Posts tagged biology
I'm thinking about using this as a sort of meta explanation for how Orcs (and possibly other things as well) are different than humans (in muscularity), but I'm not entirely sure what the result of...
Let's say that in a fictional world (the world of Heroes of Might and Magic IV in my case) the square-cubic problem of insect respiration is somehow solved, so I have giant mantes roaming the area,...
Suppose they have non-flexible beaks, but they still posses vocal cords and a tongue capable of producing the same sounds as humans. Variation of these bird-people are as follows: What types of ...
As per my previous question on giants, if the average human is 5"²10"³, and he is scaled up to 50 feet whilst remaining proportionately correct, would this have any effect on what he sounds like? ...
In Can I significantly shorten the days on a planet that can support human life? I asked about changes needed to a planet to support human life with a much-shorter day (12 hours or so instead of 24...
Would that even be possible? Will the bones deform during early infancy? Will the cartilages between joints wear off faster? Will internal organs collapse under their own weight? I have no professi...
If an average human is 5'10" (1.8m), when scaled to be roughly 50 ft (15 m) how much food would it need to remain healthy? Let's also assume there are three types of this giant; carnivorous, herbi...
I am assuming that monkey like animals are more likely to develop some form of horn or antler than apes(feel free to correct me), the question is what would be the most plausible function of the ho...
Would the discovery of alien bacteria found on even an Earth analog planet preclude the possibility of colonization due to the potentially deadly nature of bacterial/viral infections? Put different...
In the real world, humans have tamed horses and use them as mounts. Horses have very specific characteristics that make them a viable mount, such as size, back-strength, stamina, diet, behavior, et...
Disclaimer: This is not a duplicate of this question. This question deals with a specifically non-marine snake. My fantasy story requires a giant snake. The easiest way to create one (as far as f...
We are an interplanetary human empire at war with an alien species. On the brink of defeat, this alien species designed a virus to turn the tide of war. This virus is airborne and highly contagio...
I'm writing a species of dragon-sized butterflies¹ as flying mounts into a low-magic fantasy setting², and would like to know if these creatures have to be imbued with magic, or if they could jus...
Preface With all technology discovered prior to this question, on today's planet, there are still some things we have not observed - which may be used to justify introducing new life forms, right h...
So one of the aspects of my science fiction world is genetic manipulation and modification of humans by one of the factions. I am wanting to have a subset of humans who receive a single eye transpl...
So I am building giant spider species in my world, but I want to make semi-realistic changes to their physiology in order for them to be possible. Pack hunters like these spiders which hunt coope...
My generation ship aliens have 2 thumbed hands. No, not the 2 thumbs on the same side that some humans have but the 2 thumbs on opposite sides. So it would be kind of like this: Except more rept...
I am building a science fiction universe, and I am currently thinking of many different unique sentient alien species that would populate the galaxy. I have thought of a rocky planet with Earth le...
That is to say, could a planet be big enough to have other planets orbiting around, while not orbiting around any star? Cha 110913 seems to be close to what I'm looking for, but its classification ...
I'm my previous question I asked about the longevity of caves, now I'd like to figure out the longevity of the cave dwellers. Specifically, I'd like to put some bounds on how long they can hibernat...
I just want to make sure my science and animal biology is correct here. If there's an increase in gravity to 2-3G, would livestock develop to be more lean due to muscle development or would they ma...
I love chocolate. Today, when I was making myself a cup of hot chocolate, I was thinking about Easter and about all the chocolate I am going to eat. And at some point I was wondering: How awesome...
I was wondering, could the use of chitin (assuming it's composed the same as in insect exoskeletons) combined with hydrocarbons feasibly make a working endoskeleton? I know that chitin could be use...
For my setting, I wanted my people to have entirely no concept of sexism whatsoever. To facilitate this, I have made it so that the females of my race are broad-shouldered and generally flat-cheste...
Let's assume you have access to some pretty crazy tech but that you still have to obey the basic rules of biology. If you build your cyborg so that the only remaining squishy bits are the brain and...
The end goal is to have human like beings with vestigial horns or antlers, but I am unsure of what types of horns they should be. Apparently there are three type of horn: living horn-bony outgr...
For starters, allow me to define more carefully what I am asking. For now I am not worried about any of the following, as if this question is answered they will be covered in later questions: The...
The Snakebot of Doom - now dubbed Jormungandr by the first humans to encounter it and survive - is busy steamrolling New York into rubble, having first nuked the capitols of every member of the Nuc...
For starters, allow me to define more carefully what I am asking. For now I am not worried about any of the following, as if this question is answered they will be covered in later questions: Bon...
I know in fiction Sonic The Hedgehog is able to run faster than the speed of sound but could an organism actually evolve to move faster than the speed of sound? What type of fuel would such an org...
A parasite starts its first life cycle of youth with the reproductive phase by cloning itself to infect as many people as possible without leaving any signs of its presence. After two days the par...
We are the only sentient civilization currently known to man, and sight is an integral part of both our everyday lives as well as most major technological advances throughout human history. Withou...
I am looking for a (at least somewhat) plausible organic matter, which is able to store massive amounts of energy. After reading up on biobatteries and so on, I am aware that I would need something...
I need an semi-organic structure large enough to fit a dense kasbah village on top, that protrudes from a shallow sea. additional info, maybe unimportant: planet orbits a red dwarf star tidally lo...
Another question for my comic: my friend has made a demand that I give one of her characters a flying mount, preferably griffin-like. I have some designs but I want them to be plausible: How bulk...
There are a wide range of environmental temperatures located all around the world, from the low -90° C to high 60° C at the extremes. When looking at the core body temperature however the range i...
This cat looks like a normal Maine Coon to the unsuspecting victim. Except for one little detail: Red claws that inject a neurotoxin into the victim onpon scratching it. What would be the most app...
Some species which reproduce sexually will replace one sex with (or add) hermaphrodites. The coexistence of males and hermaphrodites is androdioecious, females and hermaphrodites gynodioecious, and...
Short variant of question: I have few big natural caves (really big). I want to transform it into shelters capable of keeping ~2.000.000 humans in hibernation, sleep, suspended animation or othe...
This is the classic winter picture of a boreal forest, or taiga. This habitat exists only on subpolar latitudes, where the climate is too extreme for broad-leaved angiosperms to take root, thus ...
On Earth, we use taxonomy to organize biological organisms into an identifiable hierarchy in which organisms that are evolutionarily related are placed in close proximity. This evolutionary approac...
The other day I was watching my 8 year old grand-daughter run on the playground. She was running like a girl - like Jackie Joiner-Kersey to be precise. It appeared that her form was perfect - that...
I have an idea for a short SF story, where an alien race infects a tiny village with a virus, which eventually spreads to entire Earth. And I need to know what minimum time is required to infect th...
Ignorance is curable, living is forever. Robert A. Heinlein1 Cutting to the hard data: Due to some or another reason2 the genetic information stored inside cells (aka DNA) of my Immortals d...
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...
I am writting a novel ( in a world where magic exists, and is evolving every second ) A lucky guy, found the notes of an ancient artificer on a training artifact. The artifact was very easy to mak...
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...
