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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...
I did some quick research on DNA and I know it can be damaged by different sorts of mutagens. I also know that this kind of damage can lead to cancer. Though I'm not entirely sure of where exactly ...
Assuming a robot with similar intelligence to us humans came to existence. He could pass the Turing Test, the Coffee Test, the The Robot College Student Test and the Employment Test (taken from her...
A great many questions have been written about a habitable moon around a gas giant. This is my take on it. Somehow (extra points to whoever figures out exactly how it is possible) Jupiter gets kno...
It finally happened. The inhabitants of Metropolis, the capital of Our Nation, have finally had enough of the swampy lands, suffocating summers, freezing winters, spring floods, risk of surprise in...
As I'm sure you're all aware, human beings at some point in their lives -- generally post-puberty or so -- stop growing. As a result, there's some easily-predictable measures, such as the average h...
If the Earth's interior was not hot and liquid, how deep could we dig before the tunnels collapsed by the pressure or the air became too pressurized to be breathable? In other words: how deep can u...
How do rats and mice see the world? Because their eyes are on the side of their head with a big nose in the middle, would they see two 180 degree images with a blur in the middle or would it be lik...
I've always found animal intelligence to be fascinating, particularly that of the cephalopods, some of which show some pretty remarkable talents for tool usage, mimicry, and pattern recognition. A...
In the future, a high-tech human civilization has colonised a distant planet. The planet is basically Earthlike in gravity, climate, terrain and vegetation. They want to build Forevertown: A city w...
See A city to last ten million years: Construction for background. Second question: What would be the best choice of site on the planet's surface? Assume the planet is more or less Earthlike in i...
See A city to last ten million years: Construction for background. Third question on Forevertown: What are the key issues for maintaining the physical infrastructure of a low-tech city over ten m...
See this question for further details I also know how unlikely this situation is, so please refrain. From telling me "it won't happen." Jupiter is sent on a spiral into the inner Solar System. Bo...
Based on my recent series of questions: here and here. The giant known as Jupiter has moved to the inner Solar System and Earth and Mars have become it's moons (despite all the odds). The moon of ...
I would like to create a sentient creature with telepathy and/or telekinesis. Can either (or both) of these concepts exist biologically? If yes, what would the biological mechanism be? Would ...
I know living on Venus would be virtually impossible for us now. But I'm trying to picture what life would be like on the surface of such a world, and how advanced in technology a species would hav...
Suppose that there is a species of dogs that are much more intelligent than humans and can speak. The humans know that the animal is smarter too. The only reason these animals can't rule over human...
Lets take a 60km radius island where the people have access to early XXI century technology. The whole island was planned and artificially built, so it has no mountains or otherwise bad/sterile ter...
We all know that genetic diversity in our species (homo sapiens) is maintained by sexual reproduction. Man and woman provide each half of genetic information randomly selected from their own to the...
I'd like to know if a planet without any animals except humans can exist. The cause of this absence of other species could be anything but the humans should not have any social interaction with som...
In Sci-fi, space fighters often look like exotic versions of fighter jets: wing shape is often different but the general shape is most of the time kept. However this seems unrealistic: the shape o...
I want to find out what's going on in another star system, but I don't want to go there. How feasible is it to just build a big telescope and take a look? Scenario: Earth does not respond to commu...
My answer to this question essentially came down to the pilot being in a sphere with anything large jutting out of it. Some of the arguments made against me I feel are true if we assume fights like...
I'm curious what the gravity would be like on an infinite area flat world. The plane of the world would have some finite depth but be infinite in all cardinal directions. This is, in effect, a Mine...
In this fantasy world there is no day/night but a constant mild light. There are also no seasons and the mild light is akin to the light at dawn or dusk. The sun doesn't really exist. How would th...
