Questions tagged [xenobiology]
For questions related to the biology of extra-terrestrial organisms. This tag implies the use of the science-fiction tag. Use the science-based or hard-science tags to impose greater scientific restrictions (see warning in tag wiki). The goal of this tag is to answer the question using known science.
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Are Liquid Brains Possible or Viable?
I'm designing an alien species roughly based on starfish. Starfish in the real world don't have brains or blood, they just let seawater run their nervous and circulatory systems, but I figure a ...
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How long would it take humans to notice a civilization on Venus?
Now I know this is a very weird and impossible question, there is clearly no civilization on Venus. But for the sake of the story I'm cooking up in my head, Venus remains habitable and develops life ...
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What factors allow some species to outcompete species formed by the local environment and become invasive? [closed]
If an invasive species is introduced to a new environment, why can they outcompete local species in the same niche, if they specifically evolved in this local environment and are adapted to it, ...
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How would researchers on an alien planet be able to support their dietary requirements?
A group of scientists travels to a newly discovered planet shown to support life in the form of plants and animals. Obviously they can only bring so much food with them so at some point they would ...
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How reasonable is my hypothesis regarding ring-tailed orthostatic bipeds?
So, in my process of designing humanoid/humanesque sapient aliens, I often find myself wanting to have a species which are orthostatic (upright) bipeds like humans but which nonetheless have long ...
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Is my alien foot design viable for a compromise between arboreality and cursoriality?
I keep trying to design humanoid and humanesque sapient aliens, but I often run into issues with the feet; In an orthostatic biped, an enlarged first toe (big toe) is probably essential to maintain ...
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How could my organism lose most of its water?
I'm writing a short hard-science story about an organism that loses most of its water much like tardigrades before entering dormancy but this organism is the size of a cat, how could I explain this ...
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Alternatives to amino acids
Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and, therefore, one of the key components of life as we know it.
There are many amino acids in nature, but they all stem from the same basic structure.
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Biped species with trunk evolved to use for locomotion
So currently in my speculative evolution scenario, I have a creature with an elongated trunk that it uses for rock climbing. This species transitions to a savannah like lifestyle and I was wondering ...
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Plausibility of life emerging and evolving on gas giant moons?
I have been working on the setting for a hard speculative biology/evolution project that for now will simply be referred to as the Gemini Project, and the main issue I've been having is whether or not ...
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Could Aluminum-Based Placoderm-like Tooth Structure Break a Human Skull?
I have a monster in mind, but a major part of its introduction to the story is that I want to have it bite a human soldier's skull clean off. Its teeth are similar in structure to a Placoderm's, but ...
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Muons as an Energy Source for Life
I had an idea of making a bacterium use muons from cosmic rays for energy storage purposes.
Muons are heavier versions of electrons, but unlike electrons, they aren't very stable and last only for 2.2 ...
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Could a planet 2 times the mass of earth have floating organisms in its skies
Can a planet 2 times the mass of earth have floating animals in its skys? I watched the netflix documentary series ailen world's and one of the exoplanets atlas was high gravity but was very dense so ...
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What pressures would force most life to possess external stomachs, and how would they avoid losing moisture on an Arid planet?
The zoology of my setting takes place on a mostly dry planet - it's certainly got rainfall, seas, and wetlands in certain ecoregions, and life exists there mostly, but some things still live in more ...
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Indium and Gallium Toxicity: Part 2
Note: This is the second part of a question. The first part can be found here.
Incorporating some feedback from the answers I got to the question above, I have made a few changes.
Here is some ...
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Indium and Gallium Toxicity: Part 1 [closed]
I am making a planet and my crust is rich in gallium and its heavy counterpart, indium from a cosmic fluke (gallium and indium are both at a concentration of about 0.01% in the crust). However, most ...
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How plausible might planimals be, and what would they be like?
This question is in relation to speculative biology/evolution: A genre of science fiction and hypothetical branch of science which seeks to explore "what if" questions about life using ...
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Could plants orbiting an active enough star (one that’s around F-type) evolve photo-voltaic cells as the star “calms down”?
Wanted to create Flora (and maybe organisms overall) that evolved near stark white coloration due to the high output of radiation from it’s, at the time, high energy F-Type star.
It’s a star and of it’...
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Fingers with extra joints
The second and third editions of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game featured a humanoid race (named an Arcane in 2nd edition and a Mercane in later editions) with a particular anatomical quirk,...
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Insectoids and the concept of 'eating well' [closed]
In this project of mine a species of sapient, spacefaring insectoids exists among humans and humanoid species. The insectoids are puzzled by something in humanoid cultures- specifically the idea of ...
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Is there a maximum number of fingers a species can have in each hand? [closed]
We have 5 fingers in each hand (10 fingers in both hands). So we count in a base of 10 (decimal base) which has the accepted digits of 0 to 9. Higher bases have more accepted digits; for example ...
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How to support the evolution of a giant creature across generations [closed]
In my story, in which I want to rely on scientific logic as much as possible, I want a creature to evolve to become at least the size of a country and you can live in space.
The means of evolution for ...
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Symbiotic brain [closed]
I like to take mythological humanoid creatures and reimagine them in multiple species of primates. For instance, wendigos are just skinny-but-strong gigantopithecus that wear bones/skull of their prey....
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How to Optimize CO2 and H2 Intake for a Sessile Methane-Producing Organism
What features, in addition to maximizing surface area, are necessary to optimize the intake of CO2 and H2 for a sessile, multicellular methanogenic organism?
This organism lives at depths of 10 ...
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Adaptations for a planet with high atmospheric pressure, to avoid nitrogen narcosis?
I'm building a some hypothetical habitable planets for a book, and one of these planets has a thick atmosphere (around 10 bar). I'm not sure if it's even possible, but I want to figure out how the ...
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My humanoid aliens inhabit a rainforest planet and are super smart -- what do they look like? [closed]
I'm currently working on a sci-fi game and need some ideas for one of the alien species.
They live on a rain forest planet and are one of the most intelligent species in the game. They also need to be ...
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Exotic life in a brown dwarf
From what I have seen in the discussions here about possible life on brown dwarfs, it’s concluded that no complex chemical life (even metallic or CNT based ones) can survive the radiation and gravity ...
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Feasibility of a convergent neural code across species?
I've got a sort of "mind-reading" system involving interpretation of electric fields/impulses in the brain, basically an advanced BCI (brain-computer interface), but the key point of this ...
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Xenon Anesthetic Hazard
I have been designing a planet with an atmosphere of about:
Nitrogen (N2) - 61.5%
Oxygen (O2) - 21%
Neon (Ne) - 15.5%
Xenon (Xe) - 1%
Water Vapor (H2O) - 0.5%
Argon (Ar) - 0.479%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) ...
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Could a planet with three-quarter earth gravity and neon-/argon-based atmosphere exist, and what would life do with it? [closed]
I'm creating a world with three-quarters the gravity of Earth, and the composition of the atmosphere is as followed:
74% Neon (or Argon)
18% Nitrogen
5% Oxygen
1.6% Carbon Dioxide
0.9% Water Vapor
0....
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Are there any alternative genetic systems which could allow for the development of emergent complexity?
DISCLAIMER: I am an (intensely interested) layman, not a scientist. Please take my summation of the following concepts accordingly.
I'm currently trying to worldbuild a plausible alien species down to ...
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Ammonia transporting blood
Okay essentially I am designing an alien ecosystem with an ammonia and methane based metabolism. Here's the formula for the metabolism animal analogs use on this planet:
$$\ce{3CH2O + 4NH3 -> 3CH4 +...
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How to evolve biological radios?
