JohnWDailey‭

On May 18, 1980, Mount Saint Helens made American history with an eruption that took 57 human lives and killed thousands of animals. It has released only a quarter of a cubic mile of ash, but it i...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭

So, in this alternate Europe, there are some obvious differences. First off, the Baltic Sea is no longer a sea, but now the Baltic Plain. Also, the Low Countries are absent entirely. There are...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

This famous tapestry shows all the "modernized" traits of a unicorn--basically just a pale-colored horse with a single horn on its head. Of course, single-horned animals do and did exist: ...

19 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭

In recent years, the search for the origins of life is becoming complex. It turns out that oxygen is NOT a requirement for multicellular life to thrive. As stated in this BBC article, poriferans ...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭

In marine mammals, there are two different body types for two different niches: A long, strong tail for all-marine whales... ...and all four legs modified into flippers for pinnipeds that fee...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

There is no other way around it--Madagascar is an evolutionary uniquety. 80% of the island's species live nowhere else on Earth. Among this uniqueness is a habitat that seems to come out of scien...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

When one thinks of a shelled cephalopod, odds are high that the first thing to come to mind are the ammonites. They were one of evolution's success stories, thriving from 400 to 66 million years a...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭

Back home, many large planktivores have ingenious ways to trap food and not water. For sharks like the basking and the megamouth, that is no problem, as they have modified their gills into rakers ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

When one hears the name "Beringia", we most often think the land bridge that formed as a result of a drop in sea levels during the Pleistocene, resulting in a connection between Alaska and Russia. ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

The established fact is that the shape of a planet's continental coastlines is determined by the planet's climate. Higher temperatures mean less ice, which ultimately means higher sea levels. (Ca...

5 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

Here is the scenario: A Paleo/Mesozoic mass extinction wiped out 96% of all terrestrial species, and the only plants that survived were as follows: One genus of conifer One genus of cycad One ge...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

66 million years ago, the dinosaur empire was in its death throes when its final nail in the coffin came hurtling down from the sky. A clump of rock the size of Mount Everest smashed into the Gulf...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

To put this title into context, there are actually two basic kinds of angiosperms on Earth, showing here: These differences in characteristics serve their own adaptations to survive and thrive. ...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

Let's say that some Oriental emperor had decreed that he should move his palatial residence from China to Everest. Specifically, he wanted Mount Everest to be his palace, which means hollowing the...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭

In this alternate Earth, the axial tilt is still leaning to the extent of the temperate and polar zones having four seasons--spring, summer, autumn and winter. The one key difference is that each ...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by JohnWDailey‭