Posts tagged biology
Could there be life on or around Planet Nine (a real-world planet in our Solar System, which has recently been discovered through indirect methods)? Of course, it probably receives nearly no solar ...
I would like some rare humans (1 in 10 million) to have a mutation that increases their lifetime by a factor of three. In other words, these rare humans could live for ~240 years on average. But I...
Edit: In the scenario that the temperature of a given area increases constantly over 30 million years (slowly enough for species to adapt) starting at 20°C and ending at 90°C, what are the possib...
Linked: What would conditions on a methane world be like? Question: As mentioned in the linked question, Titan is the second most likely world in the Solar System to harbor life. One of the answ...
The worlds biggest problem is population growth. All that goes in bad way crime, corruption, assassination, robbery, murders everything is at increasing rate in world. And basic reason for all this...
Before the double helix DNA was discovered by Watson and his colleague, they theorized the existence of a triple-strands DNA and its properties. Is multiple-strands DNA possible perhaps by manipula...
I showed a draft of a short story I wrote to some friends and got a very derisive comment from the chemist in the group. According to him the chemistry just isn't possible. I'd like a second opi...
I have an alien race that is carbon-based, like life on Earth, but this alien life uses different essential elements in their biochemistry than those elements used on Earth. I'm trying to come up...
Inspired by this article about the recent discovery of a subsurface ocean. So now we know it has a liquid water ocean and a magnetic field. The subsurface ocean is also protected from radiation by...
It's typically regarded that life needs liquids of some kind to evolve. But liquid is just a state where molecules can move around freely in order to interact with other molecules instead of being...
Giants do exist. It's just that they can't be anywhere close to being as big as those in Norse mythology or the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The best we'd ever have for a giant was Robert Wad...
I am considering a human-like species that has a consciously controlled womb- like organ. These beings would be able to gestate and give birth to any smallish creature that fitted their purpose. Na...
I was thinking of a scenario in which people decide to use breeding to try to make two species more genetically related to each other. The people take genetic samples of each individual from their...
In a world with humanized (or at least tool using) reptiles, how long would a tattoo be able to last on the scales? Would the tools need to be much different than what we use today? Would it be p...
In another question, Are flying plants possible?, a point was raised that because of the square-cube law, a large, hollow, spherical plant could fly by having the air inside be a little bit hotter ...
Exactly as asked on the title, is there a way that a human, or at least, a species that appears outwardly human, could survive being pincushioned by arrows, at least for a suitably dramatic length ...
I was watching a television program recently about Naked Mole Rats and how they are they are one of the only known Eusocial mammals. They have a single queen who produces offspring as well as warri...
I hope my question isn't too vague or broad. It's a follow-up to this one. So, we have a human (genetically modified in order to support life on another place, from previous question) on an alien ...
A space colony that resembles the design of a Stanford torus generates artificial gravity by centripetal force. Discussions about benefits of such fake gravity can be easily found: no more constan...
Could a terrestrial planet have a stable set of layers of atmospheres, and could different lifeforms evolve within those different layers? This question is inspired by the diversity found on Earth...
So I'm writing a story on a population of lizardmen who have subdued all the human population. Since lizards spend lots of their time soaking in the sun, I'm not sure how should I go for the night...
Lets assume a city exists underground, either in natural caves or synthetic tunnels. Are there any food sources underground, and what kind of population can they support?
Would it be possible for a corporeal alien with a solid physical body (it must be able to touch and interact with the world) to exist but remain invisible to humans? My understanding of optics is...
"One other thing. Never drink the water out here without boiling it." the old scavenger added, waving a hand over the bogs and hills. "You'll get rabies, and I don't like accepting payment from ...
I'm going on vacation, and browsing through my texts on the latest iPhone. Uh oh, my private airplane, which for some stupid reason has no tracking devices, crashes onto some undiscovered island. E...
The leprechaun. A little ginger humanoid dressed in green, with buckled shoes and a matching hat, and a massive pot of (tax-free) gold. We all know them. Or not. For the world I'm building, I've d...
I was wondering if a full aquatic bird could exist and not be on, or return to land at any developmental stage, basically, to be completely independent of land. I already know that there are some a...
Answer this question: "What would happen to a high-pressure creature in a low-pressure atmosphere? The hypothetical creature has evolved on a planet with an atmosphere that's much more pressuris...
The hypothetical creature has evolved on a planet with an atmosphere that's much more pressurised than that of Earth. It's humanoid in appearance, in that it has two arms and two legs as well as a ...
The question is fairly straightforward but to put a bit of context: (Slice of life): I've often noticed how even though my eyesight really isn't great* I still somehow manage seeing a lot better...
In Dune by Frank Herbert, there is a molecule called melange. Melange, also known as the spice, grants much longer lifespans to those who take it. How could a molecule grant greatly extended lifes...
A group of behaviorally modern humans was cut off from the rest of the earth-like planet. At the time of the separation, humankind had reached a technology level including cattle ranches, brass, wr...
The title is a bit different to the question, but there's a reason to that. I am currently in the worldbuilding stage of creating an alien planet, mainly the wildlife, and I may have run into a pro...
Would a creature similar to semi-aquatic slime mold living on a mostly freshwater planet with shallow seas be able to build technology to the extent that modern humans do? Assuming that each indivi...
For my current world in progress, I have devised a variety of species possessing multiple, unique DNA chains that can receive copious amounts of short-term energy due to their large stores of sugar...
I was thinking of a situation in which a life form evolves a biological screen somewhere on its body that can play videos. The life form would play videos on its biological video screen in order t...
In a novel I am writing, one of the characters is an immortal* shape-shifter, called 'Creature'. Creature has been around since shortly after the beginning of life on earth. Its cells divide/replic...
I've been getting nowhere myself on this. My goal is to create a human or humanoid that absorbs heat to survive. As a result this can quickly freeze things solid. I need a way to make this, for lac...
That's the plot of lot of sci-fi stories, but on most of them the virus just affect all humans and get out of control. But lets say that my Umbrella corporation wants to target a specific human p...
I would like to make something interesting about a culture of mine in one of my story proposals. I was thinking something along the lines of using living tissue for construction. Hard hides would c...
We know that humans are capable of incredible feats, as displayed by Olympic athletes. However, the superhuman heroes that appear in comic books and fantasy novels tend to not only be able to perfo...
In this more realistic scenario than typical fantasy, the vampire is just an ordinary human being with a certain genetic quirk that results in the following: A reversed circadian rhythm (active a...
The brain is 1 major developmental difference between us and these humanoids. These humanoids start off with larger brains to begin with and so brain development in the womb happens at about the s...
I am building a fantasy world roughly the same size, elemental makeup, and atmospheric composition as Earth. In this world, there is an island (about the size of Australia) known by outsiders as th...
Arising from the comments in This Question, which started to stray offtopic into the question of whether men are needed at all. In Short: Could you create a fertilized human (necessarily female) f...
If two different species with different blood bases, say iron and copper, had a child together, how would that affect their child? Which blood base would the child inherit? Could they even have a c...
After reading the question on inbreeding (Could fictional species benefit from limited inbreeding?), I started to wonder if there could be any reasons why an species (intelligent or otherwise) woul...
This question is closely related to, but more specific, than the question/comment that inspired it: Could a modern times time traveler produce an antibiotic in medieval times?. Imagine a person is...
So here's the rough idea. I'm trying to figure out what kind of life could exist that spends basically its entire life in the air, for an alien world I'm working on. No sentient life, just wilderne...
In previous questions on this topic, I've devised a genetically-diverse creature that uses a cold fusion internal engine to provide tremendous amounts of short-term (sprint) energy. However, there...
