Questions tagged [diseases]
For questions related to a disorder (illness, disease and sickness) that affects the function or structure of an organism.
274
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How would my zombies locate victims?
My world has zombies that are created as a result of infection with a symbiotic organism consisting of a bacterium in symbiosis with another eukaryotic organism, essentially somewhat like a lichen. ...
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5
votes
2
answers
653
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A virus that causes adipocyte degeneration
In my world, there is a virus that causes acquired degreasing body syndrome (also known as ADBS) (sorry, the original French name of this disease is syndrome de dégraissage corporel acquis) (the ...
- 4,838
0
votes
2
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137
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What are the odds medieval individuals will recognize our time traveler's description of penicillin [closed]
Follow up on an old question/idea.
My 'time traveler' (actually more of a dimension hopper) got thrown into a roughly medieval feudal society, very closely modeled off of, but not the same as, ...
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37
votes
28
answers
7k
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What disease affects only the non-peasants?
Imagine a roughly medieval world with a feudal government.
I want a new disease to show up and spread rapidly which affects the nobility and leaders, but not the peasantry, setting up a situation for ...
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-4
votes
4
answers
271
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Is complete melanism possible in humans?
One of my characters has a genetic disease called "Complete Melanism". Her eyes, her skin, her hair, and her internal organs are all black. Like a famous Indonesian breed of chicken.
The ...
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19
votes
10
answers
4k
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How to protect cities from vampirism
A certain part of the continent is currently dealing with a plague of undeath. It takes many forms, with corpses rising from their graves, strange creatures roaming in the night, seemingly driven by ...
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4
votes
5
answers
181
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How can I give someone a lethal disease?
I am writing a story in which one character will kill another character by inducing a life-taking disease like cancer so that it will not be shown as a murder to anyone and it will be a slow death. I ...
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17
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How would a language-based disease work?
I was trying to find an explanation as to why all the characters speak English, and this popped into my head. Could a disease (bacterial or viral or whatever) affect only people who don’t speak ...
11
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8
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How to prevent humans from being killed by alien diseases?
Humans build big rockets and fly generation ships to extrasolar planets to settle. There’s already sentient alien life on that planet, but the humans has none of the immunizations and natural ...
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votes
1
answer
139
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A genetic disease that is characterised by both gigantism and intellectual disability [closed]
In an Of Mice and Men parody I want to write, Of Rats and Women, there is a 30 years old woman named Léonie Petit (her surname is ironic, because petit is a French adjective that means small/little/...
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5
votes
2
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267
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How would a lysosome based disease be defeated?
Essentially, in the human world of 2024 (current day tech, but no more COVID), how would humans find a way to prevent a disease that targets and destroys lysosomes, so that only animals are affected. ...
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1
answer
167
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A genetic disease that makes humans of any origin have epicanthic folds (slanted eyes) [closed]
I imagined for a future film, a 21 years old human of French nationality and citizenship named Thérèse Arielle Huguette Flavie Alexandre (Alexandre can be both a given name and a surname, in this case,...
- 4,838
3
votes
1
answer
144
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Could HIV-1 evolve to successfully infect rats?
In my world that is set in a far future, a mammalian species from the Euarchontoglires superorder descended from brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) evolved to become sapient.
One of the deadliest diseases ...
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0
votes
2
answers
179
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A synthetical virus created by a racist [closed]
In my science-fiction story, there is a vile scientist that creates a synthetical virus, because he wants to kill all humans of British and Irish ancestry all over the world.
This virus ONLY affects ...
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20
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9
answers
3k
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What's a reasonable environmental disaster that could be caused by a probe from Earth entering Europa's ocean?
I'm working on a story involving life on Europa (or at least a place just like it) being upturned dramatically by contact from a probe sent from Earth. Found this community while researching, and have ...
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1
vote
1
answer
106
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Heterozygote advantage against pork tapeworm
Some heterozygote advantages in humans are:
People with sickle-cell trait are resistant to malaria, but people with sickle-cell disease tend to die young.
Depending of the source we believe, people ...
- 4,838
1
vote
4
answers
278
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A dementia that develops ONLY in humans under 25 years old
In my story, there is a 24 years old human who, despite being an adultescent (aged between 18 to 24 years old), shows Alzheimer's-like symptoms: he forgot the name of his best friend forever, he is as ...
- 4,838
8
votes
5
answers
2k
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Disease that rapidly kills and replaces cells - severity of symptoms
I have conceptualized a disease that rapidly kills cells in the human body and replaces them with modified copies over a period of 7-10 days. After this time, every cell in the infected person's body ...
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0
votes
1
answer
268
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A genetic disease that makes genetically and biologically male humans unable to grow facial hair (the opposite of hirsutism)
In a live-action musical film I want to direct, Le Président et Moi (which means "The President and I") (I want the film to have French as its original language), there is a character named ...
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2
votes
4
answers
350
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How could a pandemic trigger a renaissance? [closed]
In all this gloomy pandemic reporting of the last 3/4 years nobody ever noticed that one of the worst pandemics in known history happened at the beginning of the renaissance and it did not stop it. It ...
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8
votes
4
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906
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How to overcome the hygiene issues of prehensile mouthparts?
Currently, I am designing a sapient species whose only dextrous appendages are their prehensile mouthparts.
I am aware that there are some issues with this, but I can think of ways to avoid or ...
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1
vote
1
answer
196
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A genetic disease that makes humans have much more brown fat than the average human being
I wonder if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
In my story The Transcendence of Adolescence, there is a 17 years old homosexual (or lesbian if you want) transgender woman named ...
