Posts tagged xenobiology
I want to explore the possibilities of an alien species not much unlike that of known to Earth: snakes going through evolution in a way that made them able to reach the intelligence necessary to us...
Whether life is carbon based or something else, we are presuming that the fundamental units are extremely tiny. We need metabolism where parts are made or modified (by existing parts), which (if na...
One of my fictional planets is a lot like Venus. Tons of volcanoes, extreme air pressure, similar density. The volcanoes are active. There is 1 creature here that depends on minerals and acids. Wit...
Something I'm working on- originally I intended for this particular species to build cities up in the treetops of massive forests, but that's been done before. So I considered maybe they built thei...
As recommended by another user, on a different question I asked, I pose this new question under the following criteria: The creature I'm trying to create has evolved, though it may not have been e...
There is a really obvious problem with going to a planet we have deemed "habitable". Even if the temperature is perfect, the air composition is perfect and the terrain is perfect we still have the ...
All known life forms have life cycles that are not time symmetric as they look different when time is reversed. I was wondering if there could be a life form that would have a life cycle that wou...
Biradial symmetry occurs in ctenophores: the body plan consists of two halves which independently display radial symmetry. Spherical symmetry occurs in Volvox algae: any cut through the center of t...
Because water ice is less dense as a liquid than a solid (as an aside - this is due to the basic structure of the oxygen atom) it floats when frozen. Without this property ice would sink, basica...
In the creature type I asked about in my last question, there are some lower caste members who seem to have metal limbs. However I don't think they would waste resources to build the legs for lower...
Something I was working on in the past involved a species of sentient insectoids. The idea was the two sexes usually live in two very different environments and rarely come into contact with the ot...
I'm writing a story set in a Middle Ages type setting (Game of Thrones, LOTR style). In the story, I have a race of people who are "faeries", based off of Celtic legend and lore. They're associa...
I'm (slowly) working on a semi sci-fi world, set in a WWII-ish tech level (Semi sci-fi being how they got to this world). Except in this world, aircraft have developed significantly later, and batt...
How would gripping of different objects, such as rocks and sticks, work for an organism that has radially symmetrical hands, resembling starfish in shape. They have four to five digits, depending...
Would it be possible that other planets, or even other random celestial bodies, contain different types of pathogens? According to Wikipedia, the known types of pathogens are: virus, bacterium, pri...
Heating youself in cold conditions is quite easy. You can produce internal heat and keep it in(warm-blooded) or get it from sun, find hot springs... or even eat something warmer than you. However, ...
On Earth, land vertebrates generally have four limbs. Other creatures such as insects can have more limbs, but those creatures tend to be small. I'm thinking of creating an alien ecosystem with rel...
Would a species which developed on a world with no atmosphere (i.e. the moon) survive on a planet with an atmosphere, such as Earth?
Disclaimer: This question is the first of a new series of questions of mine about introducing hexapedae to the fauna of my conworld. There are/will be other questions addressing i.a.: ecosystems, e...
This hypothetical marsupial species raises young in a manner loosely similar to seahorses. Only the males have pouches: after gestation the female deposits the fetus into his pouch to compete devel...
I have left a link to the NASA video in case you are not to sure what I am referring to or to get a better picture of what I am talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKFaAS30X8 With th...
I have in mind this alien species that can reproduce with humans. The result will always be of the same species as the alien; the human is used only to vary the genetics so the newborn won't be a c...
This new idea/story includes an ancient subterranean race, but they need to survive harsh conditions. Developing a nervous system/brain is important. Are certain proteins necessary to form a comp...
So to start, let's assume that this hypothetical life form relied on something similar to LNG (liquefied natural gas) - mainly relying on ethane - as a solvent in the same way humans rely on water....
I'm talking about ionized gas not the plasma in our blood. I have been reading science articles about plasma and they keep hinting at the idea of plasma based life. Here is my first example and an...
So I thought up this alien parasite that enters through the mouth (usually of a predator) where it attaches to the throat and simultaneously takes control of the brain and replaces the esophagus of...
