Posts tagged biology
Is it possible for life to evolve"” and survive"” on a planet that is regularly hit by [relatively small"” usually no more than a few feet across when they make an impact] meteorites? If so, what e...
Would it be possible to use a living organism as unobtainium for interstellar travel? Would it make any sense? The story I had in mind would use them as the main bad guys seeking vengeance on thos...
In this world, time travel is possible, but the only thing that can be sent back in time are thoughts. From the perspective of your past self, you suddenly one moment realize that you have "memorie...
I am currently working in a "fantasy" world without any kind of magic and I thought of a race with different skeleton color (blackish in particular but I want to know in general). I am not well ver...
If a planet had such a large imbalance of protons and electrons that it possessed a net negative or positive charge what would happen to it and its solar system? First, could it be stable, or woul...
I understand that some non human animals build structures that they innately know how to build, such as how birds innately know how to build nests, and spiders innately know how to make webs, and b...
Normally when conducting DNA testing, I presume techniques are utilized to ensure you're just testing one individual's DNA from a sample, even if it is possible that sample was contaminated one way...
We've seen it throughout media before, a crazy mutation that creates zombies, rabid people, giant spiders, etc. I'm spot checking how crazy I can get with this short story I'm writing about a bacte...
So we humans get big into genetic modification and figure out how to make ourselves photosynthesize through our skin, and somehow it generates enough energy to be worth our while. Obviously we'd st...
I am inspired by some people who apparently believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. I know that for sweet, delicious chocolate to come into existence, we need to do things to cocoa. Ferment ...
I have a concept for a species of arctic-dwelling organism (let's just call it a polar bear) that evolved an organ that was able to produce microwaves, which it uses to tunnel through ice. If such...
The question is just as simple as it sounds. Would it tuck them under like a bird? make running motions like it does when running on the ground? some other movement that actually aids in fligh...
I am simply wondering if an organism could possess an enzyme that could ionize a noble gas such as argon, krypton, or xenon. I was thinking that the organism could obtain energy through light or ma...
I was reading some questions on Quora and I found this claim: The polar regions have a very odd reason for them to have so much oxygen production. You see the Polar aurora run day and night in ...
My method of breathing fire involves humans stomachs producing ethane or methane and them holding a lit flame near their faces and just breathing out of burping . Fire breathing in this is mo...
This is a continuation of a question I made earlier! The atmosphere consists of 80% N2, 17% O2, 1% CO2, 1% NH3. I am not extremely familiar with the chemistry of ammonia, but I do know that it beh...
So I read recently this article as I was trying to design a sci fi alien race for my story and I found out that a human only has an efficiency of converting food to energy of about 25%. What would...
The setting I'm building has a race of people, derived from modern humans, whose primitive survival as a species relies partly on very fast reproduction, and I think I want them to have a tendency ...
I am currently working on world-building a planet, and I wanted to try to diverge from Earth's atmosphere a little bit, but not extremely. I am planning on still having it be a oxygen-nitrogen rich...
Assuming a turtle or tortoise evolved adaptations to become large comparable to that of sauropods. How large could they become (in weight or potentially carapace size)? The turtle needs to be prima...
A whale, lets say a humpback (~40 tons) has to be pulled about 250 m from the port to the town square. The road is classic cobblestone. People put hooks into the whale meat with ropes attached and...
So, I'm designing an alien race/civilisation of carnivore. I was thinking of a very aggressive specie, who is both the alpha predator of his world and his own main cause of death. Basically, a lo...
In real life, humans get pregnant for only nine months. Once born, the baby has a long way to go before it can stand, walk and talk. But don't tell that to Mwindo! The African saga of the hero M...
I'm not a professional at world building or character building, still starting out, but I do want to make an attempt at having my fantasy character be somewhat realistic. He's 11 years old, 4.8 f...
If person A has had the genes dictating their sight/ the internal structure of their eyes, replaced by say, eagle eyes or cat eyes. What happens when they reproduce with person B who has regular h...
