Posts tagged chemistry
As far as we know stars have a limited fusion cycle. Once they fuse elements up to the element iron, there is no subsequent energy that can be released through fusion, given the inherent atomic str...
Chlorophyll-a (the primary one), chlorophyll-b, and(?) beta-carotene (plus other accessory pigments / carotenoids) dictate which portions of the EM spectrum are used as energy by plants. Pla...
Our universe is described as having three physical dimensions, plus one time dimension, where the eigenvalues for the physical dimensions are all the same, but the eigenvalue for time is opposite (...
I'm currently writing a story, but however I'm having trouble with one part. The hero is faced with a situation where he has to create a fire strong enough melt 5 kg of copper, and he only has a ma...
The planet in question is this one. The atmosphere mainly consists of nitrogen and is approximately a quarter the density of Earth's; I chose surface temperatures ranging from -50°C to 0°C. I ne...
In my world, the knowledge of science is largely lost, but many of the practical facts are still remembered. Chemistry morphed back into alchemy. My main character grew up as a peasant in a city's...
Many authors describe worlds with higher gravity than our own, from whence super-muscular aliens originate. However, as we increased the size, mass and surface gravity of a world; there would be p...
Supposing you are trying to colonise planet that has no life what-so-ever but is otherwise an earth analogue. First thing that I realised is that there would be no oil. So they would need to make ...
Why certainly! We have all sorts of exotic drink. Can I excite you for a pint of Tarnesian Starköl - bitter, tart, nutty brew this stuff; or rather have shot of H'elvanian Whisky(?) - 7 years o...
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...
I'm amidst crafting a world but not sure how to fill in a few gaps. Your suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated! I've got a scenario where an extraterrestrial meteor hits planet earth...
As a matter of course, a number of scientific articles and books have held speculation as to the possibility of life on a Jovian (gas giant such as Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, etc). Typically, this co...
I'm trying to figure out how a minimalist style society would work. Its secretive founders have been planning this since the 19th century, hiding in universities, influencing the young to attempt t...
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...
Introduction: I've spent some fair amount of time thinking about inventing an element to make part of my world easier for me. In this case, it is an LTA gas which I gave the WIP name LAL-gas (Leich...
Context Recently, scientists have began researching superatoms and supermolecules in depth. The premise is that existing, natural elements can be rearranged into clusters, in the lab, to exhi...
I asked a similar question a small while ago. Unfortunately, the way the problem was defined excluded certain viable solutions. So I want to try again. The society would have to be complex. Perhap...
Lets say you have a geothermal or nuclear power plant and nearby you have system which converts that energy into nutrient porridge. This nutrient porridge must have everything the human needs to su...
Some more-than-usually clever boffins have knocked up a system that allows them to form portals into a region where the laws of physics are rather...different. An object that is fired through one ...
Would it be possible to somehow inject astronauts cells with safe amounts of magnetic metals, or use some sort of magnetic properties, to hold them down to a space station floor with magnets?
Context: Brains in Vats and Virtual Reality on Steroids In the (reasonably near) future, humans have developed the field of medicine significantly, and we now have the technology to isolate the b...
I'm trying to build a semi-plausible world where there is native flora and fauna, but the world is subtly not quite right for human habitation. I thought that having significant amounts of copper i...
Preamble The Alternity Cosmos II is a complement to a dice role-playing game that uses heuristics based on hard-science to 'build' plausible star systems for the Alternity game: http://www.altern...
Suppose the chemical reaction: $$3CO_2+2H_2\rightarrow 2H_2O+2O_2+3C$$ This reaction could be used to filter out $CO_2$ from the atmosphere, slowing down or reversing climate change. The solar syst...
I wanna have a scene where the protagonists see the gray goo excreting human skeletons because they can't use the calcium in them for anything. But is this true? Would a self-replicating machine re...
All organisms on Earth produce waste. Whether an organism's respiration has a byproduct, or it just doesn't process all food it consumes, it will always put some amount of matter into the environme...
You are probably aware of that certain radioactive things glow, usually a soft green. But is there any way to add compounds or what have you to achieve a different color, say, orange? I know Chere...
Aside from resorting to a grey goo-ish nanoplague that kills indiscriminately regardless of biochemistry, how might an alien virus, bacteria or other pathogen still be dangerous to humans? Could a ...
I got to thinking a simple throwaway thought on this video where this dude flushes mercury in a toilet (in a closed loop) For one thing, it's easy to think about the properties of mercury (mostly ...
Of all the creatures in Hatjörn's dominion, there is none as peculiar as the Murinae Spirita, the mean booze-rat. A vermin so resilient that has developed the most wondrous means of defence and...
Setting: Earth-sized planet, its inhabitants are human settlers and live in towns protected by custom-sized atmospheres. The rest of the planet is barren and always was. The population uses the e...
In the 1989 Batman movie[1], the Joker uses a gas that makes the muscles on your face contract into a "smile" to kill people. My question is simple; is there currently, or is there a way to ...
In a near future society, man will be mining asteroids far from Earth. One technology on board their ships is a hydrocarbon assembler. It takes in energy, water and carbonaceous asteroid matter a...
Using pre-industrial era technology how does an intelligent creature create the perfect illusion that reproduces vision,sound and touch sensations and make them seem perfectly ''real'' from the vie...
I designed a humanoid race with bio-electric organs along the arms which release electricity through the hand to the victims (it has to be done in direct contact). The electricity released has to ...
The planet is a Super-Earth with 1.839 Earth masses and an average surface temperature of 180.7 degrees farrenheight, the atmospheric pressure is 50 times more dense than Earth's and there's large ...
I've been working on this creature some more and have hit another snag. If my critters communicate through the use of pheromones and chemical trails, how do they communicate the message that it i...
If we assume their homeworld is similar to Titan, but instead orbiting a Neptune sized gas giant and a bit bigger and receiving the same amount of Solar energy as Titan, The star is a main sequence...
Would it be possible to have alien life use Hydrogen sulfide instead of Water? I assume they are still carbon based. Also for a sunlike star what distances should this planet or moon be located?
We all know how the story starts: He woke up in strange room, not remembering who he was or how did he got to the room. But that was not his problem. Problem was the first writing he saw: "HELL...
So, I've got a planet with this atmosphere. The composition is: 60% NO 20% NO2 10% N2O 5% N2 5% O2 traces of CO, CO2. The surface pressure is 0.7 atm, temperatures range from -30 to +30 degree...
One can indeed brew love in a bottle The love potion set comes with two vials. One is for the intended lovee, and one for the lover. The lovee must drink their potion first, and will be emitting p...
I've got a planet with a very special atmosphere. The properties are as follows: Surface pressure = 0.7 atm Composition: 60% NO 20% NO2 10% N2O 5% N2 5% O2 traces of CO, CO2 My question is: ...
We all know that Titan has an atmosphere that consists mainly of N2. What I want to have is a planet with an atmosphere that consists mainly of various nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2, N2O). My question...
This is a follow-up to question about a transmuting 3D-printer Assume you need to store all stable elements in a spaceship. On board, a chemical assembler is used to compose everything, if you hav...
Could a chemical compound change a human body in a way that a regular quantity of that compound is needed to stay alive after the first dose? The short answer would be yes, there exist already suc...
The habitat of the creature in question is most commonly atop mountains (or in moist areas). Such an idea would mean that the creature wouldn't need a heart or stomach to break down things into blo...
Because elements are classified by the number of protons they have, could there potentially be planets or environments that are so dense that they are made up of elements potentially greater than U...
Everybody, even those who are complete beginners in the field of Astronomy, know Io, the cryovolcanic moon of Jupiter that looks like a burned pizza with skin cancer. Volcanoes constantly spit out ...
My space colonies are mainly located onto large, partialy terraformed moons in our solar system. They still travel using rockets but due to their vessels' large size they need very powerful propuls...