Posts by Amadeus
I would suggest a large flying predator with a straight, thin, sharp horn. For evolutionary support consider a swordfish or narwhal tusk. The predator is evolved for a sneak swooping attack from ...
Say that the run-up acceleration to FTL has to be about 10% of light speed, that FTL depends upon a discovery involving a violation of symmetry in the Lorentz contraction (a consequence of relativi...
I cannot answer for pointed ears specifically, but the shape of ears is known, in audio science, to have an impact on sounds reflected into the ear canal. See here, an excerpt is below (The pinna ...
Speaking as a college professor that works in artificial intelligence, this is basically all impossible. Sentience would require some way for plants to both sense and "model" the world around them ...
I propose a double light web, and a (quite distant) robotic 'catcher' grid. Things in orbit move in nice predictable orbits, at least in the short term, and are only slightly affected by the gravi...
Genetically engineered recycling bacteria. Many varieties. Plus (perhaps) some new acids to help them along with harder breaking. The "natural" means of recycling for the Earth is biological deco...
It is a trade-off between benefits. Large settlements allow more efficient collective action, trade, etc. It is easier to dig one water well than 10 water wells. If I want all settlements to be ...
I am writing a fiction set in the 'dark ages', a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder world. On Earth that would be no later than 800 AD, but this doesn't have to match Earth. There is no magic, and I won...
Requires no exotic dimensional physics. For the same reasons we humans never visited either the North or South poles, until we developed the technology to do so a few hundred years ago. It's too ...
First, putting all morality issues aside, IQ can be well defined, and in fact it is, by current intelligence tests. For the purpose of this question simply divorce yourself from the notion that the...
It is not plausible for a self-destruct to have a count-down by purely mechanical or chemical means, especially one that could be stopped at the last second. HOWEVER, it makes a great deal of sens...
My grandson is autistic, through him I know a dozen other autistic children. A major problem with autistic children is a failure to understand the needs of other people, the pain of other people, ...
Natural Vaccination. Read about how Cowpox was used to vaccinate against Smallpox, this is our IRL first instance of vaccination against a disease. The word "vaccination," coined by Jenner in ...
Presuming the worm-holes or "warp space" are obstacle free and danger does not increase with speed, then I think there is no reason whatsoever to travel at less than the maximum sustainable non-dam...
edit: The OP allows plants, but no trees. Actually this is reasonable; woody trunks may well be an evolutionary response to predation and trampling by early animals; the fact that many trees can su...
Well, to make a desert planet habitable, you will need oxygen, unless your 1870's cowboys live in domed towns, which seems incongruous. Humans need to breath oxygen! You will also need water (could...
Behind a star or planet would be a good place; not in orbit but powered to remain behind it from the perspective of some other POV. However, any kind of "behind" implies a single direction or locat...
Any scientific reason would have to be in the make up of wood itself: See The Chemistry of Wood. Perhaps because wood was living cells; something the cells produce; everything from sugars (like in...
Heavy Metals. The heavy and rare elements can be produced in Supernova; things like Gold, Platinum, etc. There are other ways, but precisely how isn't important. But, they can produce them in mas...
You are incorrect. There is no "terminal velocity", that is a term used with air resistance (or it can apply to fluid resistance) when the amount of acceleration (due to gravity) is matched by the...
If the dark green is supposed to be forested area, it seem unusual to me to have a desert border it so tightly in the lower left quadrant. In my experience, desert transitions to mountain or rock, ...
I upvote some of the above. One answer not mentioned: ensuring there is nothing wrong with the star. I presume a galaxy spanning civilization knows a great deal more about stars and how they work ...
+1 to AngelPray comment. OTOH, if as specified it is just a sped up version of the normal healing process; then things like amputation and other surgical changes will still work, the doctors just n...
Yes. But it might not be satisfying... In particular, you can have two co-planets orbit each other (by all rights the Earth Moon system should be considered co-planets; the Moon is larger than mos...
Like Humans Are: I'd expect them to be rather weak and inept in the wild, former prey for bigger, stronger, more vicious animals, big brained that gained their dominant status through better insigh...
