General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I heard that some scientists placed chickens under 2.5g for 6 months, and they survived. A normal human would black out at 5g. A trained astronaut could take up to 8g before blacking out. 20g woul...
On Earth, the planet itself is negatively charged and the clouds are positively charged, causing lightning to travel from the clouds to the surface. While there are significantly smaller wisps of l...
One of the first steps in technological is the ability of a civilisation to forge tools* humans achieved this by using fire and creating forges. There are obviously underwater heat sources but I d...
My question is mainly related to the impact on food production if the climate changes made agriculture more difficult in the state of California but also in the other American and Mexican states fr...
This is somewhat of a follow-up question to my ammonia-based world question. I've found out that the melting point of ammonia is at 25°C at a pressure of about 1 MPa (about 10 times the atmospheri...
Suppose there is a planet where intelligent life (with intelligence approximately same as that of a being of the human species, say) exists. However, due to certain conditions (such as, for example...
Assuming planet Earth, with considerable amounts of pets per household (96 million cats in the US alone), what would be the social and ecological consequences of all domestic cats acquiring flight ...
Racism has been a defining trait in how human civilizations have interacted and developed in regard to each other. It, however, is founded on differences which separate us visibly but not function...
For the sake of this question, let's say that there would be a space mission that would send one man on a 40 year journey that will require him to be in a completely self sufficient habitat for the...
Imagine we have a machine that can consume celestial bodies, breaking them down into component elements and storing them in big bins somewhere. If we fed that machine a moon, what would wind up in ...
What would happen if a powerful explosive went off in the core of a planet? On Earth, you have several layers of the planet, the crust, the magma, the outer core, and the inner core. Right now, hu...
Almost all of our terrestrial furniture is designed and depends on gravity. Beds to lie down in, chairs to sit down on, tables to place things on top. None of these would work in a zero-G environme...
Take any well-known aggressive/dominant/predatory animal - wolves, big cats, bears, dragons, etc. Now say this animal were to have two heads, each equal in all capacities. What would realistically ...
Suppose a very large planet orbited a star or other spacial body in an oval shaped path, similar to Earth's but closer to induce a varying gravity during orbit. The planet has a large gravity wel...
How big a difference does the Earth's liquid outer core and mantle make for the evolution of complex life? If all of Earth's parameters would be the same, but it had a solid interior just like Ma...
What kind of a scenario would have to occur in order for human beings to seek survival on the sea floor? It could be man made or natural, ice age or heat apocalypse, sudden disaster or gradual coll...
Related: How would a completely urbanized city-planet be maintained? How would the global environment of a completely urbanized city-planet be affected? Why would a completely urbanized city-plan...
On earth most of our sealife is fishlike (excluding a few other species such as squid/octopus). As far as I'm aware there are no legged creatures which live solely in the sea. In my world I'd like...
I want to make a hot planet habitable for mankind. It could be a planet in the habitable zone like Venus or outside of the zone like Mercury. These are just examples. Someone said here:Â Terrafor...
Giant winged beasts such as the Roc and the western dragon feature strongly in mythology. Is there a maximum size on a biological winged flying creature? How would an atmosphere different from Ea...
I was thinking about a different possibilities for habitable planets. And I was wondering what actually causes a planet to be tidally locked? I am assuming it more than chance that the bodies rot...
Suppose one constructed a Bernal sphere, similar in design to that described in this article and this article at the National Space Society. If the sphere was simply rotated on a single axis, wou...
Some species that reproduce sexually, don't actually have sex as such. Instead the female might lay soft scaled eggs, which the male then fertilizes extrenally. I want to know what a society of an...
I want to create a world set on our Earth but with humans converted entirely to machines, so the population can be larger than would be possible with biological humans. In contrast to biologically...
If you want to have a smaller star but you also want to keep your planet in the habitable zone, you need to put the planet closer to the star. This means shorter years. It is also possible to have ...
The question is rather simple, the answer is more complex. It is to answer why some places are colder than others. Example: North America is colder than Europe at the same latitude.
I want to have an upper atmosphere composed of a gas which is lighter than "air" so that my human occupants of a planet can harvest it and use it to fill blimps and hot air balloons. I'm planning ...
I'm trying to design a food chain. For the sake of argument lets say it's based on flying creatures over a particular mountain range. Sun Plants/Fungus etc Tiny Insects Small Birds Hawks Large Ape...
As the title suggests, what happens to a planet geologically and geographically over time? This question came to mind from the many sessions of Civilization I have played where when you set up a c...
Related: How would a completely urbanized city-planet support its population? How a completely urbanized city-planet be maintained? How would the global environment of a completely urbanized city...
If two (or more) planets are within travel distance from each other and they often trade with each other, how likely is it that these planets cultures influence(d) each other? For example: On plan...
A group of settlers from a mid-renaissance era have setup an initial settlement along a coastline. Materials for shelter exist and fishing serves as the initial food source. What are the primary ...
