Posts tagged genetics
So I'm the owner of a startup which is going to make our lives easier with custom-DNA creatures! Our few first products are selling very well and nothing was wrong until last week's events. Anothe...
The Objective Lots of questions at this site consider how humans could be enhanced with genetic engineering. But, if you are an alien, you may have the opposite priorities. These aliens are civil...
Basically I want my character to have only gotten their powers through the luck of two parents with the right genes mixing. Technically, given enough time and enough generations of breeding, couldn...
So, this is for a "space drama" that is set in the not too distant future. The world is running out of resources, but has developed an rudimentary interplanetary travel capability. Several planet...
A flaw very often pointed out in your run of the mill genetic terror story is the instant effect of genetic changes. What would it take for a specific change in the specimen to actually appear (ne...
I am in pursuit of, as the title says, a multi-purpose horse, a single breed that can do all the things that the others were only specialized for: travel, labor, companionship, war, speed, strengt...
In this question, we were provided a look at what would happen if a human-like species was capable of moving faster than the speed of sound. The consequences of such a modification seem rather disa...
Life on Earth pretty early on settled on deoxyribonucleic acid organized in chains of base pairs as the means to code for the construction of proteins which make up a lifeform. It also has the bene...
The Context I have a group of genetically engineered people known as 'crows'. Their genome has been meddled with significantly enough that they are unable to successfully reproduce with humans, bu...
I am writing a science fiction story with mass produced clones. Since I have a number of clone I need to tell them apart. The ID system must be: Permanent over the lifetime of the clone (call it ...
Inspired by this question: Sexual reproduction without biological sex And, to a lesser extent, this question: Would a society of simultaneous hermaphrodites have gender roles? I'm not particularl...
Assumptions One habitable world in each system (blue sun system and yellow sun system). The two worlds are fundamentally Earth-like. The native humanoid species on each world are genetically comp...
Plain and simple: could your offspring's offspring be genetically identical to you? What conditions would this be possible under, if any?
For a species I am working on, there is a specific genetic trait that I want to introduce into the population. The exact nature of either is not important for the purposes of this question, but the...
In the year 21--, a crew of 100 sets out from Earth on the good ship Tenzing Norgay, bound for Epsilon Eridani. The journey is estimated to take . . . well, quite some time, given that it was calcu...
(Edited question to meet concerns) The Problem Can you create synthetic biology that can be installed temporarily in human DNA to give people skills at birth, or are there problems, risks and lim...
I am trying to figure out the sex-determination of a very foreign form of reproduction. A species has three sexes X, Y, and Z. X produces X gametes, Y produces Y gametes, Z produces Z gametes. The...
Okay, it's a staple amongst certain fantasy settings where you have different races of creatures and beings co-habiting, which leads to certain off-shoots of different races (the half-elf and half-...
This is my first post here, but here we go: I have been creating an alien world for a while, and the sentient species on it is very canine-like. They have a canine body, legs, and head, and the on...
My question is about unusual hereditary traits in humans. I'm new here and this is my first question - apologies in advance if I've accidentally messed this up or covered existing ground. I'm writ...
Imagine a child of mixed race, one parent is human and one is an alien who has some ability humans do not have, for the sake of argument telepathy. I'm assuming there is some advanced medical assis...
In my particular Earth, much has remained after the human-killing virus, and nature is thriving - even taking over the cities. It's beautiful. But I have separated the healthy populace in orbit u...
This question is based on the articles saying that the Mongoloid body plan was all due to an individual mutation from 35,000 years ago. In science fiction, humanoid aliens that aren't of the human...
Obligatory Premise In the year 2201, Diego OfeAde has been in control of Mars for 50 years. He has moved mankind into Valles Marineris and his aggressive population expansion program has seen t...
In the History Channel program Clash of the Gods, some of the highlit characters have been given some interesting physical liberties. The episode "Minotaur" features King Minos with a meerkat-like...
Doctor Eric Von Dufe may be a mad scientist, but he still has to work on his evil side. His latest plan? Create small versions of large animals and large versions of small animals. Assuming he has ...
Elephants are some of the most intellingent mammals, and they have large brain sizes compared to people. They are said to present self-awareness among other things. How could one go about raising ...
I'm working on a story that is set in the future where human females have evolved to have a fertile period once a year for two months. Is such an evolution scientifically feasible?
In a non-magical world where homo sapiens has evolved into several races or breeds (like dogs) or even species as in Q10102 and Q12190, that can interbreed for the most part, how can one model the ...
In one of my more recent questions, one Xandar The Zenon commented that a mutation that creates the gene for red or orange pigmentation on the human skin is more likely than green, blue or purple. ...
Suppose humans discovered a beautiful new world they wanted to inhabit, far from the political machinations and military affairs of the alien-populated universe. They established a few colonies on ...
In my world magic is conferred genetically. Their are five "types" of magic, which never mix. You either have one type, or you have another (or none at all, the sixth option), you never have a mix ...
(I'm talking binary:Male and female) This is post apocalyptic scenario. I'm writing a short story and storyline"‹ is as follows: In a distant future: After the world war there are only a few thous...
A group of 35 superhumans from the future get trapped on the alternative Earth still in the Dark Ages. Banding together they take control of a small country and establish themselves up as kings and...
I'm thinking about using this as a sort of meta explanation for how Orcs (and possibly other things as well) are different than humans (in muscularity), but I'm not entirely sure what the result of...
This cat looks like a normal Maine Coon to the unsuspecting victim. Except for one little detail: Red claws that inject a neurotoxin into the victim onpon scratching it. What would be the most app...
Some of our ancestors were more robust than modern humans. Could they adapt to a 2-g world better than we might? Maybe even 3-g? Over time their bodies could evolve, i.e. only the most robust wou...
A hypothetical organism is tetraploid and isogametous. To reproduce, four haploid gametes must meet and fuse into a tetraploid zygote. Any four individuals are sexually compatible, barring self-inc...
Toxic Spiders and Experiments Gone Wrong: Let's Talk About Comic Book Mutations Numerous superheroes get their powers after something mutates their cells. Perhaps it's a gamma ray, and result...
Kind of a "universal donor" or "universal recipient"? Aliens that can take on the qualities of several kinds of species and recombine them to make a kind of "super" being?
I did some quick research on DNA and I know it can be damaged by different sorts of mutagens. I also know that this kind of damage can lead to cancer. Though I'm not entirely sure of where exactly ...
It has become common knowledge among mammalologists that the origins of our most iconic rides, the horse, stemmed from the tarpan, a breed of wild horse that became extinct as recently as 1909 CE. ...
To My Valued Fellows, As we are all aware, our people have made tremendous progress both evolutionarily and technologically. Thanks to us, our species is protected from the ravages of cancer and w...
Nature does some pretty interesting things with gender: This is a female trilobite beetle. Scientists have observed females extensively, yet for decades, scientists could not identify the male ...
No matter which mammal you are talking about, be it a rodent or a bat or a cat or an elephant or a whale, all have the same lung size--7% of the entire body volume. In this alternate scenario, the...
After watching this brilliant video by Shoddycast about Stimpaks in the Fallout universe: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CLY-FMxsb2U I started to wonder. Just how many of science fiction's most me...
How would I change the evolution of humans to result in horns on humans as a result of reproductive fitness, instead of social fitness. Meaning, NEITHER "Horns are sexy", or some strange infection....
History shows that most inventors of groundbreaking new technologies, for example, the light bulb or the telephone were not actually the first to invent this technology and that there were actually...
I'm designing a creature that has found a new way to evolve directly during its life time. This method is different from having to bear incredible environmental stress or being a victim to violent ...
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