Questions tagged [genetics]
For questions about a way to pass on biological information from one generation to the next.
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How much would mtDNA testing help to track down matrilineal descendants of a 2000-year old immortal person?
I'm writing a story which is intended to be mostly realistic and historically accurate, but with one character who is biologically immortal. She is born in a Pictish/Caeldonian/Celtic village in ...
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What's the minimum amount of people required to create a growing population? [duplicate]
I'd like to know how many people it would take to begin a genetically stable civilization. I don't need/don't care about the infrastructure aspect, only the genetics.
Scenario-wise let's assume there ...
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Can 'prions' help me avoid a genetic engineering temporal paradox?
On the world of Ruquelis, the horrific practise of cannibalism stands on three legs, however, this question is concerned only with Leg #1: Genetics.
In How to have 'easy' sexual morphs in ...
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How large of an initial population would it take for these new traits to average out into the standard population of the world?
Let's say, many years ago, hybrids between humans and other mammalians were created and introduced into the world for various purposes. They have the same cognitive abilities as the other humans, and ...
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Can an ability enhancer be passed down to your children?
If a person with an ability gains an ability enhancer and has children with their own abilities, would those children be more powerful/ have more range than a child born before their parent gained the ...
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How fast could a single person introduce gene to human gene pool?
Okay so, in my superhero setting, the way humanity gets superpowers is due to a single mutation. People rarely had superpowers before due to the Dragon gene, but it was always a recessive trait and ...
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How should a time traveler be careful if they decide to stay and make a family in the past?
In a world where time travel in the past is possible but deletes the current future/ present, there is a person named Sarah who does not worry about the ripple effects her actions might create. Sarah ...
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Would a genetically-inserted “memory” be present in all neurons? Or just specific neurons?
So a hypothetical concept I’ve been playing with lately involves the “RNA memory transfer/storage” hypothesis, recently notably demonstrated in slugs a few years back which made a few headlines. The ...
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Could this hypothetical molecule “read” gene code, to allow universal epigenetics?
Here’s the idea: I want to create a biological info-storing material, probably much like RNA, that—like noncoding RNA does—is able to mediate and enact epigenetic changes to the genetic code/material ...
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Could a species with multiple types of genetic material, like a “universal donor”, reasonably naturally exist?
As of late I’ve been developing a concept for a species able to transmit traits through genetic information, basically putting that information into a “host” organism to enact some sort of epigenetic ...
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What is a plausible sex determination system with males, females and multiple hermaphroditic sexes?
EDIT: I unexpectedly had a possible solution to this come to me, and posted it as answer here. Please look it up and give feedback on it.
I'm trying to come up with a plausible sex determination ...
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Can migration be planted into an animal's instincts by humans
So animals will migrate for many different reasons and I wondered if humans could take a species (example:rabbits) that doesn't migrate, and somehow make it develop a yearly migration pattern without ...
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How long will it take for a "mutation" to pass to all the human population?
(Note: I am not yet sure about the population numbers involved here, but if it is a very crucial aspect of the answer, somewhere between 1 million to 100 million at the start is almost certainly ...
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How can I determine gene expression in cases of multiple co-dominant genes? [closed]
On a planet far, far away, there exists a human species with many appearances and abilities. There is a form of energy that flows through air, water, earth and plants (but not humans or animals) which ...
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How would I go about establishing phenotype in the case of co-dominance where mixed phenotype is not an option? [closed]
I am trying to work out genetics for a race that has three types of healers. Having any healing ability is dependent on having the healer gene. What type of healer you are is determined by a ...
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Could gene therapy become the new plastic surgery?
In an EXTREMELY near future (the story is set in June 2028 of the Gregorian calendar), there are some people that use the gene therapy because they want to change their physical appearance.
For ...
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Would there be any side-effects of modded humans breeding with vanilla humans
Context
I plan on creating a world with two human populations, one that would have their respiratory and blood systems genetically modified (suited to be more resillient against oxygen poisoning ...
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Transgenic Peach DNA Splicing
It is possible to put a tiny amount of Human DNA in a plant:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-story-of-how-an-artist-created-a-genetic-hybrid-of-himself-and-a-petunia-25148544/
https:/...
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What genetic enhancements would maximise “luck” in humans? [closed]
In this Sci-if project of mine, bioengineering is now a highly advanced science, nay an art form, and humans are able to enhance their biology using injections of nanomachines which alter their genes. ...
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Genetics of a human-animal hybrid
It’s the age of genetic engineering, and Scientists, in league with shady corporations, have created a group of human-animal hybrids, hereafter referred to as Metamorphs.
Metamorphs are designed as ...
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Would humans on disparate planets with little to no contact with one another continue to evolve along different lines?
Would humans on disparate planets with little to no contact with one another continue to evolve along different lines?
In this universe, humans left Earth a hundred thousand years before. Or if it ...
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Are artificial genes discernible from natural ones?
In a sci-fi project, bioengineering is now a fashionable and profitable industry. A couple of bioengineers decide to play silly buggers with the exobiologists downstairs by cobbling together an ...
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How many generations could a small group go without suffering the effects of inbreeding
With a group of twelve human couples stranded on a island, how many generations could they go before becoming infertile due to inbreeding?
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Would a brain transplant suffer immunorejection if the new body was cloned from the original?
