Posts tagged evolution
Modern mechanical EM transmitters, like radio towers and radar guns, rely on finely tuned mechanical structures. If these structures do not have the right shapes, the device fails to function. Or...
I would like to explore how to design an alien planet featuring plants and animals but with a much more prominent ecological role for fungi. More fungi, larger fungi, more complex and beautiful fun...
This question has no background information here. I just want to know if there are any evolutionary advantages for a species to have 4 ears?(The kind a mammal has).
Modern human mothers can now choose the sex of their children, without surgery or procedures. For every pregnancy, the sex of the fetus must be chosen. In a culture that has a strong preference for...
In a world in which dragons (as animals, minus magical associations) existed, what natural defense mechanisms might other animals or plants evolve in response? How would a creature as devastating ...
What environmental pressures could drive evolution of a creature that has the ability to float? How it floats isn't important.
I recently learned of a fascinating art project being developed by Sam van Aken involving the grafting of flower buds onto a stock tree. You can find out more about the project itself by visiting t...
In this scenario, corals, sponges and bryozoans have been extinct for 65 million years. In their place as reefbuilders are echinoderms, bivalves, barnacles and worms of the infraclass canalipalpat...
Is it possible that any life on earth could evolve to live off a liquid which is not water? Something like oil or some other natural liquid?
A top secret organization is planning to introduce a New World Order and replaces every human being (homo sapiens sapiens) with the evolved form of sub species of homo sapiens. Meaning we are sub s...
I've been inspired to ask this question based off of my answer, and the resulting discussion, to this question: Why would a species of intelligent parthenogenetics invent males? However, this is a...
Concerning long term effects of zero gravity on humans living in space compared with those living on super earths with 1.5x to 2x G, how could the gravity differences cause reproductive failure amo...
This is another question pertaining to my super-intelligent humanoids: Assuming that their race successfully developed extremely advanced, easily available prosthetics, while they were morally of ...
By some combination of changes in both the environment, and human biology, humans evolved on Earth in a way that basically makes them 100% unable to alter their minds using traditional methods: A...
In my world, Earth populated the Moon. Even if people are concealed in stations they got to go out from time to time (to explore or repair things that robot can't). My question is: Is it possible...
Over the course of Homo-sapiens, we have become larger, because of diet & selection. Even in the last couple centuries. Today, we vary across geography and cultures, too, of course. Now it i...
How can I explain a female adult dragon standing at 30 to 32 meters living on the peaks of a snowy mountain, will dive and swim hundreds of miles into the ocean to hunt for sperm whales and colossa...
70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens sapiens suffered a genetic bottleneck that reduced the population of likely 100,000 to 3,000. Over seven billion people of several distinctive races are descended fr...
Consider a planet similar from Earth: very suitable for life, with vegetal and animal life forms thriving onside. I wonder if one of these life forms could raise as a civilization as humans did, i...
There have been countless (literally) stories written that have contained within their pages monsters that are stronger, faster, and bigger than the human heroes. I can think of more than a few wh...
Background We all know that our species evolve during and after the last ice age, (or is it sufficient to say that they evolve at the end of ice age?). A. Initial Condition Suppose I had another...
I am imagining a race of spider-like creatures that remain still in the water. They glow to attract prey/would be predators. They surround themselves with a thick layer of slime that can catch crea...
Consider a planet where a day, that is to say the amount of time a specific (roughly equatorial) point is in sunlight is much longer than on earth. A humanoid race has evolved on this planet. You c...
I'm trying to find explanations for a strain of beans (or any other food-producing plant) that have become large, maybe as large as most trees, and about as wide in girth, that overgrows countries ...
I am specifically interested in a form of reproductive cycle something like that of aphids on earth, where several generations of female-only parthenogenesis go by, followed by a generation being b...
I was looking a bit at the evolution of Stars and one thing I sometimes see floated is this idea that in the far flung future, when the sun has ballooned into a red giant and the earth burned to a ...
Namely, a creature that is immobile and stone(like) during the day and mobile at night. Something like the old cartoon, but they don't have to be sentient. They don't have to be actual stone, jus...
I was trying to create a world that has extensive massive rain-forests unlike anything on earth where the trees interlock with thick branches to allow them to rise much higher into the air (several...
For a (Super super super soft)Sci-fi RP I've been planning, I've been trying to design an alien race to act as a suitable antagonist. The basis of this antagonistic race is that they are far, far m...
A staple of fantasy involving time travel is the hero (or heroine) zipping off into the future and then meeting a future lover with whom they go on to have wacky time-based adventures before presum...
On Earth humanity has taken the dominant role (excluding dolphins and mice of course). We know of conflicts in pre-history where our ancestors have overtaken other species and slowly wiped them out...
In Pokemon, there are many different creatures. Nearly all of them will, at one point, reach a level of experience where they evolve into a more advanced creature. These evolutions are much more dr...
I'd like to tip my hat to this week's fortnightly challenge with this question by revisiting an old one. I asked a question about the Science behind a naturally invisible creature a while ago. At ...
I'd like to tip my hat to this week's fortnightly challenge with this question by revisiting an old one. I asked a question about the Science behind a naturally invisible creature a while ago. At ...
A sizeable human population was separated from the rest of the Earth people for a long time, long enough for allopatric speciation to happen. They are no longer Homo sapiens and now have ZERO repro...
On Earth, the polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic animals, with males being on average almost twice as heavy as females (Wikipedia claims average weights of 450 kg for males versus 260 ...
The Settings: A pod of nanobots stranded on earth-like barren planet orbiting sun-like star. Assume no life form has formed on the planet, and nanobots popuate the planet. Could they evolve compl...
I'm getting bored waiting for monkeys or dolphins or crows or whatever to just evolve human-level intelligence. Is there anything practical we can do to create more favorable "natural selection" co...
Given a world where a sentient species already populates, how would the population respond to another, unrelated species evolving into sentience? I think this can be effectively split into 3: It...
Inspired by the many great questions asked for this fortnight's tag challenge, I got to thinking, could a plant develop/evolve to eventually consume an entire planet, and keep on living? What I mea...
This question is related to the following question on whether complex life is possible without oxygen but is not a duplicate. I was doing some searching and found this and this link, the first on w...
In a relationship between two species, could a certain relationship become harmful to both involved species? Keep in mind, I am looking for a relationship between two species, preferably of the ki...
So imagine this scenario: Sapience (which I define as Human-like intelligence or better) is a relatively common occurence once a life-form is on a specific brain-arms-race path like Hominins have ...
I am not a writer. I have never written any story and I have no idea of what it takes to get this idea into any meaningful narrative. It's more of a thought experiment for me and I formally give th...
Is it possible for humans to evolve to eat something like wood or stone or something similar? Any hard material you would find or any abundant resource. So is it possible that humans in the past ha...
On earth most of our sealife is fishlike (excluding a few other species such as squid/octopus). As far as I'm aware there are no legged creatures which live solely in the sea. In my world I'd like...
