Polite Dissent

Day Three of a three-day look at the use of biology in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman #1. (The previous parts can be found here and here). Today, we’re going to start where we left off yesterday: talking about the giant blue Voyager Titans.

Dr. Quintum: The blue skin is typical of these anaerobic meganthropes. His blood is 80% liquid nitrogen.

3. Anaerobic
Anaerobic literally means “without air”, though it is understood to mean “without oxygen.” It can be used in several contexts, but I’m just going to mention the two most common here.

First, there are some organisms, generally bacteria, that thrive in low oxygen environments. These are known as anaerobic bacteria. Clostridium tetani is a perfect example of one of these anaerobic bacteria. This is the germ that causes tetanus and can only survive in environments without oxygen, such as at the bottom of a deep puncture wounds. That’s why we give tetanus immunizations for dirty puncture wounds.

A second common use of the term anaerobic is in reference to exercise. Humans can produce energy both aerobically (with oxygen) and anaerobically (without oxygen). Aerobic exercise is good for long steady exercise such as walking, jogging, cycling, and – duh – aerobics. It is more efficient that anaerobic exercise, but not as powerful. On the other hand, anaerobic exercise is good for quick bursts of maximum speed or strength such as sprinting or weight lifting. The downside is that anaerobic exercise is not as efficient as aerobic exercise and produces lactic acid, a by-product which builds up and causes muscle fatigue.

In this instance, I suspect that Morrison is suggesting that these are anaerobic organisms. These giant men (mega + anthropes) are designed for space exploration and need to live in a low- or no-oxygen environment. The blue color suggests that they do not have oxygenated hemoglobin in their blood, which has a definite red color to it. This makes sense as they are anaerobic and would need no molecules specially designed to carry oxygen (like hemoglobin).

(Actually, both uses of “anaerobic” tie-in together, because an anaerobic organism needs to use an anaerobic metabolism to produce energy).

4. Liquid Nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen that has been converted to liquid form by high pressures and low temperatures. It has a boiling point of –320.5° F (-195.8° C). Above this temperature, nitrogen is a gas. At –320.5° F or below, nitrogen is a liquid. We have a medical term for that: damn cold.

Medically, we use liquid nitrogen to treat certain skin conditions such as warts, seborrheic keratoses and actinic kertoses. It is also used for storage and cryo-preservation of tissue samples.

I suppose that with the right technologic and genetic modifications, liquid nitrogen could be used in the bloodstream, replacing the water that is in ours. But just remember this: at a temperature above –320.5° F, their blood will turn to gas and a small puncture wound would become an explosive blow out.

5. Yoctosphere
Yocto- is a metric prefix that means 10^-24, or 0.000000000000000000000001. It is used to describe the size of atoms and sub-atomic particles. Thus “yoctosphere” would refer to the atomic and subatomic realm.

The Science of Super-Heroes has an interesting section on sub-atomic heroes.