Posts tagged chemistry
I am imagining a world where an astronomical event occurs, like Earth collides with a comet, and humanity is all but wiped out. In their desperate attempt to recover, humans enter a form of stone a...
I am seeking information and ideas from all you clever people. What I am trying to imagine is a chemical reaction that would change Earths atmosphere rapidly into something else which would be mo...
As far as I could gather the digestion relies on enzymes which in turn set requirements for pH. Is it possible for an alien creature to have a different set of enzymes that require basic environme...
So I want to have an alien creature on a planet with a halogen atmosphere. It will have to be at a temperature where the hydrogen halide is liquid or solid. This hydrogen halide I would have as th...
There exists a polymerization spell that allows distinct animals to combine with each other, creating an entirely new creature. The beasts in question are held in transumutation circles linked by l...
How could a mammal produce milk which resembles blood? The blood milk should keep as many properties of milk as possible, curding for example, while resembling blood as much as possible. The mamm...
This is something I have been wondering: if an assassin wanted to kill their target with a bullet from a sniper rifle, can they dip it in liquid mercury so even if the bullet itself doesn't kill th...
In my world there is an old human guarding something of great significance. All chemical reactions in their body have been slowed down to a microscopic fraction of what is deemed usual*. Once the ...
I'm looking for a way to bypass the bidirectional diffusive gas exchange that happens in human alveoli, to allow aquanauts to breathe a standard Nitrogen-Oxygen air mix at very high pressures (up t...
On Earth, our atmosphere contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, on average around 1% water vapor at sea level, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Looking through...
So, in my setting, there are dwarves that make good steel. Shocker, I know. To refine the ore, they rely on the bloomery process like everyone else, using anthracite (when they can get it), charcoa...
Previous parts here: Creating a scientifically semi-valid super-soldier, part 1: Skeleton Creating a scientifically semi-valid super-soldier, part 2: nervous system Creating a scientifically semi...
I need ideas for a chemical or disease which kills the victim upon holding it in the palm for about 4 or 5 seconds. The death isn't necessarily immediate, as it might take days to kill the victim i...
Background: In this scenario assume technology is initially equal to our own, but a method is discovered to render material indestructible. The affected material is treated as requiring infinite o...
I've been looking over the internet and on here to find some kind of evidence for this, but nothing conclusive, so I was hoping for people with a better understanding of smelting, chemistry and phy...
I'm currently writing this story where an intelligent lifeform, instead of human eye-sight, is able identify the chemical composition of their surroundings, by detecting and "mapping" all the atoms...
As clarification we're talking about those common fantasy healing potions that recover health over time and their scientific plausibility. Here are some results from my research on the subject: Mo...
I'm planing to create "super powers" born out of genetic engineering, but I don't want magic miracle stuff like an x-man, I'm looking for a realistic approach, so overall can you modify the materia...
James Cameron's Avatar featured floating mountains which stayed aloft due to the Meissner effect; they contained large quantities of the room-temperature superconductor unobtainium, which, due to t...
In my semi-realistic science fantasy RPG, I want there to be a newly discovered chemical element that is perfect at generating plasma for use in various futuristic weapons and to increase the lifes...
A while back Demigan had a running series of posts about various aspects biological enhancement for the purpose of designing super-soldiers with an element of (pseudo) science behind them. You ca...
What effect would having CO2 in your atmosphere in place of, on earth, Nitrogen have on the carbon cycle? would the carbon cycle even work? I'm engineering A theoretical tidally locked planet with ...
You have a material that greatly enhances electric and magnetic sources or electro-magnetism in general. In this world, the material, is known to be a naturally occurring liquid found in geologic...
This question began due to a certain fictional monster. Where it was stated to be able to secrete explosive goo activated by its saliva, which would coat its boulder-like arms and explode when smas...
The thing about organics is that they can very precisely build themselves up, from a molecular level. They can take various, otherwise useless stuff like goethite and chitin and, through the power ...
