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[LordBucket]

Weren't Over A Barrel and Applebuck Season nothing but nonsense about trees and fruit?

Can't tell if troll.

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
Forbidden fruit
The fall of man

Aluminum could not easily take a place analogous to calcium

No reason to assume that that the other materials in dragon bone are necesarily the same as in human bone.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Dammit Sean, that is spectacular! The fanfic is pretty amazing as well. All hail Celestia, Queen of Borg! (Also Patrick Stewart getting tossed into the mix as a replacement for the actual Picard was absolutely hilarious.)

Actually, I am unfamiliar with the fanfic. I've just said about a possible ST crossover where the crew would encounter the current Earth, where Equestria is just fiction.

[LordBucket]

I am unfamiliar with the fanfic

I think Flying Dice is referring to this one.

Grimdark + Incomplete tags makes it kind of a dealbreaker for me.

EDIT:

And on a somewhat creepy note, I just noticed that the ad google served my for that search was for Star Trek themed cupcake accessories.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It's also odd with the inclusion of Doctor Who(of).

Anyway, sprinkled up and cropped version if anyone wants it:

[TheBronzePickle]

Aluminum could not easily take a place analogous to calcium

No reason to assume that that the other materials in dragon bone are necesarily the same as in human bone.

The issue with oxidized aluminum bones is that they're not going to do well against pressure from the side. Calcium-phosphorous bones can be hit along the sides with more pressure than oxidized aluminum and not break. Considering the size of dragons and their necessity as predators to be able to run fast or fly, they're going to need a way to not break their legs or wings every time they move. There's also the fact that oxidized calcium creates flat sides and sharp edges rather than rounded sides, which would prove more dangerous to surrounding tissue and harder to heal.

Edit: Realizing that I was just saying that the dragons of Equestria are probably not predators since they eat gems, the predator part is irrelevant. The dragon would still need to fly, though, and oxidized calcium wings wouldn't be able to hold the weight.

[Flying Dice]

I am unfamiliar with the fanfic

I think Flying Dice is referring to this one.

Grimdark + Incomplete tags makes it kind of a dealbreaker for me.

EDIT:

And on a somewhat creepy note, I just noticed that the ad google served my for that search was for Star Trek themed cupcake accessories.

That is indeed it. I guess I got confused because the pony starship is described as being built in the shape of a flying pegasus. 

It's also odd with the inclusion of Doctor Who(of).

Anyway, sprinkled up and cropped version if anyone wants it:

To be honest, the convoluted plot really makes it for me. The grimdark tag, from what I've seen, is probably there mainly because of the Borg and various other cosmic horrors, etc.

[Bohandas]

Weren't Over A Barrel and Applebuck Season nothing but nonsense about trees and fruit?

Can't tell if troll.

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
Forbidden fruit
The fall of man

While it didn't cause her to become evil, Applejack's overzealous apple harvesting did cause her to become accidentally destructive and mildly insane.

[LordBucket]

The issue with oxidized aluminum bones is that they're not going to do well against pressure from the side.
Calcium-phosphorous bones can be hit along the sides with more pressure than oxidized aluminum and not break.

No more blind assertions, please. It takes time to look this stuff up, and it's kind of annoying to have people wildly making stuff up just to be disagreeable.

Shear strength of human femur bone: 65-71 MPa.

Shear strength of aluminum oxide: 330 MPa

Yes, it's stronger vs both compressive and tensile forces as well.

There's also the fact that oxidized calcium creates flat sides and sharp edges rather than
rounded sides, which would prove more dangerous to surrounding tissue and harder to heal.

Aluminum doesn't have that problem.

[Bohandas]

How can aluminum teeth break and chew gems?

Why would they not be able to?

 * Sapphires and rubies are composed of aluminum oxide. Loosely speaking, a sapphire is rusted aluminum in a crystaline form.
 * Crystalline materials tend to break more easily along their shear lines. Just like how it's easier to break a wooden board along the grain rather than against it.
 * Impact forces and compressive forces are not identical. A gem might happen to be very dense, but it is brittle, and susceptible to shattering. Chomping down violently would be more effective than attempting to slowly crush them.
 * Aluminum has roughly four times the compressive strength of bone. It's reasonable to suggest that aluminum based bone might be better for crushing than calcium/phosphorous based bone.
 * Finally, keep in mind that aluminum need not be the only material. Your teeth are not purely calcium phosphate either.

The premise here is simply that dragons requires aluminum for their skeletal structure, just like your skeleton requires calccium and phosphorous. But aluminum is not a material in great abundance in plants or animals. So to grow larger they require an alternate source, and certain gemstones are suitable. This is why baby dragons need to eat lots of gems, but adult dragons don't. Once the skeleton is fully grown, they don't require the aluminum intake they once did. This also explains the hoarding tendency of adult dragons: they're collecting gems to provide for their young.

Aluminum could not easily take a place analogous to calcium because they are in different groups on the periodic table and therefore have radically different chemical properties.
(Aluminum is in Group 13, Calcium is in Group 2)

Si-based lifeforms are pretty much standard for any sort of fiction that wants non-Ca based species as their starfish aliens. I don't see why having Al-based dragons is any less acceptable in fiction.

First, Ca is the abbreviation for Calcium, not for Carbon, Secondly, silicon based lifeforms only make sense because Silicon and Carbon are in the same elemental group.

[Dermonster]

I want to say 'How the hell did we get from ponies to complex biological discussion' but I can see it grow from the last dozens of posts.

Bay12 Everybody!

Still weird as hell.

[LordBucket]

While it didn't cause her to become evil, Applejack's overzealous apple harvesting
did cause her to become accidentally destructive and mildly insane.

Which is completely missing the point

The topic at hand was whether Equestria resembles the garden of Eden.

I pointed out in this post that Equestria lacks the "trees and fruit nonsense" in the bible.

You replied in this post that the episodes Over A Barrel and Applebuck Season were "nothing but nonsense about trees and fruit".

To which I replied in this post with links for you to read what the trees and fruits in the garden were actually about

And to that you reply with this:

While it didn't cause her to become evil, Applejack's overzealous apple harvesting
did cause her to become accidentally destructive and mildly insane.

Are you seriously suggesting that Applejack getting stupid from lack of sleep because she was too busy harvesting apples until her friends intervened and talked her into letting them help her is in some way a good metaphor for god telling man to obey him and remain in ignorance and when man disobeyed god curses Adam and Eve with various frailties and kicked them both out of Eden?

Because if you really think that's a good metaphor...I don't really know what to say.

[Zangi]

>Fishing for religious messages in MLP: FIM

L-O-L

[dragonshardz]

So, who else is looking forward to the new episode?

RE: Complex biological/thematic discussion:

Biological: Dragons = fucking magic.

Thematic: You can find parallels in anything, whether they were intended or not. Just take it at face value and please stop searching for deeper meaning. Face value of Applebuck Season: Ask for help from your friends when you have trouble doing a big job.

[kaijyuu]

Just take it at face value and please stop searching for deeper meaning.

Two things.


Not that I don't agree that this conversation is silly

[Fniff]

We're dwarf fortress players. We discuss happily harvesting mermaids to use their bones for arts and crafts. Be glad we haven't decided to make a dimensional teleporter and start harvesting ponies to stuff them and give them to bronies, and instead are arguing about the biology of dragons.