Posts tagged xenobiology
(First post on StackExchange, hello world!) The project that I'm currently working on involves a Binary Planet system, both with life, although I'm only focusing on one. This planet has a climate ...
Suppose I take a group of alligators select the ones that emit the highest frequency of radiation (since all living creatures emit thermal radiation), and I breed those, and get rid of the rest and...
I have a bacterial organism called the "World Blight" this creature's life cycle revolves around being introduced to a new planet, spreading across the planet and terraforming it to its liking, and...
In the South Galaxy, the overwhelming majority of life lives on planets, breathes air, and is carbon-based. All sentient life is carbon-based. However, in the vast reaches of space, there are some ...
On a distant planet covered mostly by water a species of highly intelligence cephalopods have evolved and even developed space travel. The problem? Most other species are land dwellers and the cep...
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'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...
I was thinking of a situation in which an Extra Terrestrial plant life form evolves a nervous system and eventually a brain. This plant diversifies into a variety of different life forms with some...
In a previous question - How might kinetosynthesizing "plants" look? - I introduced a worldbuilding thought experiment of mine centered around a habitable moon, heated by tidal forces, which orbits...
It's tempting to think that anything with the outer shape of a human would simply collapse in a heap if its skeleton were not there. That is surely true if the internal structure was the same as ou...
Darwin's hypothetical mechanism of inheritance was called pangenesis, whereby the body continually produced particles of information - gemmules - which aggregated in the gonads, and that that the o...
Humanity, with modern science, has established that the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago. The universe appeared in a low-entropy state, and for billions of years has been expanding and movi...
I am currently designing a highly intelligent species for a sci-fi project I am working on. They are quite similar physically to prehistoric salamanders or similar amphibians, but I am having troub...
(Beforehand I'll excuse myself for my english. If you didn't need to know that you can just ignore it) There's a network of root-like life forms in the top layers of my planet. They use some kind ...
EDITED to address the above suggestion. See below. Most animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon-dioxide. Most plants take in carbon-dioxide and release oxygen. Waste products from ani...
Surface gravity: 1G Info regarding of altitude, pressure, and atmospheric density: altitude pressure density (meters) (atm) (kg/m^3) 0 17 10 1000 15...
For a highly intelligent avian dinosaur whose grasping and manipulating appendages have all but vanished, there are options : for the species to evolve beaks that are better fine manipulators, or c...
The setting On an Earth-like planet but with completely different flora and fauna there is the Great Plain. It is similar in size to the Serengeti National Park on Earth. The Plain is surrounded b...
Atmospheric composition: | 2% Trace gases | 58% Nitrogen | 26% Oxygen | 11% Argon | 3% Carbon dioxide | Average surface temperature: 36 degrees Celsius Surface gravity: 1.36x Earth ...
This one might be a bit weird, but here it goes... In designing the evolutionary history of my world, I've devised an evolutionary branch of animals adapting to terrestrial environments. Lacking r...
One of my fictional planets (which is largely terran in nature) is notable for an unique animal. Said animal is a dangerous predator that is notable for several things: It is physically separated...
I am in the process of creating my universe, and have based it on semi-hard science. The universe that I have created is quite extensive, and I thought that it would be unreasonable for the only ki...
A large (compared to Earth life) species of creatures live in space. They gain energy from interstellar dust and starlight. How they do this is a separate question so not relevant here. However the...
Suppose humans have developed the technology to travel between star systems. This might be some science-fiction method like warp drive, jump drive, peanut butter drive, hyperspace drive or whatever...
All life on Earth is surprisingly homogeneous from a biochemical point of view. Every organism known to us is primarily built with carbon-based molecules that also contain hydrogen and oxygen, main...
Question Context: I've been developing insect-looking bipeds that have evolved on a mostly jungle/ocean planet in addition to small, scattered grasslands. This is justified (from what I've read) b...
