Questions tagged [diseases]
For questions related to a disorder (illness, disease and sickness) that affects the function or structure of an organism.
238
questions
18
votes
10answers
5k views
What would be the average civilian's first hints that a zombie apocalypse was near in a pre-mass internet world?
I'm a big fan of zombie fiction, but one aspect that is rarely touched upon is how things look in the first stages of an apocalypse scenario. If you were an average civilian in the mid 90's when the ...
10
votes
5answers
2k views
How do Roman analogues purify air in a mushroom forest?
The Valyn are a Roman analogue who have been exiled to live in a hostile mushroom forest with daily mist in the vein of a Cloud forest. The air is absolutely brimming with mold, spores, and ...
2
votes
2answers
99 views
If the world was perfect, how would we know how to decipher imperfections?
I've always wondered that if everything was always "good", how would we know that there was something "less good" to distinguish the "good" from the "less good"?...
17
votes
9answers
4k views
What disease could my time traveler find a definitive 'cure' for, without recognizing the specific disease
I've been toying with a story of person sent to a alternate reality that mirrors medieval Europe, but not necessarily with identical history/countries. The time traveler would earn the trust/support ...
5
votes
3answers
92 views
How species-specific are tropical diseases and parasites?
Following on from a recent question about animals, concerning a group of people traveling sideways in time, to a world that resembles Earth as it would have been had humans never evolved, it occurs to ...
4
votes
1answer
72 views
Infectious diabetes [closed]
I want to know if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
I imagined a hypothetical viral disease that causes a contagious form of diabetes. It is only transmitted by blood. The virus ...
3
votes
4answers
587 views
Can a virus that causes forced evolution exist?
I recently watched a movie called The Cave. In the movie there's a group of spelunkers that get trapped in the cave with a bunch of blind monsters. towards the end of the movie, we find out that the ...
17
votes
10answers
5k views
“A disease killed a king in six months. What disease was it?” Fantasy, some magical healing
I'm currently trying to plot out a novel, the sequel to my Salamander and Brothers. Part of the plot involves a succession struggle. I mention in one of the previous books, set about fifteen years ...
-2
votes
3answers
173 views
How could civilization deal with a prion pandemic? [closed]
Prions are misfolded proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases. They are smaller than viruses and they are the smallest known infectous pathogen. Somehow they could reproduce on their own and the ...
32
votes
9answers
8k views
Can we get rid of all illnesses by a year of Total Extreme Quarantine?
Earth-Year: 2618.
Location: Planet Hope, Proxima Centauri.
Terraformation status: 97.8% Earth-like.
Population: 128.596.
The residents of this planet live in a paradise-like environment. The gravity ...
5
votes
3answers
250 views
Infectious hemophilia
I want to know if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
Coagulopathies or bleeding disorders, like hemophilia, and Von Willebrand's syndrome, are diseases in which the blood's ...
10
votes
3answers
177 views
How can an illness make one's eyes turn green?
I'm designing an illness found in a set group of people. Its effects worsen over time. They suffer from various issues such as nose and mouth bleeding, along with some form of anemia, lingering ...
1
vote
1answer
119 views
A genetic disorder that makes people look like an elephant and a whale
I want to know if the genetic syndrome I invented is logical or just a total fiction.
There are seven symptoms:
Gigantism;
Truncal obesity;
Alopecia universalis (the complete absence of hair all over ...
2
votes
1answer
126 views
Genetic disorder that would be the opposite of achondroplasia
Achondroplasia is a form of dwarfism that is characterized by short limbs and normal-sized abdomen, torso, neck, and head.
Could there be a form of gigantism that is characterized by long limbs and ...
2
votes
3answers
90 views
I need a disease or illness in young adults [closed]
I'm writing a story that involves the main character finding out she has some kind of disease or illness and how she deals with it immediately after. She's 20 years old and has been healthy up to this ...
7
votes
3answers
231 views
Drop dead disease
Diseases kill people by messing up with some mechanism that is necessary for life. This generally means that they have a progression - for respiratory diseases, you will have difficulty breathing for ...
4
votes
3answers
214 views
How could zombies infect the population of an entire town? [closed]
There is a zombie apocalypse scenario where one zombie appeared in a small town in America. Would it be possible or plausible for them to take over? My problem is that the military would just quickly ...
5
votes
3answers
169 views
A Rabid Black Death, Part I: How Virulent Would it Be?
Our first record of rabies, the infamous foaming madness disease, dated all the way back to 2000 BC. The foaming at the mouth and excessive aggression are among the most recognizable symptoms of ...
19
votes
14answers
5k views
Would a Pre-Columbian America with its own plagues still be vulnerable to Old World diseases?
Most of the Native Americans in our history were killed by smallpox, measles, etcetera, and this video makes a good case for why: though the Americas had cities of their own, they lacked many options ...
5
votes
3answers
185 views
How can a government really track the source of infection during a pandemics?
How can a government really track the source of infection during a pandemics
An airborne pandemic is affecting the entire country and the hospitals are overflowing with patients. The number of severe ...
3
votes
6answers
248 views
Could a bug sting induce a human body to explode?
The setup is similar to a funny horror movie or like Troma movies. Deaths only happen to insignificant, unnamed characters.
However, I would like to have some plausible science back-up (maybe slightly ...
2
votes
1answer
119 views
A very strange and specific pathogen
The pathogen is dormant, spread amongst the lymph nodes and other places within an animal commonly found in places of relatively high temperatures, near volcanoes and similar locations. It remains ...
5
votes
2answers
233 views
How to Safely Sterilize Europa?
In The Lost Fleet series, it's established that a genetically-engineered disease was accidentally released on Europa, which wiped out all the colonists present. By the time of the series, an insane ...
