Activity for JohnWDaileyâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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Using Molten Metal as Mortar--Would it Work Today? So I just got back from watching an episode of the Science Channel program Unearthed, a show focusing on archaeological discoveries. In the episode in question, the subject was on the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and one of the questions asked in the episode is how the lighthouse stood true in an earth... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Humanity with the Ears of a Fox--What Differs as a Result? In this question, we're looking at a humanity that has adapted one of the most conspicuous ways of keeping cool--larger ears. Desert animals usually have larger ears to have more room for blood capillaries. And if you have more capillaries on a thin surface, then you get rid of more of the excess h... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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If Earth Were a Gas Giant's Moon Here is what we know of Earth: Mass: 5.972 sextillion metric tons Diameter: 7,917.5 miles Density: 5.51 grams per cubic centimeter Rotation: 24 hours Revolution: 365 days Core: 760 miles wide, 1,355 miles thick, 84% iron, 6% nickel Mantle: 3,958 miles deep, 45% silicon, 41% magnesium, 8% iro... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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In Search of a Super-Bright, Super-Stable Star Long ago, I asked a question on how to make possible turning the nine realms of Norse mythology--Midgard, Asgard, Vanaheimr, Jotunheimr, Alfheimr, Hel, Nidavellir, Niflheim and Museplheim--into nine actual worlds habitable enough for life to form. In staying true to the original mythology, these nin... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How Far Can The Stars Ve and Vili Orbit The Main One, Odin? In this solar system, there are three K-type main sequence stars, or "orange dwarves", named Odin, Vili and Ve. At the center of this solar system, Odin is 80% the mass of our sun. The middle star, Vili, is 65% the mass of our sun. Finally, the outermost of the three orange dwarves, Ve, is half th... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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If Earth's Oceans Were as Deep as Europa's Earth's deepest point, the Challenger Deep, is almost seven miles below sea level. By contrast, Europa is smaller than even Earth's moon, yet its oceans are anywhere between 40-100 miles deep! So the basic question is--would it be tectonically feasible for Earth's oceans to be as deep as Europa's? M... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Can Apes (Including Humans) Be Naturally Patterned Like Felids? For visual reference: Apes are visual species who rely more on their eyesight than any of the other senses. As a result, they see the world in three shades of color, whereas other mammals see in one or two shades. That is how we can see the tiger as orange or the jaguar as a kind of golden yello... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Could Xenarthrans Be Ferried Outside South America? Right from the beginning, the xenarthrans--armadillos, sloths and anteaters--have been at a disadvantage. For the longest time, their home was an island continent, which made them extremely vulnerable to outside environmental changes. Case in point--the American Interchange caused by the bridging o... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Terraforming the Nine Earths, Episode I: Could Cyanobacteria Thrive in Muspellheim? Long ago, I asked a question on how to make the Nine Realms of Norse mythology--Niflheim, Muspelheim, Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfhiem, Svartalfheim and Helheim--a reality in regards to astronomical orbits. But now that they are confirmed to be possible, via a variety of ways, let's sta... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A Dozen Cubic Miles of Volcanic Ash--How Big Would the Cloud Be? 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 is the influence of the prevailing winds that allows us to measure the area and thickness of the ash clou... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How Would Plate Tectonics on an Inverted World Work? Recently, I came across an inverted world map on the MapPorn Reddit made by MChainsaw. "Inverted" as in, the "continents" are now below sea level and the "ocean floors" are high and dry. (Considering that regular Earth is 70% water, that'd be saying a lot.) Here it is: It is already presented w... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Would It Be Feasible to Hollow Mount Everest Into a Palace? 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 entirety of the mountain, pretty much a human equivalent to Erebor. Let me clarify on where I'm going ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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What Would the Third Kind of Angiosperm Look Like? 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. Now let's say there is a THIRD type of angiosperm, one whose embryo numbers, leaf veinage, vascular bun... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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High-Altitude Asteroid Impact 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 of Mexico, bringing about the end of 70-75% of all species. How? The impact tossed out about 500 bil... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Could Gymnosperms Develop Fruits and Flowers Like Angiosperms? 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 genus of ginkgo One genus of seed fern Once the ashes had cleared, the survivors found more than plenty ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How Can the Coastlines Look Similar In Spite of the Cooler Temperature 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. (Case in point, the early Cretaceous.) Lower temperatures have more ice, which sucks up water like a spong... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Life in the Northern Hemisphere if Beringia Never Drowned 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. But Beringia had been connecting East to West in a continuous cycle, the earliest so far being in the la... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How Would a Filter-Feeding Marine Turtle Feed? 