Posts tagged diseases
If we could replace DNA, RNA and the ribosomes in our cells by their mirror image versions, then everything would work in the same way, except that the chirality of all molecules would have been in...
After surveying customers about their new product, 2019-nCoV™, E.V.I.L. Inc. realized that many of them would pay for an upgrade which allows for the virus to be carried by the wind itself in order...
Wendigo fever is a Prion (credit goes to SE is too politically correct for the idea) which is spread by the consumption of tainted meat. the main problem I have is to my knowledge Prions are solely...
A domestic terrorist organization has come to light due to recent terror attacks that they claim responsibility for. This group has developed a biological weaponized plague that attacks the nervous...
It is believed that Wendigos are supernatural beings with an insatiable hunger for human flesh, or humans who are selfish and commit cannibalism and while the latter is more accurate, Wendigo fever...
Is this even remotely possible? Source Outline: Coral Polyps (along with their copious Calcium Carbonate excretions) are the individual organisms that make up the super-organism we identify as...
For a book that I'm working on I am plotting out various points in time to make sure my plot is following accordingly. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post. It is a fungus-like infection tha...
Is it plausible that a virus could contaminate the entire ocean to where humans that enter it are highly likely to contract the virus? It doesn't necessarily have to be the whole ocean what with th...
In my story, I have two late renaissance era cultures discovering each other for the first time and I plan for the story to develop into more of how they both understand each other. However, I don'...
I am writing a story, in which a mad scientist (based on Ted Kaczynski) wants to kill as many people as possible with an artificially created disease. The idea is, that more complex societies are ...
In my story, something pretty insane happens during the 3rd season. The common conception was that an asteroid strike contributed to the extinction to dinosaurs, but unbeknownst to all it was not...
I've been reading about viral vectors and am looking to incorporate it into my setting. From what I can see, it's possible to use viral vectors as a form of gene therapy, and retroviruses can work ...
Context: Humans have escaped a a super-bacteria, similar in situation to the Bubonic Plague, that they could not create a cure for. They've done this by engineering gargantuan trees and adapting to...
We're in the United States, sometime in the next few years. Through a series of circumstances, a viral outbreak occurs in the country. For the sake of detail, this is how it happens: A scientific...
First question so hope I'm doing this right! Working on a setting right now where a bio-engineered virus/plague is wiping out a large portion of humanity. Most died upon first exposure. Some surviv...
If a person is sent out of their hermetically sealed community and in the process becomes immune to a deadly disease. When the person returns will the immunity make them a carrier and infect/kill a...
I'm writing a drama book and it's meant to be taken 100% seriously, and the main character was born with an allergy to $H_2O$. She does not have Aquagenic Urticaria, as that only affects the skin. ...
I'm working on a novel, in which a character was given a cutting edge vaccination to a deadly disease. She is now valuable because she was the only one given the vaccine and the research to make mo...
In a near-future sci-fi world, I described a disease with the following characteristics: Affects human female children (not necessarily exclusively). Is a neurodegenerative or similar disorder,...
Whilst not strictly relevant to this question, the questions and answers may interest the curious: this is the 4th in a series of question here - 1, 2, 3. My population (in excess of 500,000) und...
Demonic possession occurs when an evil spirit hijacks the biological system of an organism, corrupting it and taking control of its functions. Although powerful, the possession eventually breaks do...
Cold and Flu, are common viruses which normally infect us in the cold of winter. Ironically, those people who always keep themselves warm, stay less out-of-the-house and office, keep their windows ...
I am curious if there is a way for a disease to negatively effect the intelligence of humans;reducing them to non-sapient ferals in the end. I am curious what such a disease would need to do to eff...
Pathogen Note: For the purpose of this question I define a pathogen to include viruses and/or bacteria. Edit: I don't exclude other biological agents such as fungi that might have the same effect...