Radio Thinkers
Creatures that communicate by biological radio pops up in science fiction occasionally and it's a fun idea. However, there are some practical concerns with regards to evolving a radio ...
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What explanations can be used for how a humanoid's body is able to spontaneously combust as a natural part of its early stage decomposition?
Some form of chemical reaction interacting with the digestive system for a start?
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Biological human-alien language barrier
Something I've been pondering- spacefaring humanity makes contact with alien species who, while being intelligent enough to learn to understand human languages, their throats or vocal cords (assuming ...
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Xenobiology of extraterrestrial parasitic superorganism
I'm looking to devise an extraterrestrial parasitic organism that perpetuates itself by infecting entire stellar biospheres before moving on to colonize other inhabited star systems. This organism ...
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How deep underwater can red photosynthesis work?
The Setting:
I have a binary star system.
First star: K5.2V class Orange Dwarf, 60% the mass of Sol, 17% luminosity of Sol, and at 4.5 billion years old. This star is the only one with a planetary ...
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How would a hydrogen breathing Life-form respire?
What kind of cellular structure converts hydrogen and oxygen to water and vice-versa. If have calculated the energy released by the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen to be 572 kJ enough to create 22 ...
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How would Boron-Nitrogen-Based Life Appear at the Scale of Tissues, Proteinoids, or Cells?
I have been struggling recently to find how boron-nitrogen compounds might affect the shape, texture, etc. of lifeforms that utilize it as a base substance. So far I have created precursors to cells, ...
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High Gravity Giant Shell
I am designing a genus of eusocial, high-temperature, extraterrestrials from the planet 61 Virginis b. They are based on tungsten chloride and use sodium chloride as a solvent. This species has ...
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Is there any plausible way for dry-vacuum based biology to evolve?
Basically instead of being what we would call wet nanotechnology which is what our biology could be described as, imagine if you will, organisms that evolved from 'dry nanotechnology' who are native ...
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Is there any way a species could evolve to run across lava using the leidenfrost effect?
So far all I really know is that the leidenfrost effect would work, just not exactly how the species would have evolved it, but I do know it would require a store of water, likely like that of a camel....
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How does this microbe recognize specific chemical patterns?
This species of bacteria is electroreceptive, and when it receives an input pattern of electric spikes, it can “translate” that input pattern into a pattern of chemical signals internally via its ...
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Biology of hermaphrodite species
How from a evolutionary standpoint hermaphrodite species can exist and have a good genetic diversity, with no self-impregnation?
But, this race visually looks more like females, they do have breasts
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If we were to discover an alien ecosystem that has a D-configuration of proteins, how would it react to our L-sided biology?
I'm working on a hard-sci-fi story where a scientist discovers microorganisms in our solar system with disastrous results. I was thinking about how any cross-contamination with an alien ecosystem ...
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Replacing Light in Photosynthesis with Electric Energy
I am currently attempting to construct my alien planet with exotic forms of life that use alternative metabolisms.
I got an idea that I could perhaps somehow replace the photon energy required in ...
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How could a carbon-based mechanical lifeform evolve naturally? [closed]
Imagine that there is an inhabitable planet that has just been discovered by human colonists. All of the unicellular life and some multicellular life such as plants is normal carbon based life made of ...
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What would cause protein shapes to be the same across unrelated species?
One sort of “rule” I’m working with in my world is that among carbon-based, protein-having species, even those from different planets with no shared evolutionary ancestry, proteins that may be ...
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Is this Wingspan Enough/Necessary for My World's Parameters?
I have a species of sapient humanoids in my world capable of flight using 24 foot wide wings. The world's being used for a science-fantasy world, so I'd like some realism, but some can be handwaved. ...
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Exobiology Using Hydrazine as an Alternative (or Supplementary) Solvent to Water
My question is this - are there any reasons why hydrazine may jump out as a poor solvent for a complex system such as life?
I am working on a worldbuilding sci-fi project and I was looking through a ...
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