Activity for L.Dutch - Reinstate Monica
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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Exploring a world with chiral biochemistry: chirality detection Space explorers have landed on an Earth like planet and, to their surprise, the place is luscious and covered in life, to the point of resembling some earthly tropical atoll. What they don't know yet is that the entire biochemistry of the planet they are exploring has opposite chirality with respect... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Why do flying saucers have to spin while flying? Stabilization by gyroscopic effect, plain and simple. A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος gûros, "circle" and σκοπέω skopéō, "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. Any space probe we have sent into space use rotation for the very same ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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On our way to Mars: how do we do the laundry? A human crew of 6 has been sent on mission to Mars The lowest energy transfer to Mars is a Hohmann transfer orbit, which would involve an approximately 9 month travel time from Earth to Mars, about five hundred days at Mars to wait for the transfer window to Earth, and a travel time of about 9 mo... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Keeping a healthy immune system on a generation-ship An old saying goes that if you have an army, it will want to fight a war. That seems to be true also for our personal army, our immune system: there seems to be various pieces of evidence that many of the allergies and/or autoimmune diseases some of us have to deal with arise from an under usage of ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Inverse orbital direction For an in-situ born planet, it can happen, though it is hard to have the exact chain of events. Basically you need to have a series of gravitational slingshots with a larger body that put your planet on the opposite rotation direction of the entire system. While playing with this simulator, I someti... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How do ballistic trajectories work in a rotating cylinder world? For the sake of fixing some image in your mind, imagine you want to practice some sport in a rotating cylinder world: whether it be launching a javelin, strike a tee at the golf club or scoring a 3 points shot on the ball field, some sort of ballistic trajectory will be involved in most of the cases.... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Forming a permanent ice cap by continuous hail precipitation Permanent ice caps are formed when the rate at which water falling under the form of snow is higher than the rate at which the water is removed from a certain region either by evaporation or outflow, so that the cap of ice last more than one year. Would it be possible, on a Earth-like planet, to hav... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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Scientific explanation for a exceptionally bright night sky On an alternative Earth live the people of Tcelonia. One of their founding myths goes that, in the dawn of times, when they were under the menace of being attacked by an enemy population, for an entire month the night sky of the entire planet remained as bright as under the full moon, frustrating al... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Anatomically correct Panotti Panotti so called from the Greek words πᾶν and οὖς for "all ears", were a mythical race of people, described as possessing large ears that covered their entire bodies. In the Natural History, Pliny writes about the strange race of people known as the Panotti who live in the "All-Ears Isla... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Anatomically correct Sea Boar Wild boars are well known for their large, bulky body, their aggressivity and their tusks. They are animals from which a predator would gladly stay away if some easier prey is available. And, last but not least, they are omnivore. How can a water dwelling creature (fish or water mammal) evolve to ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Anatomically correct "XKCDius lethalissimus" Inspired by today's XKCD comic How could a creature, momentarily called XKCDius lethalissimus, evolve to have the following features: Be radioactive (intended as more radioactive than the environmental background) Give high voltage hazard Emit laser Be a biohazard Be slimy enough to make a floor... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Sexual pleasure in anemophile reproducing humanoids This species of humanoids has a peculiar way of reproducing. Instead of the usual physical intercourse between a male and a female, followed by the sperm cell merging with the egg cell to generate the embryo, they reproduce following something similar to what sponges, corals or some anemophile tree... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Year marking astronomical event with extreme perihelion precession For us earthlings, the concept of "year" came from the observation that the Sun reaches a minimum and a maximum span in the rise-set path in the sky. On a planet experiencing extreme perihelion precession (about 30 degrees) is there any recurring astronomical event which can mark the end of a year ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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Sugarite: can it form? Halite, or rock salt, is a rock formed by salt deposited in past and then undergone geological processes. My question is: provided that enough (how to get that much sugar is not in scope of this question) white sugar is deposited in a suitable location in a earth like environment (enclosed between c... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Realistic size for an atomic pure space body Space bodies like planets, asteroids and comets are formed by the remaining materials of stars explosions. Therefore they are usually made up of several elements. There is the possibility that a particular element is prevalent. In my story I want to have a body made of >90% Fe, that will then be use... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Advantages of human view with spectral analysis capability When it comes to processing hearing and visual signals, our brain has different capabilities. While it seems to be able to execute a spectral analysis for sounds, so that when we hear the superposition of more tones we still recognize each of them individually, this ability is not present when it pr... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Killer seeds for the sake of early plant growth This plant I am designing grows on earth, in locations where competition between plants is fierce, water is scarce and also nutrients in the soil are diluted. The dilution requires the plant roots to be developed at least in 1 cubic meter of ground to be able to sustain the plant life. This plant ha... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Human echolocation for spies. What sound to use? There are reports of blind people being able to develop an echolocation ability, by listening to the echo of sounds emitted by them. Since this ability is pretty handy for spies and soldiers, the army of a middle-age kingdom has trained some non-blind specialists to use this ability while moving in ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Environmental conditions on quasi tidal locked planet There is an earth like planet, with similar mass, gravity, atmosphere and magnetic field. The main difference with earth is that it has a highly eccentric orbit (eccentricity 0.8). Let's say that the planet shows a form of quasi tidal locking, in the sense that when it covers the green sector in the... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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"Homesick" human subspecies feasibility This human population developed in a mild climate region, with fair abundance of food, water and shelter. However, though they have the skills and the means to explore forth, the population is unable to leave the region, because as soon as it does, it becomes "homesick". No, not only missing mommy a... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Hurricane size vs planet rotation speed Coriolis' force is the cause for winds and water streams to bend while they travel North-South along the Earth surface. This force is inversely proportional to the rotation speed of the planet: the quicker the planet rotation, the higher the force. Now, we know that in the past the day was shorter, ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Designing a carnivorous plant Planet Swamp. As the name suggest, it is a planet fully covered with swamps. A new kind of carnivorous plant has been discovered on this planet: when its leaves are touched by an animal or moved by the wind they emit a sweet scent, something like vanilla and sugar. This sweet scent attract unaware a... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Would alien litterbugs accidentally create a star? Location: an interstellar gas cloud Situation: an alien family stops for about half an Earth hour in the middle of the cloud to have a snack along their trip (by stops I mean they get null relative velocity with respect to the cloud's collective motion). The kids in the family, after playing for a ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Detecting a neutron star entering the solar system In its wandering through the Milky Way, the solar system is getting close to a solitary neutron star. The neutron star will "fly by" above the plane of the ecliptic and its closest distance from the Sun will be 10 AU. The neutron star belongs to the Milky Way too, therefore its orbital velocity is co... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Low or absent pathogenicity viral agent Pathogen virus work in a simple way: they inoculate their genes (DNA or RNA) in the host cells and let them replicate huge amounts of the attacker while hampering the host vital functions. As reaction the host fights back, until either the host or the guest is dead. I am trying to figure out a "smar... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Switching between poikilothermic and homeothermic metabolism I am designing a mammal living in a warm environment (like a warm desert) which has developed a switchable metabolism, so that during the day it is cold blooded and during the night (when it is colder) it goes on warm blood mode. This switching roughly halves its energy demand (half of a day it doe... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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An anti matter planet behaving like a star In your space journey your ship systems have spotted an unusual source of gamma rays: it's the size and the mass of a planet and it has a pulsating behaviour. Further observations shows that you are observing a planet made of anti matter hosted in a cloud of normal matter (for clarity sake, I envis... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Matter being repelled by gravity Let's say that, in a universe modelled after Patema Inverted, there are two "flavors" of matter: one which is attracted by gravity (so when dropped on Earth it would fall down), and one which is instead repelled (so when dropped on Earth it would fall up). For the rest the interactions are the same. ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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Planetary crash scenario Exploring this new star system you have been pretty lucky to find an Earth like planet, with plenty of Oxygen, both in gaseous and in chemically bonded state (water, rocks, etc.). Just before you were opening that bottle of Chateau Centaurix 68 to toast this discover, your supercomputer starts beepi... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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Reasonable way to determine orbital parameters in an unknows stellar system After traveling a long long time, your spaceship is finally entering into the gravitational sphere of influence of a Sun-like star. Your captain would now like to move from the Oort-like cloud distance where the ship is moving after entering the system to the inner depths of the system itself, possib... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |