All Questions
233
questions
3
votes
3
answers
215
views
Can an organism have body structure materials that crumble upon being injured?
I'm working on building a species of wild animal, and I have several criteria in mind, and I'm looking for any glaring issues I may have missed that makes such a creature entirely infeasible ...
- 4,143
6
votes
2
answers
277
views
How do I justify the evolution of merpeople within a few million years?
I'm creating a sort of fantasy world that I'm still trying to keep scientifically accurate (it's more alternate history than anything since I'm having it take place in our world with a few points of ...
- 647
3
votes
1
answer
106
views
Cobalt chemosynthesis?
I want to create a world where everything revolves around cobalt and I was wondering if there are autotrophs that receive energy due to chemosynthesis involving cobalt compounds, is it possible?
- 41
4
votes
1
answer
163
views
Giant realistic Prototaxites like fungi in a hot climate
My planet is very similar to earth around 359 to 299 million years ago. years ago. It’s mostly covered in deserts, jungles, swamps, temperate forests, and their variants.
(The Carboniferous period)
...
- 1,260
6
votes
1
answer
189
views
(TW: Strangling) Would this character actually have any difficulty breathing?
((Alright, so! I don't even know if this is the right place to ask, but I hope to hear your thoughts. Sorry for the morbid topic and thanks in advance!))
In a comic I'll eventually draw, there's this ...
- 63
6
votes
3
answers
137
views
Solar-powered monster charging stations?
Lets assume we have a super advanced intelligent, possibly magical, Entity that wants to enroll Earth in a fun episode of monster invasion by making a bunch of demons and releasing them on Earth. The ...
- 8,485
19
votes
5
answers
3k
views
Are hydrocarbons viable foods for larger organisms?
There are some oil consuming bacteria which can break down hydrocarbons in the ocean. Since these tend to store a lot of energy, I was wondering whether it's possible for larger organisms to take ...
- 2,546
8
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Feasibility of life on a Flesh Planet?
The context is a spacefaring civilisation decides to dump its refuse and biomatter into space. Due to a technical error, the biomatter doesn't fall into the nearby star but instead finds a stable ...
- 187
5
votes
2
answers
270
views
Biological process that turns iron oxide into atomic iron
My human colony on Mars uses gentically modified archea/bacteria to turn dust collected from the surface of the planet into construction material and breathable oxygen. Technicalities of the ...
- 339
3
votes
1
answer
97
views
Can a solar powered biological stationary giant snake exist?
The Moon Jungle is known for its enormous trees with dense vegetation and fauna. However, there is a path where no tree or bush ever dares to block the way of day or moonlight. In this path stands ...
- 463
3
votes
3
answers
303
views
How would a plant like entity use animals?
The land is covered in structures of green coloring. Some look like igloos and some have veins pulsating and moving slowly with membranes which seem to almost be breathing the way lungs do. Some of ...
- 435
7
votes
4
answers
295
views
growing and farming metals
Is there any biological or environmental factor stopping animals or plants to be farmed for their metal absorbing qualities? Consider we are also counting creatures created through selective breeding, ...
- 435
5
votes
6
answers
2k
views
How could a living biological sword survive a spaceship crash and then isolation for millennia?
A sword with a blade made of metal, or the least, it looks metallic, shiny and clean. A sword as old or probably older than our civilization, it has writings on the blade, never seen before, never ...
- 435
3
votes
3
answers
266
views
How would changing pregnancy time affect a female human's metabolism?
If humans were altered so that pregnancy lasted only 3 months, what other biological challenges would this cause? Obviously it would have be at substantial increase in calorie intake to support the ...
- 20.2k
4
votes
2
answers
844
views
Would less gravity allow for larger flying creatures (like dragons)
From my superficial understanding of physics, it seems that large flying creatures like your typical Western dragon wouldn't be possible on Earth, specifically because they would always be too heavy.
...