Exowombs have become feasible from a technological standpoint. A number of trials conducted on animal embryos have proven successful, and talk has been made about how this can be beneficial for hum...
Gamma diversity is defined as the entire species diversity of a landscape or region. Assuming we have a region of 100 square miles of temperate deciduous forest inhabited by cretaceous fauna. How m...
I'm working on a hard sf novel about humans being forced to survive on a metal-poor planet. They have to take dietary metal supplements at first but eventually a bio-engineer rigs the biochemical p...
BACKGOUND I'm working on a region for my world, and I have a very distinct idea of what I want the physical landscape to look like. Below is a description of what I'd like for the land, and an app...
I was thinking of something like growing extra eyes, heads, or limbs, but in the exposed individual not through his descendant that get the mutation. What I have found is that in individuals expose...
So I'm trying to design my alien life around the pressures they might face just like earth's wildlife, and most things I've made plausible life that is similar to ear but not giant dinosaur cats. T...
I'm in the rough outlining stages of this story, and found myself a bit stuck trying to turn this particular corner. Firstly, here are the basics of this world: In the future, it's a common prac...
Newborn humans are born in a very undeveloped stage compared to other mammals. This is because if they stayed any longer in the mother, their head would become too big to fit through the birth cana...
For context, I've been working on a fantasy race for use in a science fiction novel, the gist of which is essentially a red fox that has had its genes manipulated by a supernatural force with the p...
Background, with potential spoilers: In the Netflix show Stranger Things... ...there is an otherworldly creature known as the Mindflayer, which can telepathically control creatures in our worl...
In my story I have a strain of virus capable of stealing parts of or changing its hosts DNA, so it could copy the abilities in nature for its next host of choice by taking the genes which control t...
In my fantasy world, the magic system pretty much makes metal armour and weapons obsolete. The magic system's specifics aren't important, just note that the magic system allows the users to 'penetr...
Some of you may know my mutant thread, and guess what? It's back. I'm wondering if there is any biological means to improve muscular power without greatly increasing the volume of said muscle. My...
Concept: For some twisted reason, a xenocidal space-race living somewhere in our vicinity decides that nothing deserves to exist. So they make a species. Any feasible size, any kingdom. It eat...
I'm envisioning a setting in which human beings have altered themselves significantly to be able to live on alien worlds without significant terraforming. One type of transhuman needed would be on...
One of the beliefs about the Fair Folk is that they are repelled or even damaged by iron. For purposes of this question, let's focus more on the latter: namely, how would an elf manage to live to a...
In this question, we're looking at a humanity that has adapted one of the most conspicuous ways of keeping cool--larger ears. Desert animals usually have larger ears to have more room for blood ca...
In my world there is a forest of huge trees which people can't or won't chop down. The trees are similar to redwood trees but they have a large crown and no lower branches. The forest is quite dark...
I was inspired by geckos which can sever their own tails. I wonder if a creature which has such an ability, especially with a high regenerative power to grow its body parts, can sustain itself ove...
Our protagonist lives on one of a group of remote islands where she makes her living harvesting a peculiar fruit. The edible part grows in the middle of liquid-filled sacks that hang near the top o...
What about the atmosphere of earth makes green the best color for plants, and what would have to change to make blue the best color? The fact that these changes could not happen on earth, an so wou...
Background In case you haven't heard: there are places in the Amazonian Jungle called Devil's Gardens. The gardens are large swaths of land composed of almost entirely one single tree the Duroia h...
The Lusca (its name meaning 'Octopus Shark') is a cryptid from the Bahamas, supposedly a 6-9 meter (or even 23 meter) long man-eating Octopus that lives within the blue holes, dragging victims down...
It's the Olympics, and it'll be one the world won't soon forget. The sprinters are in position on the starting blocks, the signal is given and the runners are off! However, one man gives off a fart...
For certain reasons I decided to not set my story on Earth. However, the planet is meant to host an Earth-like biosphere (including humans, most of Earth's species (perhaps some that didn't evolve ...