I've been working on an alien species, and I wanted it to have a blood colour other than red. I was going to go with Coboglobin until I found the sites I was looking at providing diametrically oppo...
Say we have an organism with the beak of a raptor (the bird type, not the dinosaur), but instead of a full beak, it only has a mandible on the upper jaw, while the lower jaw just has a jaw bone lik...
Polycythemia is where the hematocrit is above 55%. This can be divided into absolute and relative and absolute can be further divided into primary and secondary. Absolute polycythemia is where the...
Writing a story in which most alien races digest food physically, not useing any chemical stuff. Is this even possible? I know that some lizards and chickens eat rocks for similar reasons, but they...
The tree small giant creatures resembling people usually with beards are present in many fantasy stories, but that's it... it is fantasy. From a scientific viewpoint how would such creature even ...
Cosmic rays are energetic particles coming from space that hit the Earth's atmosphere and produce a lot of secondary radiation (some of which we see in visible light as aurorae). Would it make sens...
The Lorting are a very strange race. Not only are there multiple genders (the actual term for which is more like 'castes' or 'classes'), but when any member of their species is 'born' it is born at...
I am creating a race of aliens that are amphibious and mammalian in detail, they have six tentacles, bunny ears and also fur covering their bodies. They are about 3-4 ft in length, if this species ...
How might a fictional parasitic superorganism like the Halo franchise's "Flood" function? Put plainly, how would the biology of a parasitic superorganism that grows by converting the biomass of o...
To elaborate on the title, can alien plant life on an Earth-like planet look similar to ours, or would plants on an alien planet be radically different, unrecognizable, or incomparable to Earth pla...
Alternate question title: From Fungi to a Fun Guy So, I asked a previous question about which non-animal would be the likeliest to evolve sentience. The answer turned out to be fungus, since mycel...
Supposing that we can create an entire synthetic being, what material would be best to make its bones of attending to: Weight Strength Durability Reparability Let's set some scenarios: Case 1...
For story reasons, I'd like one planet habitable, plausible, but in some noticeable way older than Earth. Just not all planets are 4,5 bilion years. Tidally locked planet that orbit red dwarf, save...
I'm designing planets for a hard (ish) science fiction RPG setting. So I want to find out if there are any clues or theories as to what proportion of planets with life will have the basic biochemis...
I recently learned about a chemical known as chlorine trifluoride. This utter abomination of chemistry reacts to almost everything, setting glass, sand, asbestos, and rust on fire (to name only a f...
Let's talk about the visible light "rainbow" In almost all depictions of the electromagnetic spectrum, visible light is shown as a rainbow, and adjacent parts of the spectrum are monotone in color...
Let's take our regular "Great Blue Star Whale", with a mass of about 10 000 tons. That poor, poor whale is reaching the end of its life for whatever reasons. (Damn you! Space whale hunters!). It w...
I'm designing a sentient, aquatic creature, and trying to decide how many eyes it should have. This creatures biological strategy is one of redundancy - it has multiple mouths, multiple tentacles,...
Nature does some pretty interesting things with gender: This is a female trilobite beetle. Scientists have observed females extensively, yet for decades, scientists could not identify the male ...
Moreover, could a culture of microorganisms form a collective hive-intelligence similar to ants or bees? I'm trying to design a scientifically plausible hive-mind, and I'm trying to decide whether ...
Simulation of artificial panspermia, in inter-galactic travel, as a model for the study of reproductive isolation. Case 1: If we send a mass of proto cells(kept alive by some mechanism like cr...
Not a duplicate of "Overcoming language barrier; no speech" which confines answers to nothing that is clearly a form of communication; it focuses on translation, not physiology or evolution Not a ...
Let's not delve into specific genuses, families, orders etc. Broaden your definition of "classifications" to words like "mammal" or "fish", "crustacean" or "avian". Science fiction depictions of...
Due to a thick cloud layer(at approx the same heigh as Earth's) surrounding this planet, it's plants have evolved to stay above the clouds so that they can absorb sunlight from their nearby star. I...
