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(Edited question to meet concerns) The Problem Can you create synthetic biology that can be installed temporarily in human DNA to give people skills at birth, or are there problems, risks and lim...
Would it be possible for a race of crustacean humanoids to live as nomads in a desert environment? I want them to have crab-like faces and crab-like skin with humanoid bodies. Would they survive in...
I'm actually trying to create an alien ecosystem, so changing orbits, what's exhibiting tidal forces and the geography and such is welcome if needed. I also wonder how stable a setup with dramatic ...
Imagine an Earth-like world in all respects except that the Moon is much much closer. I think I'm right to say if the Moon were very close that tidal forces would slowly rob it of momentum and it ...
This concerns a habitable, earthlike moon orbiting a gas giant, which is not tidal locked, and has an elliptical orbit eccentric enough to avoid frequent deep winter freezes (the freezes do happen,...
In my world an alien creature claims to be from an earth-like planet orbiting a 500 light-years away solar analog star. It tells us that the planet has x mass, y diameter, z orbital period, that sp...
My story is set within one solar system, which can be assumed to have a similar composition to that of our own: one Class G star, a handful of rocky inner planets and a handful of gas giants on the...
My society/area is set in a isolated wasteland where the primary income of people is ranching. However, I want my people to be able to at least be able to maintain technology at a 1916 level (the r...
I've been toying with a concept for a hollow/inner Earth universe in which I would like to achieve an even distribution of light. The pickle is that the "sun" of this world operates like a beacon/s...
I have two planets and humans live on both of them. Humans need not have developed on these planets, but the planets should support human life with the allowance that the humans have technology com...
Twenty years ago, a 40km diameter alien saucer came to Earth, and stopped 2km above the Atlantic ocean, somewhere near the midpoint between Casablanca, Morroco and Natal, Brazil but over internatio...
The main creature in question is an intelligent species that stands from 3' to 4' tall on average. They are heavy-set and primarily bipedal, but able to move comfortably on all fours at the same s...
Lets suppose there is a race of Immortal beings. What are possible solutions to them slowly losing their teeth due to wear and tear? After all, if a normal human lived for hundreds of years at some...
It's Earth and the moon with all parameters as they are in real life with one exception, the moon is twice as reflective as usual. Instead of an albedo of 0.12, the moon has an albedo of 0.24. This...
I'm trying to come up with a the most economical design for artificial gravity. The simplest design for a space ship is to have a spinning ring structure around a central body. People living in the...
NASA has sent a crew of 100 people on Mars to start a colony. The crew was in cryogenic sleep during their trip to save food and water. And after the 6-month journey, they have reached Mars. My que...
T-Rex Forever LLC has a mating pair of Tyrannosaurus rex. They're a bit shady on how they got them, time travel, cloning...they won't say. Third-party biologists and paleontologists have examined...
In a world big enough for human civilizations as knowledgeable about medicine as ours to develop without contacting each other, how could they initiate that contact without exposing each other to p...
Imagine humans discover FTL travel and they send a crew of 100 people: 1 captain 2 pilots 2 copilots 40 scientists/doctors 20 soldiers 30 engineers 5 robots What supplies would they bring with ...
If all humans on earth died out from a deadly plague, which species is most likely to take over the role us Homo sapiens left behind? Which species is intelligent enough to build their own civiliza...
If you have ever watched Tintin: Or played Minecraft: Then you may have dreamed, as I have, of an ecosystem dominated by Fungal life. As part of a Hard Sci-Fi RPG I'm running, I'd like one of th...
Supercritical CO2 has been suggested as a potential alternative bio-solvent, replacing water, at high pressures and modestly elevated temperatures. But what about supercritical N2? ScCO2 is an ind...
(This question is not about getting scrap metal out of orbit and recycling it: please see the second and third sections of the question text.) Consider an object which was not designed for, or ha...
For example, beans and rice cooperate to make a "complete" protein, providing all of the amino acids the body can't synthesize on its own -- in fact, most traditional dishes that combine legumes an...
Given the daylight cycle discussed here (see the graph in the selected answer), suppose that the moon revolves in the equatorial plane, at a distance sufficient to light (barely) the poles, avoidin...
