New answers tagged biology
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Will the Anatomical Differences in These Humanoids Affect Baby Development?
Probably.
It's well documented that across species, body mass generally correlates with gestation period, with larger animals having longer pregnancies than smaller ones. We even see this effect ...
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Will the Anatomical Differences in These Humanoids Affect Baby Development?
Human gestation is mostly a timed balancing of two factors: as long as possible to allow brain development, without allowing the head to get so large that childbirth is fatal to the mother. Obviously ...
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How feasible would it be if cockroaches no bigger than an inch (2.5 centimetres) took fall damage from around 6-7 feet in the air or less?
Yeah, pretty much the same as everyone else has said ─ insects and other surface-heavy animals barely take damage from falling at all. cockroachzone.com notes that "Cockroaches don't get injured, ...
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How feasible would it be if cockroaches no bigger than an inch (2.5 centimetres) took fall damage from around 6-7 feet in the air or less?
Not feasible
Even if you scale them up to the size of a mouse, terminal velocity is only about 15 m/s, which is generally survivable by all but the most fragile creatures, especially since the squared-...
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How feasible would it be if cockroaches no bigger than an inch (2.5 centimetres) took fall damage from around 6-7 feet in the air or less?
Small creatures do not get damaged from falling because they quickly reach terminal velocity and thus do not hit that hard on the ground.
The only way to get away from this and get falling damage is ...
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What thickness of human flesh would have the same protective value as 100mm of RHA?
It's Impossible
Modern armies will use thermobaric weapons.
A thermobaric warhead is similar to a fuel-air explosive in that it spreads a flammable mixture in the air and then lights it up; except it'...
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What thickness of human flesh would have the same protective value as 100mm of RHA?
About 300mm
This video shows various numbers of leather sheets stopping bullets of various calibers. He does not say how thick they are exactly; so, I will estimate that they appear to be about 3mm ...
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What thickness of human flesh would have the same protective value as 100mm of RHA?
Mythbusters did something tangentially like this:
[How much muscle is bullet proof][1]
Here's your problem - against muscle, 14 inches of Cow Muscle was insufficient to stop small arms fire - IIRC ...
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Accepted
Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
So would an organism that uses XNA not be affected by any bacteria, viruses, etc., that would affect a normal, DNA using organism?
Viruses yes; bacteria no. The "immunity" to these ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
Replacing the alphabet for how the organism internally work might make it safe from infections due to DNA/RNA based organism, making the two mutually incompatible.
However you cannot exclude that the ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
If you're completely replacing the CTGA alphabet with something different, then existing pathogens wouldn't be able to interact with it. It would generate a completely different set of proteins which ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
It might complicate the existence of retroviruses, because they insert themselves into the host's DNA. RNA viruses would not be affected unless the RNA also changed.
Bacteria would not be affected at ...
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Would an XNA based organism be immune to all pathogens?
"Affected" is a broad term. If the creature operates under completely separate information carrying molecules, but everything else is familiar, then on a couple counts maybe. If not then the ...
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How fast can a cylinder spin, with a human on its inner wall, to NOT experience motion sickness?
As of 2007, NASA refers to anything under 3rpm (section 3.2) as "low rotation rates". The limit isn't a hard one, as our vestibular systems aren't standardized, so it's common to add in some ...
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Accepted
How fast can a cylinder spin, with a human on its inner wall, to NOT experience motion sickness?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity: It is generally believed that at 2 rotations per minute or less, no adverse effects from the Coriolis forces will occur, although humans have been ...
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Why would bioluminescence evolve in a Europa-like world?
However, in the seas of Tateos Prime, there is no sunlight, and therefore vision (at least in the visible-light spectrum) would never have evolved to begin with.
You don't need sunlight for sight to ...
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Accepted
Why would bioluminescence evolve in a Europa-like world?
"On Earth, bioluminescence arose because it was advantageous to organisms that had vision" - maybe. We don't really know why bioluminiscent bacteria evolved on Earth.
According to https://en....
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Why would bioluminescence evolve in a Europa-like world?
The problem in other words: why would a light-sensing organ develop if there is no light source, and why would bioluminescence evolve if there were no light-sensing organs, and how could they evolve ...
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Why would bioluminescence evolve in a Europa-like world?
Because even in the deep ocean, there are natural sources of light, and you don't need a complex eye to make use of them.
First, you've got geologic sources. Geothermal vents emit red and near-IR ...
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Assuming that most of the human experience is based on the body's biological makeup, what would someone experience if they were just a soul
No Experience
Emotions and thought come from the body and brain. The soul is has no body so does not experience things. It is like a copy of Pokémon red for the Gameboy Advance.
All the game data is ...
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Assuming that most of the human experience is based on the body's biological makeup, what would someone experience if they were just a soul
One answer might be found among ketamine experiences. It is an anaesthetic, and with a suitable dose, it is possible to experience loss of your senses (that means, also your body) while remaining ...
