Name: FAWAZ: Date: 15th August Topic: science and imagination;

`Speculative fiction` involves things that are imagined. It covers many different styles including science fiction, horror and fantasy. Imagined organisms in speculative fiction are usually scientifically impossible but some are based on real life. Centaurs appeared in Ancient Greek writing about 2500 years ago. They still appear in speculative fiction today (e.g. Harry Potter books). The idea for centaurs may have come from warriors on horse back invading areas where people had not learned to ride. Centaurs are meant to be the result of mating a human with a horse. This is impossible. Horses and humans are different species. A species is a group of similar organisms that produce off spring that can also reproduce. Members of two different species cannot usually produce offspring. If they do, the offspring is called a hybrid and cannot reproduce.

Each individual has different characteristics. Your characteristics describe what you look like (e.g. your eye colour, skin colour curliness of your hair). Differences in characteristics are called variation. There is a lot of variation between members of different species.