I want to know if the disease I invented is logical or just a total fiction. A parasite (parasitic fungus) lives within the human brain. It infects other humans by releasing spores while invokin...
An airborne disease with an incubation time of 18 years goes unnoticed, but spreads across the world. 18 years later, its "timer" goes off, killing all adults. Good idea (thanks, @Morfium !), but I...
it's pretty straight forward, how could a scientist such as a doctor, identify that nano-robots are the cause of some disease without knowing what it is looking for ? It would somehow need to be b...
In a world big enough for human civilizations as knowledgeable about medicine as ours to develop without contacting each other, how could they initiate that contact without exposing each other to p...
Starting in 541"“542 AD, the Plague of Justinian and a series of subsequent outbreaks killed between 13-26% of the world's population. The plagues were caused by Yersinia pestis, the same microorga...
I'm looking for ideas for a highly contagious airborne biological weapon (virus, bacteria, other) that would kill its host in a matter of days to a week or so, but that, once all infected hosts are...
Would it be possible to have a disease that only affected people in a certain age group, more specifically, teenagers? And what would the virus be targeting?
A secret group of environmentalist ultra-extremists has engineered a virus (or virus-like pathogen) with the purpose of making all of humanity extinct (yes, including themselves). They are aware th...
I would like to know what would happen if a new virus arose which could not be cured and which managed to escape the infected areas (and any quarantine zones). In order to scope this question I'm n...
Diseases in nature tend to naturally become less virulent over time, in part, because the disease vector changes and in part because the host population develops immunity to it. How possible is it...
I'm toying with an idea to have a plague sweep across the galaxy in my story. At first I was thinking to have a plague, something similar to the Black Death, devastate populations across the galaxy...
How genetically different do my human-arthropod hybrid have to be to humans to not be at risk of prion diseases when eating humans? I don't want my monsters to eat a brain for a quick snack and the...
In an alternate timeline, Ceasar lives, forges an alliance by marriage with Egypt and dominates the entire Mediterranean. He then performs a raft of economic and political reforms that basically sk...
I am writing a fiction set in the 'dark ages', a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder world. On Earth that would be no later than 800 AD, but this doesn't have to match Earth. There is no magic, and I won...
/Edit : so, I would like to create character which is supposed to have some metal grafted under his skin, but by under his skin I mean straight under, like a second layer. This is supposed to be li...
What would be a situation in modern times where normal, healthy people would want to get infected by a non-curable, but non-lethal, virus? A virus that would have pretty nasty symptoms. There...
My world - basically Earth all along, unless told otherwise - is populated by humans and few fantasy-based "races" (actually, species - any interbreed offspring, if possible, is infertile): elves, ...
The Scenario: A technologically advanced mother culture wants to manage mass outbreaks of virulent disease in its technologically regressed colonies, who are inclined to resist most of what the mot...
So I have a brain parasite that needs to enter the skull of a host organism (in this case humans) with the least amount of effort, but is too large to enter through the circulatory system and must ...
Background story: In near future (max 10 years from now) mega-rich person suffers yet unknown disease. He obviously employs every doctor possible and spends loads from his fortune on researching, w...
In a SciFi world I'm building with other people, we'd like to create a planet with an infection outbreak going on. There are wildlings. They are pretty primitive, have stone tools and wood houses. ...
In Plague-inc the most typical strategy is trying to infect everyone, while staying hidden by not harming infected people (when a virus, bacteria, fungus is found, people start working on the cure)...
Has a loose base in this earlier question of mine, although today we will be working with modern (roughly) tech levels and bacteria. It was pointed out in the accepted answer that bacteria might be...
An illness has been slowly spreading throughout the inhabitants of my agrarian society, decimating villages. The first sign of infection is the excessive production of slimy yellow saliva, and sinc...
Is it possible that there might be a virus (of the giant, ancient, frozen-in-glaciers type) that is, for lack of a better explanation, double-layered? As in the first layer affects the host and the...