Posts by JohnWDailey
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 record...
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. ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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: ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 d...
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...
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...
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 varyin...
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 M...
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 othe...
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...
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, strengt...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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 nozzl...
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 th...
