Questions tagged [humans]
For questions about humans as we know them or slightly changed, their physiology, psychology, politics, society and goals.
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Which factors determine the political system of the various species from the Homo genus? [closed]
In my universe, there are sixteen species from the Homo genus: anatomically modern humans, marine humans (merfolk), winged humans (angels), demons, ogres, giants, dwarfs, elves, orcs, gnomes, trolls, ...
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Does it make sense for my "zombie" to drink blood?
I'm working on another arc for my story saga, and one of the characters is a "zombie". I'm putting "zombie" in quotations because he's actually the result of genetic ...
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What kind of side-effects might stimulating the pain-sensitive nerves have?
In a sci-fi story I'm working on, a group of aliens utilizes a implanted device that induces incredible pain solely by stimulating the nervous system; specifically, the nerves that tell you you're in ...
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How can I bypass Bergmann's rule in cold weather populations of humans?
I am working on a setting with a large native population of humans who live in a year-round freezing environment, somewhat akin to the real world Antarctic. These humans should be as biologically ...
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Evacuating earth in favor of a off-world habitat: Just how many people can be saved?
In 2024, NASA detects a pair of planetoids, each the size of the earth's moon, careening towards our solar system. The good news is that they're set to enter earth's orbit without any collisions (how ...
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How much could humans change in the span of 20.000 years? [duplicate]
So, in my world, humans were imported to the world about 20.000 years ago. The planet was terraformed to be an earth clone and has 2 Supercontinents.
Basically, I need traits that could have emerged ...
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How might a dragon escape from these advanced humans? [closed]
THE DRAGONS
When standing on all fours, a typical full-grown dragon is about 3 times as tall as a human. They are quadrupedal with four legs, opposable thumbs on the front legs, and two or four wings, ...
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How would human body evolve on a super-habitable world?
Assuming that a person can survive on a world that's super-habitable, with it's 1,5 atm atmosphere consisting in 38,4% of oxygen, with increased concentration of (~0,5%) hydrogen and (1,2%) carbon ...
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How can I force humanity to retreat to the ocean floor
I'm looking for an mass-extinction level event that would cause most life on the surface of Earth to be forced back to the oceans, one that is not feasibly reversible for humanity, before societal ...
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How would a person's abilities change on a super-habitable world?
Suppose that humanity arrives on a super-Earth. Surface gravity = 1,24 g. Atmospheric pressure = 1,5 atm. Atmospheric composition includes 38,4% oxygen + 1,2% carbon dioxide + 0,5% hydrogen
How ...
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Why would a settlement set up shop INSIDE a supermassive creature's mouth?
In a story idea I have, there is a massive, stationary beast, with teeth the size of houses, a body as large as a continent, and an unfathomably large mouth (don't ask how it sustains itself, nobody ...
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Could interspecies blood transfusion from organisms of various sizes occur?
In my universe, there are sixteen species from the Homo genus: anatomically modern humans, demons, angels, merfolk, ogres, giants, halflings, dwarves, elves, goblins, gnomes, orcs, trolls, vampires, ...
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After we drain the Sun and migrate, why would humanity find the Solar System important?
Long ago, our ancestors worked out how to travel faster than light: by sending craft directly into the Sun, employing fusion, quantum entanglement, and a healthy dose of handwavium/science ...
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How might these advanced humans restrain their dragon test subjects?
THE DRAGONS
When standing on all fours, a typical full-grown dragon is about 3 times as tall as a human. They are quadrupedal with opposable thumbs, with four legs and two or four wings, and can ...
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What changes to a humans physical form would occur if society lived inside the Earth?
(Mandatory I am new here, hello, nice to meet some fellow world builders, sorry for any mistakes, yikkity yak and all that)
In my "world", it has been 500 years since the majority of human ...
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What would be the effects of having no barrier between the conscious and subconscious? [closed]
A little background...
I have a story idea revolving around "Agent ROY-G-BIV" (the name is a reference to the 7 colors of the rainbow), a self-propagating form of electromagnetic radiation ...
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What are the evolutionary advantages to have facial hair for both sexes?
In my universe, there are sixteen living species from the Homo genus: anatomically modern humans, therianthropes, vampires, wizards, trolls, orcs, goblins, gnomes, ogres, dwarves, giants, halflings, ...
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What reasons might these advanced humans have to abduct and then dismember, traumatize, and possibly even kill dragons? [closed]
THE DRAGONS
When standing on all fours, a typical full-grown dragon is about 3 times as tall as a human. They are quadrupedal with opposable thumbs, with four legs and two or four wings, and can ...
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all human females except one is dead, how screwed is humanity?
inspired by this and this question. I'm wondering how screwed is humanity if the event like y: the last man is happening, but this time, it's the reverse.
so by that context :
by asb will, all human ...
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How tall can many-generational moon-dwellers become?
The Moon has been colonised and terraformed to a sufficient degree to support human life indefinitely. However humanity has lost the ability for space travel.
Moon women* prefer tall-dark-handsome men....
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How would a human organization get 20-foot tall fire-breathing, winged, sentient and intelligent lizards to comply with experimental procedures?
THE DRAGONS
When standing on all fours, a typical full-grown dragon is about 3 times as tall as a human. They are quadrupedal with opposable thumbs, with four legs and two or four wings, and can ...
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What observable traits set the MilkyWay apart from other Galaxies?
In a short story, Earth's humanity goes extinct due to a plague and a few thousands years later a space faring race plants a new seed of humans in attempt to restore what civilization used to be.
The ...
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A genetic disease that makes humans have much more brown fat than the average human being
I wonder if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
In my story The Transcendence of Adolescence, there is a 17 years old homosexual (or lesbian if you want) transgender woman named ...
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What does human vapor smell like?
We've had a few STEM questions asking for the total wattage necessary for a laser to vaporize a person. I would like to focus on the human aspects of it, specially relating to sensory experience. The ...
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A genetic disease that makes humans unable to produce adrenaline
I wonder if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
In a white drama/lighthearted tragedy (the opposite of black comedy/dark humour) web-series for a teen audience in mind I want to ...
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How might dragons react to humans kidnapping and 'training' dragons [closed]
Basically, the dragons are European dragons, with fire breath, wings, and everything else. They are normally highly independent, but will cooperate when under duress. They do have a writing system but ...
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A dragon just appeared in New York. What to do about it? [closed]
A dragon has appeared on the streets of New York. At the moment, it's bewildered, disoriented, and wondering what the heck happened. It hasn't done much aside from unintentional property damage here ...
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Is human meat sustainable as a food? What else could add to a full diet?
In this story, set sometime in the future, most farm animals have gone extinct due to diseases. I remember reading somewhere that the average human has around 100 thousand calories, meaning that one ...
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What would my phylogenetic tree composed of sixteen Homo species look like?
In my world, there are sixteen human species (mammalian species from the Homo genus):
Anatomically modern humans (no explanation is necessary);
Marine humans/Merfolk (they have a seal-like blubber, ...
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Alien war machines to non-lethally neutralize and disarm human combatants
In Designing a railgun to disable man-portable firearms, I asked about the specifics of the way that I had imagined for alien war-bots to disarm humans... but I was convinced by the accepted answer ...
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What environmental conditions would cause large humans to evolve?
For most of our evolutionary history, we did indeed live in Africa - but not just the eastern savannahs, as previously thought: our biological ancestors were distributed everywhere from Morocco to the ...
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How safe would deep-sea investigation of a nuclear battleground be?
Jormungandr, the snakebot of doom, is no more. Its remains are lying on the bottom of the sea in the Aleutian Trench to the south of the Rat Islands, where it was nuked to pieces by three hundred ...