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4
votes
2
answers
521
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A genetic disease that makes humans unable to produce adrenaline
I wonder if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
In a white drama/lighthearted tragedy (the opposite of black comedy/dark humour) web-series for a teen audience in mind I want to ...
- 4,838
1
vote
2
answers
94
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How to built a molecular timer into a bioweapon?
Following COVID and having watched far too many zombie movies, I started thinking about an optimal design for a biological weapon. Symptoms wise I believe a modified version of rabies sounds ...
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4
votes
4
answers
224
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How can a disease increase the likelihood of stillbirth in male infants?
In the ancient world, maternity death rates were very high due to lack of medical knowledge and understanding, as well as life-saving technologies. As such, it was a toss up to whether the woman and ...
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14
votes
5
answers
478
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How to protect against a disease that spreads by thought?
Let's imagine we have a disease. Call it the "Thought Plague". It has all the symptoms of a normal disease; in fact, let's use COVID as our symptoms baseline. However, this disease has an... ...
- 3,659
36
votes
16
answers
6k
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Politics and Zombies: Designing a balanced zombie plague that could realistically destroy civilization due to poor decision-making
As has been pointed out numerous times, zombie apocalypses of the classic zombie-bites-you-and-you-become-a-zombie are stupid and would never work in real life. Biting is a horribly inefficient method ...
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5
votes
2
answers
89
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What would a heterozygote advantage against the mutant coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 look like?
Some heterozygote advantages in humans are:
People with sickle-cell trait are resistant to malaria, but people with sickle-cell disease tend to die young.
Depending of the source we believe, people ...
- 4,838
5
votes
3
answers
127
views
How to heal a defective superhuman?
By modifying the human genome an organization in the future created a class of superhumans. Factors that would cause most hereditary diseases have been erased, and the ones in muscle mass, strength, ...
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7
votes
7
answers
213
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Stopping a Disease from Evolving
Some evil scientist, let's call him... Dr. BBEG, has manufactured a potent, powerful disease. He has full control over the bacteria's genome now, but once he releases it... not so much. However, in ...
- 3,659
6
votes
5
answers
926
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What condition could cause chronically reddened sclera?
I have a character whose eye whites are bright red, and I'd like to make some attempt to justify why.
This character's species has eyes that generally become bloodshot in the same way and under the ...
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4
votes
2
answers
135
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What would a heterozygote advantage against rabies look like?
Some heterozygote advantages in humans are:
People with sickle-cell trait are resistant to malaria, but people with sickle-cell disease tend to die young.
Depending of the source we believe, people ...
- 4,838
-3
votes
1
answer
70
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Could internal exposure to electromagnetic radiation be contagious or leave a trace? [closed]
This is linked to another question I asked a few days ago but my story concerns an inter-dimensional consciousness that lures children into itself by manifesting as magical wonderlands with wacky ...
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1
vote
1
answer
77
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How much ionizing radiation would a baby need to absorb to develop acute myeloid leukaemia by the time they were 8?
My story concerns an inter-dimensional consciousness that lures children into itself by manifesting as magical wonderlands with wacky characters (think a creepy Sesame Street or Lazy Town).
The real ...
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12
votes
9
answers
2k
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Would a somewhat benign "vampiric" virus be doomed to infect everyone?
In one of the books of the The Witcher series Geralt has been told by a vampire (Regis, if I recall) that it was not true that vampirism could be spread by bite. He elaborated that the whole idea was ...
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2
votes
1
answer
163
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Genetic disease that makes thermoregulation voluntary
I wonder if the disease I invented is realistic or a total fiction.
There is a real life genetic disease called congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (or Ondine's curse, if you want). People ...
- 4,838
2
votes
6
answers
889
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what is a medical condition that makes you weaker and weaker (that affects teens) [closed]
I'm writing a story and one of the characters have a medical condition,
they are 16/17 they're gonna die soon
there's no cure, just treatment
they can still attend school and walk around without ...
5
votes
2
answers
220
views
Would merpeople contract diseases from land?
In working on the merpeople for my story - very basic, classic merpeople - they are humans underwater with fish tails. I've questioned whether they would contract diseases. It seems that they would in ...
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5
votes
3
answers
546
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A genetic disorder that makes people unable to feel itch
I know that congenital insensitivity to pain exists and is autosomal recessive. There is a village in Sweden where 40 cases of this rare genetic disease were reported.
I am writing a story with a ...
- 4,838
5
votes
2
answers
110
views
Heterozygote advantage against influenza/flu
Some heterozygote advantages in humans are:
People with sickle-cell trait are resistant to malaria, but people with sickle-cell disease tend to die young.
Depending of the source we believe, people ...
- 4,838
5
votes
2
answers
143
views
Is my story's treatment of tuberculosis realistic?
A side character, a sister of my main character, has been stricken with an unidentifiable disease in an early 19th century circa 1800 - 1850 setting. She's had the disease for a few years. Country ...
- 2,975
19
votes
10
answers
6k
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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 ...
- 964
10
votes
5
answers
2k
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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 ...
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2
votes
2
answers
121
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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"?...
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18
votes
9
answers
4k
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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 ...
- 33k
6
votes
3
answers
131
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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 ...
- 4,767
4
votes
1
answer
79
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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 ...
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5
votes
4
answers
669
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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 ...
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17
votes
10
answers
5k
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"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 ...
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votes
3
answers
216
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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 ...
- 1,889