So, having rejected mind uploading in their quest for immortality, the people of my worldbuilding project now seek to develop brain transplanting.
The main problem is immunorejection; if you simply ...
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Alt. Biochemistry - Which of these is a suitable alternative/mirror to DNA?
This question is tied to the “Glass Trees” question I asked earlier which everyone seemed to like. Since y’all had such good opinions on that, I figured I’d bring this particular quandary to y’all in ...
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What would the technical problems be of mass genetic editing? Keidran Animal-Human Hybrids
The Setting
I hear you, I'll make this brief. It's been almost 30 years since the Aurea slow cargo ship arrived at Ilus. When they launched the Aurea, almost a century ago, they had the technology to ...
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In a righty-dominated society, how can authorities prevent a right-handed child from being born to two lefty parents?
In this society, superstitions regarding right- and left-handed people are accepted as fact. (I'm going to be politically incorrect and call them "righties" and "lefties" ...
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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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How could a human develop magenta irises?
I'm writing a character and they have bright magenta Irises.
How could I explain the reason why they have that feature?
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Does it make biological sense for primates to come in every possible hair, skin, and eye color? [closed]
There are a lot of Japanese shows and games where people have many different hair colors and eye colors. There are even cartoons and games where people come in every skin color in the rainbow and ...
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How to have 'easy' sexual morphs in individuals with two identical sex chromosomes in species with XY or ZW sex determination?
Humans and many mammals have an XY sex determination system. This means that the presence of a Y chromosome makes an individual male, while having 2 X chomosomes (and lacking a Y chomosome) makes an ...
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Genetically variable cells that through natural selection achieves evolution in a single individual
I posted a question some time ago about how could genetic engineering design people that could adapt to changing conditions beyond what simple acclimatization or activation/deactivation of genes in a ...
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How could a species have two sex-determination systems?
I imagined a tetraploid species of teleost. This species has both XY and ZW sex-determination systems. I call this strange thing the VYW sex-determination system.
Genetic females have three V ...
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Do we have predictive knowledge of gene editing outcomes for heretofore unseen traits?
We can know what genes affect what outcomes by following the trail backwards, but can we predictively know what changes to what genes would result in completely different and previously unseen ...
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Is it possible to breed extremely peaceful humans?
There is a dictatrix (female dictator) who is a well-intentioned extremist. She wants to make humans as peaceful as capybaras by only permitting humans who are empaths/sympaths to reproduce, humans ...
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If a hypothetical person was extremely sensitive to consuming sugar, would that imply that their glycome was worthy of study? [duplicate]
For my sci-fi notes, I’m truly to figure out if the glycome of an alien allergic or intolerant to sugar would have a glycome worthy of study, that would be different. I’ve been researching all day but ...
Max
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Is there an Evolutionary advantage for 10% of my mammalian species from the Homo genus to have Von Willebrand blood-clotting disease?
In my world, there is a species of human called Homo hematophagus (blood eating human).
Traditionally, these vampires are a cannibalistic race: In war they often drank the blood from their rivals' ...
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Would a trait that's genetics have "circular dominance" be plausible?
Okay, so based on some quick research, there don't appear to be any real-life cases in genetics of "circular dominance" where, for example, allele A is dominant to allele B, B is dominant to ...
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What gene could have a mutation that makes humans have blubber?
In my world, there are three species from the Homo genus that make together a clade named the aquatic humans: Homo maritimus, Homo corpulentus, and Homo gigas (the names respectively mean "marine ...
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Is it reasonable to assume the near-extinction of women?
The world of Ruquelis has some problems. It is populated by men, women and winged lilim as in this question: How to get the Lilim to breed true?. People on Ruquelis reincarnate according to the ...
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How to get the Lilim to breed true?
On my worlds of Earth, Ruquelis and Ersutiabu, there are three sexes relevant to this question, Men (XY male), Women (XX female) and Lilim (LX female), where X, Y and L are sex chromosomes. Lilim ...
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Is there a paternity test method given medieval level technology with low false positive rate?
Determining genetic fatherhood is very important in my worldbuilding experiment for lots of reasons, one being succession, but regardless it's the genetic component that's important But it's possible ...
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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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How would a sapient eusocial species avoid inbreeding?
I have a sapient species in my setting called "mole-bears". I based their social system on eusocial species, specifically naked mole-rats.
Mole-bears are on average around 100 pounds and ...
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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,...
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How possible is it for someone to be born without a sex(physically)?
When I say "sexless", I mean that they are born without male or female phenotypic sex. Not identifying or being nonbinary, but Anatomically sexless. Note: This is not to offend anyone who ...
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A subtle war between the sexes
In this question, I detail a world with a third human sex, lilim, who have bat-like wings and taloned feet like a bird's. The TL;DR is that lilim give birth to equal numbers of men, women and lilim (...
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Is it plausible for only living animals to be valid candidates for cloning?
So in my seting an alternate universe that's 67 million years "behind" ours, T. rex is on the brink of extinction early, with only 1 member left due to extreme overhunting by universe ...
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How could an animal grow hair overnight?
I am trying to create scientifically accurate werewolves. Of course, werewolves are not really possible, but I am trying to make mine as believable as possible. How could they quickly grow hair/fur in ...
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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 ...
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