Can I use nanotechnology to make the strongest possible non-nuclear explosive (when compared to the equal amounts of other explosives) or are we already at the peak-level of what can be achieved wi...
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. The world has become a barren wasteland that is inhospitable to the the human race, which has been forced to take residence in hive cities...
In this world, the vehicles are effectively re-engineered insects; enlarged bio-manufactured nervous systems used instead of engines; factory grown lightweight chassis / [wheels]. The fuel station ...
In my world there are a group of female warriors with an unusual ability: the resources of their bodies are fungible. For instance, they can make the muscles in one part of their bodies stronger a...
This question is in the same context (the same world) proposed by Steven L. Gillett in his book: "World-building". And actually there have been some other questions about this same chlorinated worl...
Deep within the labs of Nox (the company that brought Soma to the masses) a group of radicals lost in the company bureaucracy are trying to make a substance that either prevents or mitigates aggre...
I'm designing a world with advanced life forms that use a sulphur-based biochemistry (see this link for context). I would like to create a carbon cycle analogous to Earth, where: Photosynthesis t...
Details: A culture of dryads has a strange death tradition. When a dryad dies there's usually a medic, or better say a "shaman" that rips a strange looking organ or gland off their head. The gla...
In the lord of rings the elves invented an incredibly nutritious bread/biscuit, as Legolas clearly says only a small bite is just enough to satisfy the needs of an adult man for 1 day. An adult ...
I'm building a moderately hard scifi future setting that focuses on space and land warfare and I'm trying to decide what would be the most realistic from an engineering standpoint of artillery tec...
I have dragons in mind for my world, but I'm trying to find logic in how would a medium-sized anything fly off and still be a danger to humans. So far, I have a lizard-like cheetah with wings, ho...
Colobopsis ants explode when they are losing a fight, a behavior which is probably meant to discourage predators from hunting that species. It may also turn tides when in ant wars for territory. W...
What conditions might make a planet more likely to develop silion based life, the factors I need to kmow are listed below Temperature of the planet The solvent that they can use in their biology ...
The goverment of Africa decided that it would no longer tolerate the diamond mafia, so the corporation of DeBeers was hunted down and disbanded, to put it lightly. Now, all the diamond mines have b...
Death occurs in extremely high humidity and an average temperature of 23 C (~75 F), both of which continue for six weeks. At that time, temperature begins to fall over the course of eight weeks to...
I want to have a world when humans got serious about global warming and succeeded in making Lithium Air battery work. Since the lithium air has same potential energy density as gas, and electric en...
Worldbuilding and biology have always been two huge passions of mine, especially when it comes to dragons. So well, at the moment I'm working on a little project in which I'm attempting to make dif...
On my previously asked question about the biochemistry of life on my ammonia. it leads me to my next question to ask. First things first, the life on this planet is boron based. They breathe me...
I have created a life form that is based on the element boron. As a substitute for DNA it instead uses Diborane as a building block. I've come across a problem however that I can't seem to get arou...
I was having fun reading this article about making cement on the moon when I asked myself (and now you), is it possible to make a suitably high-compressive-strength cement on Mars? Since concrete...
I'm trying to build an underwater ecosystem under the ice crust of Ganymede. I know Jupiter emits a large amount of ionizing radiation and synchotrons and thought that would maybe be able to replac...
Are there any chemical elements dangerous to fungus/mushrooms that wouldn't threaten the human species. The chemical elements I'm looking for would be in the periodic table of elements. It doesn...
With typical modern depictions of werewolves (ie: turning into wolf-human hybrids) the victim suffers temporary amnesia and a loss of personality while transformed, is put into a state of extreme p...
Quick Context Basically I need one of my charaters to produce a lot of chlorine trifluoride, but human biochemistry wont allow that, so I was going to get a micro-organism to do the job and produc...
The secret police of my fictional country (unoriginally) uses sodium thiopental in medical interrogations, usually in combination with various forms of physical torture. An antagonist (a courier o...