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Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: How can a terrorist group link a biological plague to a specific genetic signature? Genetic genealogy testing can already identify people as belonging to various minority ethnic groups. Some are better than others. For example, Ashkenazi (generally, Jews with Eastern and Central European ancestry within the last couple hundred years) DNA markers are fairly robust and show up as ex... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Realistic Demonic Possession Follow the lead of many many Science Fiction movies, TV shows, and books that create aliens or fantasy creatures as real beings and give them the ability to "possess" human beings and control their minds or bodies. "These very real beings are what humans thought were demons" is a pretty common trope... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can someone be immortal and still age? Eternal youth and immortality are two completely different superpowers. Eternal youth bestowed at the moment of birth is a curse. While the person could learn things, the lack of motor control and the lack of pruning in the brain would be permanent (unless you change the specifics of the curse). E... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to explain one side of Super Earth is smoother than the other side? The planet orbits its star normally but it has a moon whose orbit is such that the moon is visible from one side of the planet but not the other. The planet's day is long enough that the moon does not have to have a particularly fast orbit in order to match the planet's spin. The moon has been slow... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Anal Retentiveness in a tribal nomadic society - why would it be advantageous? Just tweak their physiology so something about doing it on the journey makes things dangerous. Or it takes too much time. Or maybe it's because of predators tracking them. Things are safer in the oasis. Or it's a hygiene issue. They have to wait until they're someplace with more water. This c... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How long could humans survive on my planet? Start off with a safe village/colony. People living in the parts of rural Africa with wild lions will surround their villages with thorn bushes the lions don't cross (for example, acacia thorns in East Africa). This doesn't eliminate attacks but it greatly reduces them. Or a modern version. O... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it theoretically possible for the human body to not defecate? The real question is, for how long? Short-term: Sure. A few days or even weeks is doable and shouldn't cause any lasting harm. Long-term: Only if you have to. There are consequences to your health. A friend of mine lived for years with nothing but a central line and drinking water. She had profo... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Life in the Northern Hemisphere if Beringia Never Drowned The best choice isn't on your list: Mastodons vs Woolley Mammoths. Both, unlike their Elephant cousins, do well in the cold. They represent two distinct species of the Proboscidean family. From your list though, I'm gonna say.. Dogs. Wolves are already native to the American side of Beringia. ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Everyday tasks on a space ship ...once they reach a planet, they do research. Nope. They're doing research all the time. That's their full-time employment. Aside from the usual time off, it's nonstop research. Once they reach a planet, they do fieldwork. That means collecting samples, interviewing or observing people, ob... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why bother programming facial expressions for artificial intelligence if humans are bad at recognising them? Humans are actually very good at recognizing facial expressions and body language. While it's true that large numbers of people are terrible at it, it's only in comparison to the average human. Assuming unimpaired vision and intelligence, humans use facial expressions to tell who among a group of p... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Ideal Time Period for a Global Pandemic If you want to wipe out 80% of the world's population with a disease that has an 80% fatality rate, then every person on the planet (or close enough to round up to 100%) has to catch it within the designated time period. Normally I'd agree with others who have written about the horrific flu epidemic... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Proper technique for eating grass? Cooking Cooking plant materials takes care of the problem of the grasses being too hard on our teeth or digestive systems. In many cases, breaking down the fibers and so forth will release more calories and micronutrients. Some of this can also be done with fermentation. Once a species has the ab... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Life in permanent shadow Some plants and animals would focus on the borderlands. While regular shade could exist anywhere, mountains and other large geology would give the deepest shade, enough to change the climate. The border areas would have the most balanced climates (breezes could normalize temperature differences to s... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What could make a ship made of pumice seaworthy? Pumice is composed of highly microvesicular glass pyroclastic with very thin, translucent bubble walls of extrusive igneous rock...It forms when volcanic gases exsolving from viscous magma form bubbles that remain within the viscous magma as it cools to glass...Pumice has an average porosi... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Could DNA Survive in Outer Space? Blood is not the best substance here. Most of the tests for genetic genealogy and genetic medical testing use saliva or epithelial inner cheek cells. Saliva officially lasts for about a year if properly contained. Cheek wipes with a q-tip can last years. In both cases, a simple glass or plastic c... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What does my dragon sound like? Your dragons are self-sustaining MIDIs and synthesizers. They sound like a slightly artificial version of any noise on the planet. All human languages, the output of all instruments, all birds, all insects, all mammals, all frequencies. They can re-create the sounds of a thunderstorm, a volcano, ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I keep an area next to a mountain range from being a desert? So you want a less eroded version of the Appalachian Mountains? If rain (and humidity) come from the ocean, mountains will not stop areas between the ocean and the mountains from getting that rain. The existing East Coast of the United States is quite wet, because the rain does come from the Atlant... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Verbally communicating with a no-lips, no-nosed, spiked tooth alien Note: The OP clarified the question in such a way that completely changes my answer. I am leaving my original answer below for reference, as it works well for a similar creature that doesn't have a tongue or closable lips, as the original picture showed and the original text implied. Your creature ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Locking an old spaceship from the outside? Get a lockbox. These things are sturdy and not something you could break open with a hammer. You have better tech than modern-day Earth though, so you can use even stronger materials. Something that a circular saw couldn't cut. While this box only has about 1000 possible combinations, you could... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Best place on an humanoid body to develop biological radio? I would make it part of the cochlea. Either as a separate organ or as an enhancement of the cochlea. The nerves, ducts, and other parts of the cochlea are very small and delicate and you wouldn't want to mess with them. But if you replaced this organ with one that allowed the person to continue ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What are the architectural considerations when an underwater species builds a city? Marine mammals can stay underwater for 10 mins to 2 hours tops. This is fantastic compared to humans, but not enough to justify an underwater city. Underwater storage units maybe. Your species is a cross between elephant seals and orcas. The former holds the underwater record: 2 hours (though the... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How might a purely mechanical 'voice' function? BACKGROUND (setting the context for my answer): I actually used to be a researcher in a university lab that created the software for voice synthesizers back in the 1980's. At that time, all the synthesizers used recordings of human voices and edited examples of each phoneme (the sound you might ass... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How long can a preserved human body last before turning to dust? There are a variety of preservation techniques with different results. Obviously you want to avoid ones where the body is not free to move around. Extensive wrapping, immersion, etc won't work unless the techniques are temporary. Desiccation. Drying the body in a warm arid place will preserve it f... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Biological healer, how does it work? Traditional Chinese Medicine works with chi (often spelled qi) (a real thing that Western Science can't really explain very well) to help the body heal itself. While this usually happens with the use of acupuncture needles or other direct stimulation to the points and channels (acupressure, massag... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Earth under one roof: Feasible? Could an entire neighborhood or even an entire city be that crowded? Sure. Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City was probably the densest neighbourhood in history, with more than 1,000,000 people per sq km. Photograph: Alamy Kowloon Walled City was 119 times as dense as New York City.Greg Girard While ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Technology to produce food without land, what will happen with the land next? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Unlimited food!! Unlimited energy!! Woo hoo!!! (What do you mean it's not really unlimited? Shush, you're harshing my feel, or whatever the kids say these days.) Look at that piece of flat perfect land over there. No rocks, no trees, no muddy swamps. ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: how can I ensure that the amount of jing that a person has at birth is completely random? So is this real-life jing (also), part of Traditional Chinese Medicine and related disciplines, with maybe some supernatural/fantasy twists? Or some made-up thing that is similar and has the same name? The real-life kind is inherited, in a way. Chinese and Western terms often do not overlap well... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can a bird survive self ignition? The birds have two layers of feathers. The layer closest to the skin is fireproof. Not 100% because that would be extremely difficult, but enough to last 1-2 minutes. They will not ignite in that time and they provide some insulation from the worst of the heat. The layer over the insulating lay... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What energy sources would a species use if they didn't have access to fossil fuels? Poop! Poop! And more Poop! But seriously, dried animal dung is a very common fuel, even today in some places. You can burn it like wood. Dry dung fuel (or dry manure fuel) is animal feces that has been dried in order to be used as a fuel source. It is used as a fuel in many countries arou... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How would constant rhythmic tsunamis affect the coast lines of the Atlantic Ocean? Really big tides and really low tides. With the average exactly where it is right now. There might be multiple high and low tides (vs the two a day of each that we have now). Because the Earth rotates through two tidal "bulges" every lunar day, coastal areas experience two high and two low ti... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: A parasite that infects humans who are over the age of 25 The parasite lies dorment in wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth usually emerge sometime between the ages of 17 and 25. They have that name because their emergence generally coincides with maturation, with adulthood. Wisdom teeth are unique because there is only one set of them. For all the other teeth, t... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Natural uncovering of desert ruins I can't do better than Wilik's answer, but I'd like to add to it. The land flooded and the sea built up with silt and eventually dried completely, leaving only desert. As it dried, it left a crust perhaps a foot or two thick (30-60 cm). I'm thinking limestone or something similar. This crust isn'... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	*A: How might a naturally-occuring geographical barrier between two areas suddenly* become permeable so that a few people can cross it?** Drought. Basing this on your explanatory comment: Most roads have been destroyed (mudslides, earthquakes, floods), cars are a thing of the past, water is scarce. Drought will lower the level of lakes and rivers. While the levels won't change super quickly, they still have tides (larger lak... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How advanced would human civilization get if it was destroyed by insects every 20 years? Presumably the insects swarm, gorge, breed, then either die or hibernate. Then come out in force 20 years later after the eggs have hatched and the larvae mature into adults who can fly and who need human blood in order to support breeding. Humans have 20 years to find and kill the eggs or to kil... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How could a species that breathes through its skin develop spoken language? In our human world, languages can be signed via movement of the arms, hands, and fingers (with the latter two communicating the most information) or they can be spoken with air moving up from the lungs, over the vocal cords, and then shaped by the vocal tract. Spoken language can be done without air... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Best Foods/Plants to Grow in Generational Spaceship? Protein: Crickets are not only the food fad of the moment but they are easy to raise, don't have the same ethical problems to kill as most meat animals, and are loaded with protein. My spouse thinks they taste terrific. They can be even roasted or ground into a flour for cooking. Oysters can be ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How would an advanced civilization on a space station not be able to explore the planet they orbit without significant time between each expedition? It's like The Girls of Atomic City. That's a terrific nonfiction book about women who worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during WWII doing Uranium enrichment work to aid the Manhattan Project. Very deliberately, the people in charge of the project made sure that no one except some top-level people knew... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Do these plants make sense in the way I want them to establish in my world? Altitude. While your plants can grow and thrive underground and just above ground level, they only flower and fruit in high altitude. Originally they existed in more mountainous regions but they have evolved to grow taller as the moved (via seed or root) to lower elevations. They can spread with r... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What would be the necessary conditions to rain bubbles? 1) Wind formations that lift from the ocean and bring particulate and other light matter into clouds over the land. 2) Regular lightening strikes into the ocean causing: Dead carcasses of very fatty sealife. Lye formation (also chlorine formation, but assume the different weights work out such tha... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can a radioactive planet kill most fetuses in utero, but not give everyone cancer? The radiation actually poses no direct ill effect to humans But the radiation triggers a virus that normally lies dormant. This virus is similar to viruses we have on earth, like Rubella or Chickenpox, in that it has little to no lasting effect on children or adults but it wrecks havoc on fetuses. ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Semi-accessible continent Dragons, Like Birds, Navigate via Magnetic Markers Part of the sea near the far continent has something that causes the magnetic pull of the earth to behave erratically. Or add in some sort of electro-magnetic disruption that messes with their heads in a way that doesn't affect humans (much). It i... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Plausibility of another extremely intelligent species evolving who finds the remains of our existence and emulates our society My first thought when reading the question was that you were describing a sudden end to human life followed by (or at the same time as) an alien landing. Could the alien species reverse-engineer our technology and benefit from the remnants of our culture? (I can imagine scenarios where the survivin... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the earliest age an actual baby can use his vocal chords to speak? You're asking about radically different things. Age to communicate via the vocal cords? Zero. All (normally developing) neonates can communicate via the vocal cords. Screaming, etc. Initially, there is basically one word: FIX-ME!! As infants develop, they quickly are able to differentiate thei... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: South Polar Bears Polar bears eat ice seals (and some others). Could they learn to eat Antarctic seals instead? Maybe. Would they eat penguins? Maybe. In both cases, the hunting for them would be different, as the habitat isn't the same and the prey animals have different habits. This would change the balance of... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What would it take to create insulin in the post-apocalypse? Many Type II diabetics use insulin and others may use different medications that affect insulin production and use but in a slower way. Diet works in most people here. Eat very lowcarb. It's not "starvation." Type I diabetics don't produce insulin and require it to metabolize their food. A ver... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I prevent a human sacrifice from dying before a ritual is complete? Do the carving over a long period of time. The advantage here is you get scar tissue that forms the patterns. Divide it up into, say, a dozen sessions over the course of a year (or a month if you prefer, though that is harder on the body). With plenty of time to heal inbetween. Blood loss is no... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Realistic geological and chemical composition of an edible planetary surface Many soils are already edible. Clay. In fact, clay is harvested and purified as a nutritional supplement. It doesn't add nutrition but it is used in that manner...you can eat clay to help detox the body from bad foods or from toxic materials. Check out: https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/enc... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can you safely extend childbearing age if menopause isn't a factor? Okay, your science is WAY off. 1) While it's true that women lose a fair number of eggs from their ovaries every month, well beyond the number of mature eggs that are released, your actual numbers are not consistent with known science. Look it up again and please edit with the correct numbers. 2) ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Potential causes for generational deafness in space colony First, I'll say that it would be a lot better to have your characters descend from or be raised by capital D Deaf people. This way you get an established Sign Language (which can morph like any language will) vs having to spontaneously create one. I've actually seen a first generation Sign Language... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Aliens performing successful medical procedure on humans at first contact? If there are a few injured humans and we presume their injuries are different (they could be related, like everyone has a broken bone but in a different place) then the humans can help the aliens help them. One human has a slow bleed so the humans that can will mime, point, maybe even search the ali... (more)	—	about 6 years ago