Science Geekism!

[teyla]

So, I've been wondering about the physiology of Time Lords.

We all know they're different somehow. For starters, there's the two hearts. Then there's all these acrobatics the Doctor keeps performing where radiation is concerned. How exactly does that organism work?

I'm gonna try and find a hypothesis. I can only base it on New Who, because I haven't seen the rest. If I find that this is fun, I might add to it as soon as I've watched classic Who.


Right, first of all, I went through my memories of the episodes and listed all the injuries the Doctor suffered during the last three seasons.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances:
The Doctor tells Rose that he burned his hand, but that the nanites repaired it. Only documentation of a lasting injury.

Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways
The Doctor absorbs the Time Vortex. It kills him, he regenerates.

The Christmas Invasion
The Doctor suffers from what I'll call Post Regeneration Syndrome, PRS. Shouldn't occur, the change "has gone a bit wrong". He mentions a neuron implosion, which is eventually cured by tea ("Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses."). He keeps expelling energy in yellowish swirly clouds. Loses consciousness a lot. Cure apparently includes sleeping a specific amount of time. Poor health condition leads to one of the hearts stopping.

New Earth
The Doctor loses consciousness after inhaling some sort of chemical(?).

The Idiot's Lantern
Loses consciousness after being hit by a police man, loses consciousness after the Wire tried to suck him in.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
He falls from a considerable height and loses consciousness on impact (he survives the fall without a scratch, though).

Fear Her
He gets drawn into the picture of the little girl (but he is able to draw something himself. Whether the others could have done that and just didn't, or whether it's something only he could have done, is unclear.)

Smith and Jones
He absorbs a for humans deadly dose of gamma radiation and expels it without harm to himself or his environment. He gets his blood sucked out by an alien and is resuscitated via CPR. Lack of oxygen doesn't seem to harm him too much (even though he does seem worried when the facial plate of his helmet breaks in The Impossible Planet). Mentions that he got electrocuted by lightning on one of his travels.

The Shakespeare Code
One of the witches stops one of his hearts. It does affect him, although not kill him.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks
He gets electrocuted with a charge that would have killed a human, loses consciousness.

The Lazarus Experiment
He plays the organ, after which his hearing is temporarily affected.

42
He gets infected with sun particles(?) that, if a human is infected with them, rewrite the complete cellular organism of the host. He can hold them off longer than humans can, it does affect him, though. He can apparently withstand very cold temperatures, as well as solar radiation, for a certain amount of time.

Human Nature/The Family of Blood
He turns himself into a human. He can't do that by himself but needs a machine to do it for him.

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords
The Master is proof that Time Lords can have psychiatric issues (psychosis, schizophrenia, megalomania). The Master cancels out the Doctor's ability to regenerate and ages him - apparently, Time Lords can make one body last almost indefinitely (if they don't go absorbing the Time Vortex or stuff like that).

Right. Now, there are certain things listed that sound very human, and others that sound very alien. So, I made another table! :D

Human

Time Lord

- burns his hand, can't repair it himself - loses consciousness after inhaling unknown substance - loses consciousness after being hit by a police man - loses consciousness after the Wire tries to suck him in - loses consciousness after a fall - seems to need oxygen for something - lightning electrocutes him - loud noises affect his hearing temporarily - Time Lords can have psychiatric issues (psychoses, schizophrenia, megalomania)

- PRS: neuron implosion, can be cured by tannin and free radicals (tea), expulsion of energy, one of the hearts stops, he sleeps a lot - survives a fall that would have killed a human without a scratch - can absorb gamma radiation and expel it in a harmless form. - blood loss seems to affect him only temporarily, might be curable by CPR - lack of oxygen doesn't seem to affect him as much as humans - when one heart stops, the other one apparently is sufficient to maintain the circulation until the first heart gets restarted - extreme electrocution makes him lose consciousness, but doesn't kill him - can withstand very cold temperatures for a certain time span (10 minutes) - can withstand solar radiation for a certain time span (5 minutes) - can use technology to rewrite his organic cell structure. - can make one body last for about 900 years or more

Now, before I go and figure out big hypotheses, did I forget anything? Can you think of any occasions when the Doctor got hurt/injured or reveals stuff about his physiology which I left out?