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 to separate food from water. But whales, being air-breathing mammals, have to be more innovative. That... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Could Multicellular Life Evolve Sans Cryogenian? Prior to the Cambrian, there have been three separate ice ages--the Huronian, from 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago; and the two Cryogenian ice ages, from 720 to 635 million years ago, split in such by a ten-million-year lull. Post-Huronian came the first eukaryotes, cells with a nucleus concealed withi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Can Mollusks Develop Bone Independently? 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 ago. Why they became extinct is still a subject of much debate, but some theories have been considered: ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Could the World's Rainshadows Have Spiny Forests? 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 science fiction: The Spiny Forests. These forests grow in the western half of Madagascar, where the m... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Whale-Tail and Seal-Legs in One Animal 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 feed in the water but breed on land. So as you can see, many marine mammals have one form or another, but ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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The Hadean Explosion? 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 (sponges) can thrive at oxygen levels of just 0.5%. And according to Kitsap Sun, jellyfish do better in... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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What Purpose Would a Unicorn's Horn Serve in the Wild? 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: The only problem with such comparisons is that real-life one-horned animals have their horns on a practi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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In This Alternate Europe, Where Does Mediterranean End and Cold North Begin? 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 only two mountain ranges in this alternate Europe--the ones we'd be familiar with are things of the far... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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If Earth's Moon Were Ganymede-Like, Part I: Rotation I know that in the past I posted questions on if specific bodies larger than the moon--Mars in one and Titan in another--but this series deals with questions regarding Earth's effects by a natural satellite like Ganymede in two ways--a diameter of 3,274 miles and orbiting its parent from a distance o... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Can A Theia-Like Object Make Earth Richer? Let's start with a little backstory--our planet underwent an impact-coalescence cycle only once, 4.5 billion years ago, when a Mars-sized object named Theia destroyed the infant Earth in a glancing blow. Since then, Earth has been orbited by a ball of rock 2,159 miles wide from a distance of 238,900... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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All the Radioactive Metals Inside Earth's Core--How Would They Affect Convection? In relation to a recent question of mine, this alternate Earth still has its core consisting of 84% iron, but the other 16% contains the greatest concentrations of all known species of heavy metals (defined by high atomic number and weight and a specific gravity greater than 5), including 100% of all... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Avian Crocodylomorph Today, dinosaurs, alligators, crocodiles, gharials and caimen are all that remains of a special group of reptiles called the archosaurs. Recently, it has been accepted by the public that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs but are themselves dinosaurs. But what if birds evolved from a different gro... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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If Earth's Core had ALL Of the Heavy Metals Back home, Earth had gone through an impact-coalesce cycle only once. Since then, its core has been 84% iron, 6% nickel and the rest being labeled by The Encyclopedia of Earth: A Complete Visual Guide as "Other". In this alternate scenario, Earth had gone through multiple impact-coalesce cycles ov... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A Raptorial Parrot This scenario is based on the kea, the world's only alpine parrot. Even though it eats plants like other parrots, it also eats meat, and therefore could be New Zealand's answer to the smaller diurnal raptors like hawks or falcons. But what if predatory psittaciform birds were global? Is the sh... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Extinction Equilibrium: 50% The last time I asked a worldbuilding extinction question, I asked on what sorts of factors would create an extinction event in which 96% of all terrestrial species and only 70% of marine species died out in a short span of time. In there, I got only two answers--a rogue ice age (not interesting, pe... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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An Inverse Great Dying 252 million years ago, the worst event in the history of life on Earth occurred. 70% of all terrestrial species and 96% of all marine species became extinct through, according to geological records, a combination of events--flood basalt eruptions in Siberia, runaway greenhouse effect caused by the m... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A Temperate Deciduous Monster--Too Big? What is a flower or shrub back home is a tree in an alternate Earth, and vice versa. That is something worth exploring. For example, Taraxacum officinale can grow from stems typically up to 5-40 centimeters tall, but sometimes up to 70 centimeters back home. In this alternate Earth, it grows f... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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The Rocky Side of the World Without Oil Lately, there has been speculation of what would happen if all the untapped oil, by the handwaving powers of the gods of television and money, disappear overnight. It has been explained, in varying degrees of detail, how this loss would affect life culturally, technologically and environmentally. Y... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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What Other Types of Broadleaves Would Grow in Subarctic Conditions? As it turns out, conifers are not the only trees to grow in boreal forests, or taiga. At the southernmost ends, the evergreens are mixed with such deciduous trees as: Birch Alder Willow Poplar Maple Elm Lime Rowan Now in an alternate Earth, the trees listed above either never existed or went ext... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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Are There Other Ways For Humans to Cool Down Besides Sweating? It's been said that sweating is the human way of shedding off excess heat. But to do that requires a loss of water, which makes the overall sensation miserable and uncomfortable. Are there other, drier ways for humans to prevent overheating without feeling uncomfortably damp? (Larger ears exclud... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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Can Pinnipeds Fit in a Worm Forest? In an alternate Earth, coral has been extinct for over 400 million years. In their place were the following: Bivalvia (clams, oysters, mussels) Cirripedia (barnacles) Canalipalpata (bristle-foot or fan-head worms) Together, they make up a new kind of reefbuilding habitat called a "worm forest". ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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The Multi-Purpose Horse: Stage I: Icelandic x Yakutian I am in pursuit of, as the title says, a multi-purpose horse, a single breed that can do all the things that the others were only specialized for: travel, labor, companionship, war, speed, strength. If dog-breeding is any indication, it's that finding the right mix takes some steps. So we start th... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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The World's a Jungle Again. Would Doldrums Blow the Global Air? From 56 to 34 million years ago, Earth was so warm that we have found evidence of jungle plants inside the Arctic Circle. Nowadays, jungles are confined in or near the equator, and those latitudes are dominated by only one type of wind--the doldrums. The doldrums is a colloquial expression deriv... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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Can Off-shore Calderas Exist? A caldera is usually the remnant of a volcanic eruption powerful enough to collapse the structure surrounding the magma chamber. Many of our examples, like Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Toba and even Ngorongoro, are inland, hundreds of miles from any seawater. The only exception I can think of is Santo... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A K-Type Binary Dawn/Dusk in the Equator In this alternate scenario, Earth is the third planet in a binary star system. One star is a K-type main sequence star--or "orange dwarf"--that has 80% the mass of a G-type main sequence star--or "yellow dwarf". Orbiting this star from a distance of 45 million miles is another orange dwarf, one tha... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Three of the Four Kinds of Volcanic Eruptions...Underwater A volcanic eruption is measured in two constants--gas and viscosity. For clearance, low viscosity is like squirting water off a nozzle, whereas high viscosity is like squirting caramel off a nozzle, which takes more effort to do, which makes it more dangerous. In geology, there are four different k... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Coastal Mountain Ranges--In Which the Mountains are the Coast One of the ways to create a major mountain range is a process called subduction. Here, heavy oceanic rock sinks beneath the lighter continental rock. The result--coastal mountain ranges like the Andes, the Aleutians, the Japanese and the Southern Alps. But look closer... Between the Pacific O... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Earth Orbits a K-Type Star. What Would the Visual Scenery Look Like? To clarify on the title, K-type main-sequence stars--shortened as "orange dwarves"--are subjects of excitement for astronomers and astrobiologists. Why? They emit enough radiation to provide a high-enough temperature to make water liquid but not high enough for solar radiation. (This would mean... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A Strand of Hair One Inch Wide It turns out that a single strand of human hair measures 17 to 181 millionths of a meter wide. But anyone who creates or reinvents a fictional species of humanoid has the freedom to change the dimension of the head, including the size of a strand of hair (if they choose to still have hair.) So in a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Non-Iron Skyscraper Framing I'll confess that I have a real issue with iron--it rusts quickly. In fact, the History Channel program Life After People constantly states that, left to its own devices, the iron that makes up a skyscraper's skeleton would have a standing lifespan of 100-150 years before rust weakens the skeleton i... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Can a Large Planet Orbit a Smaller Planet? Let me clarify on the title, because this is important. In recent years, people have been feeling less comfortable calling the only natural satellite orbiting Earth a moon. It may not be the largest satellite in the solar system, but in proportion to its mother planet, it takes top billing. In fac... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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The 372-Day Calendar There seems to be a connection between orbital revolution (one year) and distance from the star the body orbits. For example, Earth orbits the sun at a distance of 93 million miles and completes one revolution every 365 days. This alternate Earth has a longer calendar--372 days per revolution. Tha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Elbow Spikes on a Creature's Wing Believability of a fantasy creature can go so far. Case in point--the title feature. I have first seen it on a Ringwraith's winged mount... ...then on Smaug... ...and finally on the dragons of Tui T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire series. I never understood the appeal. Bats don't have it. Pt... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |