Questions tagged [life]
For questions about the characteristics of living beings in different settings. This tag is not for questions about the daily life of characters.
132
questions
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1answer
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Synthetic hydro carbon based Life
This question includes Genuine Artificial intelligence as life so long as it is self replicating and sapient. Hard science only please.
Can a sapient self replicating entity be designed to exclusively ...
3
votes
1answer
108 views
Scientific explanation for rainbow fire or sparks from a biological entity
I recently re-watched guardians of the galaxy vol.2, and the creature at the beginning could shoot rainbow colored fire. This got me thinking, (as in my spare time sometimes I like to just write a ...
1
vote
2answers
116 views
Would this planet be habitable for intelligent lifeforms
I am trying to make a universe using math and this is a planet from the first solar system I am making. Firstly the star. This star, which I don't have a name for, has a mass of 1.3 solar masses, a ...
3
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6answers
281 views
How long can a vampire live?
Okay, say I have a castle with a single vampire living in it. They need to drink the blood of 5 humans per day to survive, but they can substitute with animal blood, or by taking small amounts from ...
4
votes
1answer
189 views
How would the ocean smell if there were no life in it?
My characters are on a planet with no life that somehow has a weakly breathable atmosphere. They're on a beach and they note the smell. This is salt water so maybe the smell is different from, say, a ...
10
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7answers
2k views
How can I change Earth to become like Mars?
Earth has its own current population, 7 billions individuals or so. Everything is going great: there are animals, rivers, houses and factories. The world as we know it (without pandemic!).
One day ...
1
vote
2answers
164 views
Is This Living Planet Plausible?
My idea is an planet that is one living organism wrapped all around an rocky foundation. It orbits an sun of one solar mass, and has an Earthlike radius. Its albedo is about 20%, so it gets 1098.4 W/m^...
3
votes
6answers
142 views
How will resurrection affect inheritance law? [closed]
In our world, but in the future, humans have just discovered a technology that will resurrect any person for which a sample of DNA can be obtained. Now, for the first time, some people have been ...
2
votes
3answers
222 views
Oceans of sugar?
Simple/Vague question but what would it take to have a world that oceans aren't salty but sweet? Oceans full of sugar is that even possible?. Also secondary question could life survive in the water?
2
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0answers
44 views
Tropical Moon Orbiting Gas Giant [duplicate]
I am asking this question, “How would it be possible for the moon of a gas giant to naturally be habitable for human life?” Specifically, I’m looking at these criteria:
Has a tropical climate with ...
6
votes
3answers
237 views
Can two distinct large isolated life pockets on the planet evolve independently and then merge without driving one another to extinction?
In the geological history of my planet, the plate tectonics resulted in the assembly of a kind of "ring supercontinent", that completely encircled a portion of the ocean and isolated it from ...
2
votes
2answers
181 views
A bacterial organism that survives on the surface of Venus
Yes, you read the title right.
Naturally this cannot be DNA/RNA based, the highest temperature organisms have survived as we know it is 122 degrees celsius and Venus surface is 4 times hotter on ...
2
votes
1answer
153 views
What systems would be needed to keep two halves of a spaceship viable for humans?
A large space colony transport ship (100 colonists) set off for Europa to populate a colony recently built by drones (near future, the 2070s). The six-year flight was going well until unidentified ...
1
vote
0answers
47 views
Life und a Double Planet System [closed]
i am currently working on a CG Short for my Portfolio. It takes place in a Binary system and just tells the Story of a Pilot on one of the Planets.
Anyways, my question for today is how we could ...
4
votes
7answers
522 views
How can we avoid the evolution of inductive reasoning?
Inductive reasoning is one of our most powerful thinking tools as humans. It allows us to find patterns in what we observe and generalize these patterns to predict what will happen in the future.
Even ...
1
vote
1answer
244 views
The Earth is our Moon - A Reality check for a Binary Planet System [closed]
This question is connected to another one I asked about Interstellar Transport Vehicles, but more concerned about what we could expect from a Binary Planet System.
So I want to talk about a few major ...
6
votes
2answers
88 views
How would multicellular organisms evolve in a microgravity ocean?
How would living organisms develop/evolve in a very-low g ocean environment?
The environment would be a small radioactive core surrounded by a small mass of water, less than 100 km in diameter, in the ...
18
votes
3answers
2k views
The cruel life-cycle of biscuits (cookies)
Captain's Log
For some time we have been monitoring broadcasts from a planet that calls itself "Earth". We have noticed that it is fond of placing short documentaries in slots between the ...
asked Jul 4 '20 at 21:12
chasly - supports Monica
46.3k12 gold badges138 silver badges288 bronze badges
2
votes
1answer
117 views
How would plasma-based lifeforms interact with physical matter?
I believe that I had previously wrote about the possibility of energy beings, although it seems that them being made of neutrinos is right out. So I instead thought of them being made of plasma. Some ...
6
votes
2answers
162 views
Is Oxygen necessary for the Sulfur Cycle?
I know that part of the Sulfur cycle requires elemental Sulfur to be oxidized. Every example I've found uses Oxygen and becomes some combination such as Sulfur Trioxide or Disulfur Trioxide. If other ...
1
vote
1answer
75 views
Could complex Precambrian life be possible?
I have a really good question. Could it be possible for complex life to have existed in the Precambrian? I’m aware that only the fossilized remains of bacteria have been discovered from that time ...
3
votes
3answers
728 views
Would scanning solar systems/planets for carbon concentrations be a viable way to search for alien life?
Working on a story about a crew of astronauts on a mission searching for evidence of alien life, either still living or long extinct. Not a biologist or chemist, but from my elementary understanding I ...
2
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2answers
117 views
How to plausibly reanimate a person?
What hypothetical scientific procedure could be used to reanimate someone who is brain dead. I am aware that it is possible to bring someone back if they are clinically dead which is where a vital ...
4
votes
2answers
154 views
Bending bones like metal bars
Any person who was once a stupid teen knows how it feels to break a bone and be stupid enough to pretend like nothing happened to hide the injury for weeks on end until their parents notice.... It is ...
1
vote
1answer
83 views
Lifespan of Plutonians [closed]
Honestly, I think my questions about a fictional Pluto are by far the interesting to me, so I have another question.
Now that I’ve got my humanoids pinned down, and what protects them from the cold, ...
2
votes
5answers
268 views
In what way would a regenerating undead be “undead”?
We all know an undead is a reanimated corpse, something rotten and decomposing yet still animated. Normally an undead (if made of flesh) will have an expiration date after which it won't be able to ...
9
votes
2answers
148 views
Could life generate twice on a planet using slightly different materials?
Extremely low possibility, but if life synthesizes from scratch after life has existed on a planet for a few million years, would the two separate lineages be able to co-exist?
15
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12answers
3k views
Habitable Planet with Highly Eliptical Orbit
Would it be possible for life to develop on a planet with a highly elliptical orbit? (Similar to a comet, but possibly less extreme.) If so, what conditions would be necessary and what would the life ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Could bacteria survive on a star?
If the right requirements are met, could bacteria survive on the Sun?
The bacteria would spend most of their time in hibernation and reproducing, and when the time comes, they spread out on plasma ...
5
votes
3answers
240 views
Living machines. At which point can machines be considered a life form or organic?
I found this definition of life. Life is a thing that can adapt to its environment, grow and replicate. But mechanical, electrical, and electro-mechanical machines are never called alive.
People ...
-1
votes
2answers
192 views
What would life be if humans had a healing factor? [closed]
The main premise is that since homo sapiens evolved, humanity has possessed a healing factor similar to wolverine, but lesser.
How would modern-day life be different?
1
vote
1answer
116 views
I'm building a fantasy world with three large moons and orbiting a distant sun. I need help with the following: [closed]
1 - What might the days and nights be like, in terms of comparative temperatures and length, with three moons gravity and a massive orbit?
1
vote
3answers
183 views
Reason/Mechanism for seemingly randomly lengthened lifespans in characters in a roughly viking-age world [closed]
So here's the deal. I'm working with the idea that in my world, people can have very different lifespans. Most people live a normal lifespan - the book is set in a fantasy world roughly equivalent to ...
5
votes
1answer
179 views
Plausibility of Hexapodal Aerial Megafauna
How plausible is a six-limbed flying animal roughly the size of hatzegopteryx to be aerial? In this case, an aerial animal will be defined as a creature that solely inhabits the sky. I will call the ...
2
votes
2answers
141 views
How long until land life can return after the impact?
So, it finally happened. The Earth was hit by a comet, and anyone outside of a research station at the bottom of the Atlantic is now dead, or dying. So, here's what we need to know:
How big would a ...
6
votes
2answers
221 views
Hanging World - Trees
Scenario
A civilization is living on an ancient super structure, they don't know much about it, they just live there and have lived there for as long as they know. For our current situation we can ...
6
votes
1answer
120 views
Environment/Ecosystem for a “Sunfall” colony
I've read a lot of posts about moons around large gas giants and I think I have fairly good idea about basics to them. I'm not super great with all the science parts myself but they give me lots of ...
7
votes
2answers
297 views
If humans evolved on Mars instead of Earth, how quickly would we have detected life on Earth?
Suppose that both Earth and Mars was booming with life in a similar way. Except that, on Earth, there was no hominid family, and no humans evolved. Instead, humans evolved on Mars.
Assuming we had ...
4
votes
2answers
786 views
How Would Ammonia-Based Life Evolve? [closed]
EDIT:
The planet/moon has a high mass, and has a similar atmosphere to Jupiter or Saturn. These organisms will be silicon-ammonia based, and breathe hydrogen. There will be very little oxygen in the ...
7
votes
5answers
208 views
Adapting to a sonic world
A planet much like Earth orbits a star much like the Sun, but with one difference: the energy from the star is magically transformed into sound within the planet's atmosphere. There is no longer ...
10
votes
2answers
183 views
Algae using UV light from auroras for photosynthesis
I was reading some questions on Quora and I found this claim:
The polar regions have a very odd reason for them to have so much oxygen production. You see the Polar aurora run day and night in the ...
6
votes
5answers
175 views
Planetary neighbors
Let's say there is another planet in our solar system that harbours sentient life and this sentient life can build castles, buildings, and other such structures.
When would we notice that?
We can ...
4
votes
1answer
130 views
How much of our solar system can you change without breaking the science of life on earth? [closed]
I am making a near-future setting that takes place in an alternate solar system that's similar to ours (one planet with life, a moon, and other planets without life and their associated moons).
And ...
3
votes
3answers
146 views
Planet with two independent forms of life? [duplicate]
Suppose there is a planet fertilized with Earth-like life (characterized by proteins, nucleic acids, DNA, RNA) and a completely independent form of life, but also water and carbon based with different ...
4
votes
2answers
201 views
Born and raised on a world with longer days and years - would it impact life expectancy
If humans found a habitable world and access to it, what would the effects be of a longer day to those who were subsequently born and raised there?
Is there any evidence that a longer day cycle (of ...
6
votes
1answer
189 views
How could a foam habitat support animal life?
Knowing foam is formed by trapping pockets of gas in a liquid or solid, what could a foam able to support life on an earth-like planet be made of?
This foam ought to be stable enough and large enough ...
2
votes
6answers
226 views
Life on land, sea, and what else? [closed]
On earth there are two main media that support complex animal life. One is the sea, with creatures living both on the seabed and the water; Another is the land, with animals that live both on it and ...
10
votes
3answers
715 views
Appropriate liquid/solvent for life in my underground environment on Venus
Partly inspired by this question
My Venusians are happy in their cloud top city when a small group somehow (with lots of handwaving) crashes to the surface, falls underground, and ends up in a hidden ...
24
votes
13answers
6k views
How would fantasy dwarves exist, realistically? [duplicate]
I've never ever seen even a suggestion of an idea of how dwarves actually can live how they are most often depicted - underground without handwaving or magic (which is just a fancy word for "...
4
votes
1answer
173 views
Would life be possible on a planet that has an axis of rotation that always “pointed” directly at the sun? [duplicate]
Preface: I'll be calling call the orbit described in the question title a "solar-oriented orbit" for the sake of convenience, as "a planet that has an axis of rotation that always pointed directly at ...
