General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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So, it turns out that bats are actually pretty good swimmers; several species of bats have been reported swimming, and they're far more capable and agile in the water than they are on land: https:...
35% O2 (oxygen) 61% Ar (argon) 1.07% CO2 (carbon dioxide) 0.93% As arsenic 2% Other trace elements On an exoplanet with a mass of 0.284 Earths and a surface gravity of .66 gs (6.44 m/s^2), would...
There is a popular high-stakes card game. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it's impossible to get out a new pack of cards for each round. The same cards must be used throughout. This game would...
How much caffeine could you fit into a roasted coffee bean (that will later be ground and steeped) while still having a strong coffee flavor? I'm aiming for a super-caffeine boost -- something whe...
In the book He Drank and Saw the Spider, a poison is talked about in a metaphorical way: A person can be poisoned by putting a specific kind of spider into their cup, but the poison only works if ...
I was reading a World Anvil article which has a world that experiences world wide seasonal changes. Specifically quoting the article, During the month of Frimense, the Frostkin thrive, as the...
I'm trying to create a world where there's an equator-like divide running along the axis(?) of the planet and the two hemispheres are perpetually different in terms of temperature. Basically, I wan...
Premise Suppose a world has no other means to deal with a potentially devastating meteor impact than creating a net on the planet. Their hope is that the massive net will catch the meteor and slow...
More posts from this thread will be linked here: Metal-Feathered Macaw Viability Part 2: Best Wing Shape? Info I'm designing a macaw that has metal feathers, claws, and a metal beak--to be parti...
Imagine two identical planets planet A and planet B, orbiting the same star. Is it possible that these two planets follow the exact same "route" as they orbit their sun, but are just distant enoug...
On Earth, all plants are green because they contain the pigment chlorophyll, which photosynthesizes by absorbing all light except green light. However, it is quite possible - if not likely - that ...
In a short sci-fi story i am writing, Earth has a shadow twin. A planet with the same chemical/geological characteristics as Earth and wildlife very similar (but different species because evolution...
I am drafting a short story about a small object orbiting the Sun at the precise 'speed' as Earth's opposite the Sun, undiscovered by us due to its position. The problems I see with this include t...
Setup: We are in a alternate timeline where there is a Counter-Earth that always stays perfectly on the exact opposite side of the Sun from our Earth. It has about the same size and mass as our pl...
Humans (and mammals) have 2 lungs, one right and the another left. The right lung has 3 lobes and the left have 2 lobes because in the "third" there is the heart, so the right lung is bigger than t...
There are various questions about the stability of multiple moons, how they affect tides and so on, but I don't think this one has been covered here: If my planet has two moons, assuming they have...
If you were tasking with creating a genetically engineered flying creature, capable of full powered flight on a (newly terraformed) planet with a surface gravity almost twice that of Earth's, do yo...
Is it possible to calculate/estimate the size of a star's heliosphere? If so, how? I am working on a semi-near future, sci-fi novel. As part of the technology base, humans are able to travel betwe...
From my understanding, many of the features of water that make it very important for Earth's ecosystem are a result of oxygen's high electronegativity, which results in hydrogen bonding. As nitrog...
A habitable planet with multiple moons, only one of which is tidally locked to the planet: is this general scenario possible? I understand that tidal locking takes a very long time to happen. So ...
Assuming I had a magic device able to discharge its stored energy in a directional force, and absorb the energy from the resulting return force (for every action, there is an equal and opposite rea...
I'm having a bit of trouble with this one. I'm trying to justify why a once scientifically advanced human outpost on an alien planet went the way of the Planet of the Apes and became a schizophreni...
Tl;dr: Humans create a composite image out out what each of their eyes see Humans process the two images into one using their visual cortex Humans can't see infrared because of a lack of photorec...
Trying to create a future earth which has been thoroughly abused by the excesses of modern capitalism. Extreme weather, rising sea levels, massive droughts, that sort of stuff. My question is: c...
There are quite a few known drawbacks to incest. However, incest can be helpful when trying to help a desired trait spread. Incest does happen in nature to some degree but it's not exactly activel...
Im busy wrtiting a Space Opera and was going to utilise the "hypothesis", or whatever you call it of an ancient civ mining gold here and utilising it to disperse into its atmosphere, in turn either...
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Piggybacking on this question: Could soft matter infused with nano or pico sized magnets be used to clump together so that we could create environments with it? ...So we have a planet that has low...
As far as I have been able to determine, the majority of life reuses the same plumbing for reproductive and digestive/excretory systems. In fact, the anus is believed to be derived from the male go...
I currently have a character whose fields are destroyed as they are at the base of a valley, and the rain has completely killed the seeds and waterlogged the dirt. Thus, main character needs to dig...
What could be reasons to use direct current in the distribution of power? I know that it is more efficient to distribute current at high voltages to reduce heat loss and that it is easier to step ...
The current worldbuilding project I have is going to be detailed - very detailed. It's about the life of an alien planet called Nemo 4, and I want to chronicle the evolutionary history of that lif...
A lot of fantasy stories involve someone using magic or technology to solve a problem, only to find out the spell or thing they used to solve their problem was a little too potent. Let's say a wi...
I'm looking for a star system between 15 and 36 ly from Sun with these characteristics: composed by 2 or more stars one of the stars should be a late G/ K type star (it doesn't matter for the ot...
The moon in question is composed entirely of a radioactive substance, and showers the earth with strong radiation. It is responsible for a particular kind of cancer that causes the cells to multipl...
My question is how a species, given sufficiently advanced technology - could block out all - or most - visible light to a generally earthlike planet without rendering it uninhabitable. The only c...
I am envisioning a habitable world with an atmosphere comparable to earth's in which one day is extremely long (>100 earth years). Human settlers have successfully colonized a small portion of t...
So, I am working on a species called the Vosians, who hail from the planet Vos. They are a species of eusocial insectoids, much like Earth ants. Biology The Vosians are about 3 feet tall, or 0.9 ...
This is as much a question as it is a thought that I've had. You see, folding mountains (as in made by tectonic plates movement) are very poor in heavy minerals like metals, and they seem to be the...
So there is a mountain range. It is about 3000 miles long, 500 miles wide and the average height is 5,000 m. Now there is still quite a lot of land and I don't want to make everything behind the mo...
I am building a planetary system, but I always thought how many planets should I have in this system. When you look at our solar system there are 8 planets. Other exoplanetary systems can have up...
An abandoned outpost from a long extinct race is discovered. It can easily be repaired and would make an ideal location for a colony, however it has been breached and any usable air has been long ...
Lithotrophy is a phenomenon known from microscopic life, where an organism converts inorganic substances, usually minerals, into energy. So, we know that a single-celled life form can do this, but...
Background: The main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is the closest and richest source of non terrestrial resources to Earth in the solar system. Even though it is vast its resources are ob...
A civilization creates a supermassive black hole with an electric charge such that the radius of its inner horizon is 3/4 the radius of its outer horizon. In nature, a black hole with this much el...
I'm researching possible materials that maybe be used in the far future. I came across something called metallic oxygen. If oxygen is compressed to 10GPa, it turns into a dark red solid O8. If this...
The Earth-like planet I'm working on is the culmination of years of labor by the galaxy's best scientists. It consists of fully artificial ecosystems, and is, for all intents and purposes, like Ear...
I've been trying to explain the origins of a fantasy world I've been constructing. So far, I have the idea of a Promethean (advanced race of aliens) Penal ship crashing (probably from an internal u...
I'm designing a world with a humanoid race, which has two sexes, male which is analogue to human male, and hermaphrodite which is analogue to human women with additional male reproductive organs, l...
Suppose I have a time-traveling DeLorean (of all things), and I've used it to travel back to 1955. But then I ran out of juice. Fortunately, I just happen to know that a certain clock tower will be...