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What changes might happen if a group of people began living in a cave full-time?
I've got a fairly small community of people that, after a genocide, some survivors moved into a cave system. They've been living there for about 5 or 6 generations now and rarely leave the caves ...
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How could my hybrids from species of the same genus with radically different appearance have more fertility issues but still be mostly fertile?
I want to know if my interspecific interbreeding is realistic or a total fiction.
Most animal hybrids are sterile (mostly the heterogametic sex according to Haldane's rule). Some famous examples ...
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Why would a family only go by their last names? [closed]
In my story there's a family which only refers to themselves by their last name. They only go by their first names when in company with other members of their family, but even then they tend to use a ...
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What are the evolutionary advantages to have epicanthic folds?
In my world, there are sixteen species that form together the living species of the Homo genus: anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sensu stricto), merfolk, angels, demons, ogres, giants, ...
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The Jumbled Jaunts of Jormungandr: How predictable is the Snakebot of Doom being? [closed]
Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom has left New York. The world's armies and air forces have been decimated and cannot stop it. It has moved on from New York, and has flattened the following North ...
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Do humans really need arms and legs?
Most humans have both arms and legs. This arrangement is quite useful out in nature, but it seems like as technology advances, this anatomy is becoming less and less necessary
Furthermore, space ...
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How far can a human see a human sized object in detail [closed]
I have a hero looking at a city under siege from a distance. He has some slight height advantage, say standing on a small mound or hill side, so I can ignore Earth curvature at the distances involved, ...
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Can sharkmen perceive your emotions?
alledgedly sharks can feel a humans heartbeat from a mile away or something like that, and they can perceive electrical signals, makes you wonder how come then they are dumb enough to confuse surfing ...
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data crystal ready, please insert the crystal inside your brain to continue. Wait! but where?
How to get smarter? easy! poke 2 holes in your brain and build a computer around the holes, the computer reads data from some usbs and sends the information to your brain, remove the usb and you also ...
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Is there a medical condition or neurological disorder that makes it so a person cannot make facial expressions?
I have a character who cannot smile, frown, express anger on their face, or make other expressions but can still move facial muscles to blink, eat, blush, puff cheeks and still feels emotions like ...
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An anthropomorphic personification of the new year [closed]
We humans have a long tradition of inventing personifications for otherwise impersonal events... such as Santa Claus, Krampus, the Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, the Tooth Fairy, Time, Death, Pestilence, ...
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Is use of virtual reality to explore taboo activities a good idea? [closed]
Let us suppose that virtual reality affecting all senses in a way virtually indistinguishable from reality exists.
Using this virtual reality, it would be possible for people with extreme, taboo ...
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Plants or something else that enriches distilled water
I'm writing a story in a world very similar to our Earth, but with few differences.
In this world, the "human" beings have to deal with the shortage of drinkable water. But they have plenty ...
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Could certain parts of someone's body have denser nerves than other parts?
This question is based on another question that I asked last year: How to Give an Ordinary Man Vampire Strength
That question was on the basis on one overlooked trait of Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, ...
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Would crossbreeding between humans and trolls always be taboo?
In the world in question, we have anatomically and psychologically normal humans living in a variety of societies. We also have trolls.
Trolls are a hominid species more closely related to humans ...
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A reason to require having a tube run down from the mouth to the lungs in order to breath
I have a human character who wears a gas mask over their mouth connecting to a tube that runs down to the lungs. They're meant to have a birth defect that made it very difficult to breath hence the ...
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How could a human biologically climb vertical walls?
I know that insects and geckos are able to do this because of clinging pads, or something like that, but they have a very low weight limit so therefore would not be able to support a human. So how ...
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Would we perceive more details if each of our eyes had different color cones?
Usually we have 3 types of color cones namely red, green and blue but 25% of us will have the 4th color cone that is rumored to be able to see 100 million colors that is about 100x more. But what if a ...
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