lacks oxygen, rather than it having a normal oxygen percentage at unhealthfully low air pressure.

No, the GM said the oxygen content was fine.

He didn't, though it's not terribly bad:

The air is only half the oxygen content that it needs to be for humans and air pressure is 75% of what humans require

(that is of course if "human require" 100,000 Pascals (1 bar). And not whatever miniscule air pressure they might actually require to remain alive.)

If we want to increase the average body temperature, we have to go in and fix all the proteins in the body that denature (ie. stop working) at that temperature so they don't break. That would be a whole lot of work.

Indeed. Especially with that kind of temperature. Why even have it so high?

er... fungocidal... effects? It's also good for metabolism... probably. Mostly I was going for the non-sweating idea.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Non-sweating is better achieved by many other means.

The oxygen content being half...well, before I can respond, is that the total oxygen or the oxygen percentage?

[a1s]

The oxygen content being half...well, before I can respond, is that the total oxygen or the oxygen percentage?

Does it matter? In one case we have 50% of the required oxygen, and in the other 38%. the difference is a bare 25%

[Scelly9]

It is 50% of the total oxygen.

[RAM]

We want these folk to actually live out there without inventing new and colourful language to curse their creator. Having them faint if they exert themselves wouldn't be good. Forcing them to carry several litres of water whenever they leave a dam would not be good. If basic-model humans expel anything they have recently ingested whenever they look at our creation, that probably wouldn't be good either...
Lets give them ridges to expel heat, keep clothing and cleaning in mind, putting the most pronounced ridges on the head and outer limbs, with milder ridges on the torso. I think that small size is necessary, for gravitational and circulatory issues, but it would place some strain on breathing. Feathers sound good, but might insulate too well, if we could have ridges protruding from feathers without making something hideous to behold then that might be workable.

_{Lets just make velociraptors and be done with it...}

[Grek]

I'm convinced on the making them shorter vs. bone toughening question. Changing my vote to Make Shorter. I'm not 100% sure on respiratory efficiency vs. pressurized lungs. Do we have gene samples available for more efficient lungs? Something to look into. As for ectothermy, normally I would be all for it if we were designing a creature from the ground up, but in this case it seems really impractical. Consider:

1. We'd need to redo the hypothalamus to not change body temperature while still producing the required hormones that the body needs. Which means complicated and potentially dangerous brain DNA alterations.
2. We'd need to rework a bunch of proteins to accept a wider tolerance for core body temperature than is normal in humans. Again, that is a lot of work.
3. We'd have to rework the histamine response to neither cause fevers (which are not available for ectotherms) nor to rely on them in the immune system. And we can't change the histamine molecule itself, since it's also used as a neurotransmitter and for other immune system responses.
4. Beacause of 2 and 3, that means we have to basically redo the entire immune system to use different proteins, not need fever to drive out bacteria, to be more pro-active about killing bacteria to compensate for higher infection rates, but not kill of vital gut bacteria, etc.
5. Basically, what RAM said. Making them cold-blooded would mean periods of lethargy in cold, periodic sunning requirements, a change in sexual response not to get squicked out by feeling up cold flesh, and a host of other psychological changes to make the colonists feel OK about being lizard people and not become super depressed.