I'll be continuing this. Not right now, though, because I gotta go to bed. I've got an exam tomorrow... blergh xP.


Oh, I almost forgot: I won't be here over the weekend! Probably. I'm visiting with a friend, and I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to spare for the intarwebz. See you Sunday at the latest!

Comments

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

I like the 'modulation' idea. It explains the healing/regeneration difference rather well, I think.

I'm sticking to my idea, though, that if you regenerate/rewrite, you can only do so as a whole.
So basically, what I'm saying is: He can modulate his body, if he can anticipate any future damage (can be subconsciously). If he can't anticipate, he's as vulnerable as a normal human to supreficial/short term 'injuries'. If the injury is serious, he has the possibility of regeneration to 'heal' himself.

oh, and about the newblood/oldblood - there's some more on this in the article about Gallifreyan physiology/ Anatomie. I only scanned over it, because of time-shortage, though, so I can't say any more. It's basically that some are born with two hearts, others only get the second one after the first regeneration.

[teyla]

I'm sticking to my idea, though, that if you regenerate/rewrite, you can only do so as a whole.
How do you explain 42, then? His organism was apparently changed by the sun particle whatever blah thing that possessed him. And yet, seconds after Martha saved the day, he was back to normal.

Yeah, I read that on the wiki page, too. It doesn't make a lot of sense, though, if you don't know the canon.

I'm going with beandelphiki's modulation idea, but I think I still need to ponder on the regeneration thing. Your idea is nice, but it simply doesn't fit all the given facts, you know?

Bean said something about maybe the regeneration of cells takes too much energy to use it for stuff like healing burns. That would make sense. But then, I don't get why the Doctor told the Master to regenerate. Healing a bullet wound must cost less energy than a complete regeneration.

And then, we also have the watch thing to consider. Completely forgot about that. Lol.

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

How do you explain 42, then? His organism was apparently changed by the sun particle whatever blah thing that possessed him. And yet, seconds after Martha saved the day, he was back to normal.
*admits that we have a problem here*
What if, he didn't change back by himself, but it just happened naturally, because the particle thingy (which was a lifeform) left him before the change was complete. So by leaving the Doctor he just went back to being normal. But it had nothing to do with his regeneration abilities. Does that make sense?

I like the idea of healing no/regeneration yes, because it would explain the Master's death and the other small injuries.
Healing is just recreating the 'same' cells again (DNA wise), while regeneration is rewriting the code of the DNA. So they are two different things. (at least to my layman-opinion)
But if you come up with another working theory, I'll happily follow you! :-)

And, well, the watch thing... yeah, that's... mmmhhh. Maybe he needs it, because regeneration is still rewriting TIME LORD DNA, while changing into a human involves becoming a different SPECIES. Which is even more complicated. That's why he needs the machine. (???) And maybe that's why he loses his memory too. Because it's much more invasive. Like trauma or something???

*is dloading classic Who every time she can*

[teyla]

So by leaving the Doctor he just went back to being normal.
Hmm, I don't think that was what happened. That sun was fucking angry, it was walking around killing people for no reason other than revenge. I don't think it would have fixed the damage before leaving the host.

Healing is just recreating the 'same' cells again (DNA wise), while regeneration is rewriting the code of the DNA.
That's a very valid point. I actually hadn't considered that. I still think he can do both, though, because he does it. And we already established that he must have some sort of ability to modify his cells and cellular structure. Maybe he can modify working cells and adapt them to his needs, but when they're dead, he cannot revive them. He can only write new ones. That would make sense, because in 42, his organism was changed to work on hydrogen, but it was still a working organism with functioning cells. When the Master was shot, all the bullet did was rip a big old hole into his intestines, so there was nothing left there to modify. The only option was to write new cells, and since it's not exactly healthy to have cells of two different sets of DNA in one body, he'd have had to regenerate completely.

Well, yeah, obviously he needs the machine because he's not only writing a new set of DNA of his own species, but a completely different one. I meant, though, that we need to consider that Time Lords apparently have the ability to intentionally remove their consciousness from their bodies - but they seem to need a storage place for it. That's another interesting aspect of his physiology.