So, in my story there is a species of aliens, called the Ko'dor. The Ko'dor are a species of shape-shifters, who can change their forms at will. Naturally, they are four-eyed, green octopus like cr...
Question in the title. A Rogue planet is a sunless world that exists in interstellar space. It might be possible for life to develop on one, but what happens when that happens? I've seen people sa...
In the fantasy culture it's not uncommon to find Giant spiders with the upper body of a human. There are many variants as the spider body having only 4 legs and the upper human body have 2 additio...
Triskeles are popular Celtic decorative motifs. Everyone from modern day retro-Pagans to jewelry makers to Celtic bands uses them for the cool factor. But there is a little known creature, possibl...
So, humans have finally figured out how to build a solar-system crossing ship. On the way to the first exo-planet to be colonized, an accident happens, and a few people wind up floating through spa...
So aliens find Earth to be suitable for colonization and disregard humanity's claim. Not because they are racist, but because they are so different biologically and psychologically that humans simp...
How from a evolutionary standpoint hermaphrodite species can exist and have a good genetic diversity, with no self-impregnation? But, this race visually looks more like females, they do have breas...
This is not a question on whether or not floating, balloon-like organisms are biomechanically viable - I already know the answer to that, which is yes. This instead deals with the plausibility of s...
I'm current planning a story which includes a race of diminutive humanoid aliens, one of whom crash-lands on Earth. They're fully sentient, and have the same average intelligence level as humans. T...
One species has two genders, like humans, the other has three(essentially male, female, and one without breeding capabilities that first appears as a genetic quirk but quickly becomes more prominen...
Previous to this question, I made a post regarding many questions about the biology of the creature I had been designing. Looking back on it, I realized that I asked a LOT of questions for just one...
Think of Saturn. In this book, some people travel to a gas giant with rings and find an ecosystem in the rings of a planet. It has predators and prey. It has plants and animals. Autotrophs and Het...
In this paper by Bains et al, an alternative to oxygenic photosynthesis is discussed. Apparently, 4 times the amount of biomass can be produced using hydrogenic over oxygenic photosynthesis. Oxyge...
We do not know how exactly it happened, but poor John Doe made a space-time trip along a three dimensional analog of a Möbius strip (a Klein bottle). He is now back on Earth, but he is now the mir...
So on a planet with a chlorine based atmosphere and only a small amount of oxygen, here is my proposed mechanism for chlorine based photosynthesis. Carbon tetrachloride, since it is a liquid at 7...
On planet Dalia, there exists a creature that supplies Dalians with horrific fear. The Tayan. Tayan is similar to the Earth pitcher plant, and employs similar methods to capture prey. XENOBIOLOGY...
Ko'dor are an octopus like species that arise from the swamps of the planet Luvwa. They have the ability to transform their bodies into any form or shape they want. When a Ko'dor wants to infiltr...
I have created a species that is basically a sort of land coral covered in a thick carapace made of rock. They live on an Earth-like planet (Class M as they say in Star Trek) and behave like cora...
This is the first question about colonizing an alien world; the second question on agriculture on this planet is here. So here's the idea: human beings travel to and land on an Earth-like world wi...
This is a second question about the same world described in this question about human reaction to an alien world. So here's the idea: human beings travel to and land on an Earth-like world with th...
On a world I am building, I have a species of creatures that evolved from crustaceans. The problem is that while they have an exoskeleton, they also live on a world with the same gravity as Earth. ...
Let's say there exists an Earth-like exoplanet which orbits a normal star, with a similar process regarding the evolution of life on earth, yet the star became a red giant during said evolution. A...
Below the surface of Dalia, there exists a monstrous beast that eats humanoids alive. This creature is called the Tayan. The Tayan is 150 feet tall, and 35 feet wide. It nests itself underground, a...
For example, a quote from one of the Witcher 3: Blood and Wine's side quests says The eggs themselves are a sight to behold, luminescent. The man (hologram) is referring to giant centipede eg...