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Assuming that most of the human experience is based on the body's biological makeup, what would someone experience if they were just a soul
Decartes thought the Pinial gland acted as the link between the mind and the immortal soul. This is not quite as random as it sounds - it is enclosed in a membrane and doesn't seem to be taking ...
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What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
100%. Not entire surface will be perfect for life, but the same is true for Earth. We have Sahara mostly surrounded by water. Life exists in Sahara.
Some people mention that oceans necessary for life ...
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What is the most air-tight substance an organism can produce?
Some seaweeds actually have air bladders specifically for floatation:
https://sciencing.com/function-air-bladders-seaweed-8003965.html
If there was sufficient evolutionary pressure for such things ...
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How can a portal that connects two planets affect the environment?
An extinction event across both planets.
– Leading to a single biosphere.
A portal that connects two planets effectively turns them into one planet.
First of all, all airborne and droplet waterborne ...
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What is the most air-tight substance an organism can produce?
Cheeks
Looks pretty airtight to me!
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What is the most air-tight substance an organism can produce?
Air tight is not the problem
The most air tight substance is probably silica, produced by diatoms - it's tough, glass like and could form a very good seal. There's a range of biological substances ...
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What is the most air-tight substance an organism can produce?
Bladders
In ancient Greece, Rome, and China, bladders, from pigs, goats and other animals were used for ball games. They weren't as airtight as modern materials but constantly inflating them from ...
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Accepted
What is the most air-tight substance an organism can produce?
The most air-tight substance that an organism can produce is likely a combination of natural polymers, similar to those found in some biological structures. One such substance is chitin, which is a ...
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What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
In addition to Juraj's answer, it would also be possible for there to be no open water on the planet but abundant sub-surface water, with puddles existing for a short-ish time and then are absorbed ...
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Accepted
What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
Best estimates say a world can be habitable (for a sufficiently broad definition of habitable) within the range of 75% land to 15% land.
That is just to have stable gas ranges and enough humidity to ...
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What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
It may be possible with special chemistry of the planet's crust. It is rich in hygroscopic minerals that can absorb many times their weight in water while still solid. Many such compounds exist in ...
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What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
No oceans would be fine, but life like ours cannot evolve without a lot of of water in some form. Even in your percentages, we have lakes, ponds, creeks, rivers, rainfall, snowfall, even moist mists, ...
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What is the maximum amount of land (percentage-wise) a habitable planet can have?
If what you mean by "ocean" is a large body of surface-level water, then a planet can theoretically have 100% land while being able to host life. If you are talking about no water, a planet ...
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Is a naturally all "male" species possible?
Yes, in the case of long-term hybridisation.
There is a famous species complex within the cyprinids: https://web.archive.org/web/20101018022453/http://eobasileus.blogspot.com/2008/03/male-chauvinist-...
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Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
Not what you asked, but I'll give the answer anyway...
Legal "side effects"
The modified genome might be patented. Now, with our current bio-patent laws, things are a bit...fuzzy here. The ...
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Accepted
Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
It would depend on what sort of gene modding you intend the modified humans to have.
If it is introducing multiple new genes, say from other species or the like, then interbreeding would likely be ...
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Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
Most likely not
And that by definition makes them a different species! The issue is that having greater resilience against oxygen poisoning would require changing quite a few genes, as the issue is ...
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Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
This is up to the author. I believe that genetic modifications in this form CAN be made, and still have the children be inter-breedable.
The problem comes in if you have multiple gene sequences that ...
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Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
The answer to this question is:
It depends.
If the genetic engineering is performed as modifications in place to the existing genome, in such a way that genes are added and certain genes that all ...
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How long could a levitating fish stay out of the water?
Days to Months
Frame challenge! You may wish to consider some other inspirational fish that would give you a lot more freedom in species design for a magical levitating fish. Any common fish isn't ...
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How long could a levitating fish stay out of the water?
30 seconds to 10 minutes
Anglers try to keep time out of water under 30 seconds to avoid stressing out the fish. Fish already struggle to survive and stress doesn't help. But going over isn't certain ...
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Knocking Out Zombies
Slime mold cell structure
The slime mold is made by a lot of multinucleate amoeba-like cells. They are multinucleate in order to get better surviving chances if a cell is chopped in two halves. But ...
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Knocking Out Zombies
I think that you sort of answer your own question.
The question you have answered already (albeit implicitly) is "how do single slime molds, which are brainless, turn into a volitional organism?&...
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Is this super-soldier possible in reality
Something like this could be worth doing
So there are a lot of votes for "no, this is a bad idea", but there are also some pretty good reasons to support the idea of a taller stronger super ...
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Knocking Out Zombies
What if the mechanics were changed from the slime mold itself moving the bones to the slime mold coopting the nervous system? In that case a taser may disrupt their ability to integrate with the ...
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