6
votes
4answers
335 views
Closest real neurological disorder to the state of being an eldritch entity?
This is going to take some explaining, but the basic idea is thus:
In the world I'm creating, if matter is exposed to enough magical energy it ceases to respect the laws of physics and becomes known ...
6
votes
3answers
775 views
Lethal Pandemic
I'm looking to create a lethal disease for a sci-fi book. The plot surrounds a group of rich people taking teenagers off earth to start a new life away from this illness. The pandemic has been going ...
1
vote
1answer
103 views
I need to find a disease [duplicate]
I am currently working on character building in preparation for my first movie screenplay. One of my characters is a 15-17 year old girl with a terminal disease. Here are some requirements for the ...
17
votes
16answers
6k views
How do I ensure that two characters survive the black death without making them naturally immune?
Everyone in my community is collapsing to the ground and dying painfully. My husband, he is one of the few remaining men to bury the dead and I worry that soon I'll be left alone.
How do I ensure that ...
4
votes
4answers
301 views
How would WW1 trench warfare be fought if a biological weapon was released on one side by the other?
Sawdust bread, trenches with mud reaching up to your ankles, artillery pounding each other nearly 24/7, troops crossing no-man’s land only to be cut down by heavy machine gun fire...
Trench warfare ...
1
vote
2answers
100 views
Diseases that require long-term hospital admission [closed]
Is there an illness wherein
1) it can be diagnosed in teens(16-18 preferably) and could eventually lead to death.
2) it requires long-term admission to the hospital because the condition may ...
1
vote
2answers
203 views
Changing humans to their mirror image versions to become immune to infectious 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 ...
9
votes
1answer
833 views
Placebo-worthy drug?
Are there any medicine out there specifically used to treat serious illnesses (it could be something as simple as painkillers to something for a very rare chronic illness) that could be swapped out ...
2
votes
1answer
37 views
What disease prevents donating bone marrow? [closed]
In my story character signed agreement by which he had to donate bone marrow to person in need of it in exchange of money. Right after signing agreement, character received money (lets say its enough ...
3
votes
3answers
113 views
In futuristic domed cities terrified of pandemics, how would spread be prevented between domes?
With the Covid-19 pandemic currently underway, it's a bit easier to imagine a world where the virus is more lethal and even brutal measures are used to contain the spread of diseases. In the scenario ...
24
votes
13answers
5k views
How does a disease cause its hosts to travel more?
Diseases that cause changes in the behaviour of their hosts are nothing new. Rabies causing animals to bite others is the best known example, but there are plenty of other (often nightmarish) ...
4
votes
4answers
358 views
How would a world occupied by just teenagers occur? [duplicate]
My story is set in a post apocalyptic setting where there are only teenagers and children. Also, cities are overrun with knee high grass and large lakes. Animals have evolved and have gotten more ...
2
votes
1answer
135 views
Can 2019-nCoV be altered to be carried by the wind?
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 to ...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
How could a pathogen feed on silicon while infecting humans? [closed]
How could a pathogen feed on silicon in computers while infecting humans with a high degree of success?
The world here is a few years away from general AI and the commercialization of GM humans. Non-...
0
votes
1answer
211 views
Time travelling virus anno 1900
One of the most well known, but commonly ignored issues of time travel is this:
Due to the fact that viruses and bacteria constantly evolve, diseases that we are today resistant to have never before ...
1
vote
1answer
119 views
What would a moderately more advanced society on Earth do to stop a pandemic? [closed]
The Coronavirus is spreading all over the world and it seems to be airborne, highly contagious and hard to contain. If I survive, I want to write a pandemic story. Let’s say there is an airborne virus ...
4
votes
2answers
194 views
How do I preserve my Wendigo Prion?
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 ...
3
votes
2answers
184 views
Creating a plausible Cyclopia disease
Cyclopia syndrome is a disorder which affects both Giants and Yetis in which in afflicted has only one eye. now Cyclops syndrome is a real thing where the embryonic prosencephalon fails to properly ...
5
votes
3answers
317 views
Creating a plausible Wendigo fever
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 ...
1
vote
2answers
3k views
Could someone be born mute [closed]
In a story I'm writing, the main character is a mute and I was wondering could someone be either born mute or become mute at a very young age in a medieval setting?
Note: magic does not exist in my ...
2
votes
4answers
137 views
How could a medical crisis unite two countries which once bitterly hated each other?
How could a medical crisis unite two countries previously at odds and usher them into a new era of peace, prosperity and perhaps even unity? Think of South and North Korea, or Israel and Palestine.
...
-1
votes
3answers
84 views
Injury that leaves you hospitalized a week [closed]
My protagonist has a work that requires a lot of walking. Now he needs an excuse to be away from work for 5-7 days but after that be able to work normal again without raising any suspicion.
I was ...
2
votes
1answer
149 views
To what extent would a 21st Century Industrial power collapse under an airborne HIV-like virus? [closed]
In an alternate 21st Century Earth, an airborne strain of HIV, or a brand new airborne virus that causes the same symptoms of HIV evolves. The new Super-HIV virus retains the ability to transmit by ...
6
votes
1answer
153 views
Fictional Space Plague - Pandemic - Does this timeline make sense?
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 that ...
2
votes
2answers
70 views
How could a mutation of an engineered virus initially be undetectable?
Doctors have found a way to identify the initial strain of this lethal, engineered virus. Most mutations have been easily identifiable by an AI-supported system.
Is it plausible that a mutated ...
7
votes
11answers
3k views
How could a virus go about infecting the entirety of the human race within a short period of time? [duplicate]
In about six months time every human on Earth is infected with a virus. How would a virus spread to cause such a quick transmission rate to infect 7+ billion people?
3
votes
1answer
98 views
Could a waterborne virus contaminate the entire ocean?
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 the ...