- 149
4
votes
1
answer
347
views
Evolution of ossicones like structures to tentacle or trunk like limbs
A time ago I made a similar question which is this and some time after other similar which is this. So I can consider this new question an improvement or continuation of what I wanted to achieve with ...
- 2,625
6
votes
4
answers
727
views
Cryo-Pods For Unaltered Humans
OK, faster than light isn't possible & a merely significant fraction of it can begin to stretch the bounds of reasonable reality as that fraction increases // so a less unreal way to allow us our ...
- 9,673
4
votes
2
answers
777
views
Stimulant which kills the user in the absence of strenuous physical activity
I recently had an idea for a sci-fi story about death's row inmates (possibly war criminals) being subjected to an experimental stimulant which greatly increases their strength and agility, but will ...
- 677
12
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Boom of the Thunderbird
Could wings and feathers be capable of creating a sonic boom like whips do?
The thunder bird of native American myths was a large raptor that was often accompanied by bad weather and the sound of ...
- 1,250
11
votes
1
answer
620
views
Evolution of sexual parasitism in a species with small and intelligent females but large and "brute" males?
So, I had this idea about a sapient alien specie paritally based on the reproduction of the schistosoma
A flat worm specie in which the male is notorious bigger than the female, and this have a ...
- 2,625
11
votes
2
answers
3k
views
What would make a plant's leaves razor-sharp?
Imagine a field of plants that when walked through cuts human skin. Unlike a Stinging Nettle, the leaves would have to have razor-like edges, without the trichome hairs. The leaf edges should cause a ...
- 1,583
5
votes
1
answer
321
views
Are Aeroplankton a feasible food source?
On an Earth-like planet, you would assume oceanic plankton and terrestrial microorganisms would exist. But, could there be plankton in the sky? While there are certainly nutrients floating through the ...
- 1,583
2
votes
2
answers
207
views
What kind of atmosphere is needed for large floating organisms?
Assume you have an identical Earth-clone planet, what kind of atmosphere is required to have floating organisms? What I define as a large floating organism is something about the size of a bat, but ...
- 1,583
2
votes
2
answers
204
views
Can we live off hydrothermal vents?
I'm sketching a story about a rogue Earth (that is, Earth got flung out of the solar system) and how humanity could survive. One of the main problems is food. Hydroponic farms with grow lights are one ...
- 142k
0
votes
3
answers
385
views
How would a "flaming collar" work in an animal and how could it be useful? [closed]
This a concept which personally I see with a lot of visual style and epic to describe, to be implemented for a creature in a fictional world. Probably you can call this "burning head" or &...
- 2,625
8
votes
3
answers
346
views
Drop dead disease
Diseases kill people by messing up with some mechanism that is necessary for life. This generally means that they have a progression - for respiratory diseases, you will have difficulty breathing for ...
- 142k
5
votes
2
answers
143
views
Using Cellular DNA Reader to Counter Radiation Damage
I have a space based setting and would like to develop a mechanism that counters radiation damage.
Here is my idea:
The setting 100 years from now. A cellular organelle is developed similar to the ...
- 2,441
10
votes
3
answers
236
views
Increasing Speed of Neural Transmission by Embedding Material in Myelin Sheaths
I am building a science fiction world 100+ in the future with various human augmetics. One of the things I would like to do is speed up human thought. My preferred mechanism for embedding this ...
- 2,441
8
votes
3
answers
1k
views
How much can I expand human color perception by adding new photoreceptors?
Normally, the human retina contains four types of light-sensitive receptors (opsins): three types of cones and one type of rods. Receptors contain proteins-chromoproteins - iodopsin in rods, ...
- 1,519
3
votes
2
answers
174
views
Decomposers produce acid and depend on (liquid) water to perform their function. Is this world coherent?
About my idea:
The decomposers of this world perform the degradation by producing and diluting acid in liquid water molecules.
In this world, most decomposers are present in the seas and oceans. ...
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