Questions tagged [genetics]
For questions about a way to pass on biological information from one generation to the next.
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Genetic exchange between animal and plant, Elves love trees
This question has its origins in the word "dendraphile" used in a YouTube comment. It was used in an insult used by dwarves towards elves. My chain of thought then was that the dwarves would use ...
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How would 10 generations of living underground change the human body?
In my country, we are split down the center by an intensely large mountain range. Us desert people live on the eastern half of the country, while on the other side of the mountain range the forest ...
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Can you replicate a being's DNA just from observing it?
In the movie Captain Marvel, the main antagonists (at least for half the movie), the shape-shifting Skrulls, can change their appearance to perfectly match any humanoid creature, down to DNA. ...
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What would a bioengineered human-predator look like? [closed]
Read (and watched) 'After Earth', where humanity has fled a dying Earth to colonise a new world. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, some intelligent aliens decide to periodically send waves of ...
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Can a possible humanoid species capable of changing their sex in a crisis be the dominant species of an entire planet like us?
I had an idea of a concept a while ago.
If a planet that for some reason or another had only one giant continent like Pangea, but bigger, for more distinct habitats and giant lakes assuring ...
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Would a virus be able to change eye and hair colour?
The basic idea is that a small group of people, that were infected by the virus but managed to survive, has their hair colour changed to white and their eye colour changed to green. Said traits would ...
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How can an organ that provides biological immortality be unable to regenerate?
After Cain killed his worthless brother Abel, he was unjustly cursed by God to wander the earth forever. On his travels, he met a sympathetic woman named Lilith. They discovered that they had a mutual ...
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How can a terrorist cult genetically engineer human bombs?
A nihilistic organization founded by a preacher, Solf J. Kimblee, has reasoned that human beings have fallen short of God's true purpose. Since the betrayal by Adam and Eve, all people are born with ...
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How can an evil spirit take control of a human body during REM sleep?
I have a friend who is a really nice guy. The problem is that he was born as a half demon. While he looks completely normal, he possesses a spirit inside him called "Amon". This being forces him to ...
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How can the remains of a god's corpse be kept off the black market and out of the hands of mortals?
A demigod is a mortal being infused with divine energy. This essence comes from a divine spark in their soul that activates due to some external traumatic event. This spark is very rare, and most ...
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How can a terrorist group link a biological plague to a specific genetic signature?
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 ...
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Would it be possible to genetically engineer Dragons? [duplicate]
DRAGONS. ARE THEY POSSIBLE?
By current genetic engineering..? no.
But let's say somehow we got shot 200 years into the future?!
Would you think it would be possible scientifically?
Defining "...
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Could DNA Survive in Outer Space?
In my story the inhabitants of Earth are near extinction.
They want to make a capsule of a bunch of human DNA and blast it toward the Andromeda galaxy. They take 1 oz of every blood type still living
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Could the Bunker Dwellers become noticeably different from Wastelanders?
So, in my world, there are a group of people, mostly unknown to the rest of the world, who took shelter from the apocalypse 90 years ago in great underground bunkers.
Compared to the rest of the ...
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Why would a species require multiple inseminations in order to reproduce?
The Eldar are a psychic species with a similar body design to humanity within a galaxy-wide empire. They are far more advanced than other races, technologically and philosophically. Eldar have a ...
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Logical reason why would the bunker population use Wastelander DNA samples?
It’s been a little over 190 years since WWIII, AD 2157. Most of the surviving human population live in small farming settlements, tribal villages, or, if lucky, United City States. But, there exists a ...
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How could a bloodline ability manifest in one sex but not the other?
A kekai genkai is a bloodline ability that is passed down genetically within clans. They give users access to specific powers unique to that family. These abilities take a number of forms: going bones ...
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Pangenesis and alien life
Darwin's hypothetical mechanism of inheritance was called pangenesis, whereby the body continually produced particles of information - gemmules - which aggregated in the gonads, and that that the ...
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Can one individual be used to repopulate an entire species?
An evil scientist has engineered a plague that would kill anyone with an xy chromosome pair. This plague has systemicatically spread throughout the planet, killing all males within the population. All ...
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Is intraspecies genetic incompatibility possible?
I'm creating a humanoid species, roughly based on humans. The difference is that not every opposite sex couple of fertile age could produce offspring.
The premise of my story is based of some men ...
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How can professional leagues implement gene enchancement into sports while keeping a balance among athletes?
The year is 2050, and genetic enchancement is now commonplace in society. People can currently opt to improve their bodies through the form of gene packages. These are geared towards increasing ...
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How can I explain why Screamers weren’t created in Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s aftermath's?
So, in my post-nuclear US, a form of mutant, called “Screamers” are somewhat prevalent. They are stronger and stockier than humans, and are hairless and greenish-beige pigmented. As it turns out, ...
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Do we know which traits reside in which chromosome? [closed]
I'm intrigued with the possibility described in Is it plausible to make human gametes from different parent chromosomes?. Assuming that humanity developed technology that allows us to make sperm and ...
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How do I tune the incidence of gene expression in my fictitious population?
Related questions
How can I make a net beneficial genetic trait occur only in a small fraction of the population, sustained?
What percentage of the population has the “magic gene”?
Premise
When ...
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Is it plausible to make human gametes from different parent chromosomes?
I'm creating a near future world where laboratories could create human gametes (sperm & ova) using chromosomes from different people. So theoretically we could take 1st chromosome from a 1st ...
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Biology of hermaphrodite species
How from a evolutionary standpoint hermaphrodite species can exist and have a good genetic diversity, with no self-impregnation?
But, this race visually looks more like females, they do have breasts
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Real DNA encryption (or at least making it hard to decode/change)
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.
Another ...
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Could a species develop its civilization if it wasn't violent? [closed]
The race I'm designing originated in a small island in the middle of an ocean the size of Crete, which has no natural predators. That, combained with a random mutation that occured in this species ...
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Can genetic modifications become hereditary? [closed]
Could genetic modifications become hereditary over time? If so could they evolve over time similar to regular genes? For example making carbon fibre bones for whatever reason would they eventually ...
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How can isolated matrilineal societies avoid loss of genetic variation?
In this setting, the family unit is based around a clan system. An individual's wealth and status is related to the clan they are born in, and its ancestry is based on matrilineal lines. Due to ...
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Could the genetic makeup of two parents theoretically combine just right to make a superhuman, or at least semi-superhuman child?
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't ...
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Hereditary immortality: Plausible?
Background info
I am writing a story and I have a young character named Lydia who is worried about dying young and having fertility problems. Her not so close family has a history of that. Dying so ...
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How do you motivate workers to conduct dangerous missions?
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 planets ...
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How many generations to lock in androgynous human characteristics?
My story happens in fictional medieval age. There are the usual suspects of peasants, clergy, craftsman, merchants & aristocracy. There is also a specific class of hereditary servants. They work ...
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How do I measure the stages of futuristic genetic engineering development? [closed]
Please note this question was originally asked and deleted by the user Era. I've chosen to resurrect the question with slight modifications because I think it is deserving of and will foster ...
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2-Dimensional sexual polymorphism - What chromosome system would allow this kind of reproduction?
"Polymorphism" is the name for when members of the same species exhibit different physical forms. The difference between male and female phenotype is an example of polymorphism in humans (and mammals/...
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How would the genetics of a species with three genders work? [duplicate]
I've read some lines from wikipdeia and it didn't really help. So... Here I am.
My alien species has three genders and all of them are active in the act of reproduction. In doing so, I would like to ...
user53040
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Human Genome, does it hold "secret/lost/inactive" Code shared with animals VIA our Common Ancestors? [closed]
I seem to remember reading that in the human genome there's a lot of "inactive" code, codons that might have been useful millions upon millions of years ago but now have no effect on the human body as ...
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How to make changes to a human person's DNA actually be expressed in the individual's phenotype
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 (near) ...
user6415
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Will a race survive eugenics?
I recently watched the classic film Gattaca, which is about a world in which humans are selected with desirable traits at birth. Ignore all the ethics of abortion and genocide (like those claimed for ...
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What if our dreams where we see unknown people or places are fragments of our parent's memories that were genetically transferred? [closed]
Could that be possible? Atleast for SOME people?
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The Multi-Purpose Horse: Stage II: The Shiring [duplicate]
Last time, I asked if it's possible to breed a five-gaited horse as hardy and adaptable as a Yakutian horse. Turns out that it's not as straightforward as initially assumed. It seems that not all ...
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What would happen if people started breeding seals for companionship, like dogs? [closed]
I have edited the question, and it is no longer too broad. My one and only question is the one shown in bold below. If you agree that it is not too beoad in this state, a vote to reopen would be much ...
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The Multi-Purpose Horse: Stage I: Icelandic x Yakutian
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, strength.
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Travelling in space for 6000 years, how many persons are needed? [closed]
So a spaceship is on its way to a new planet. The crew needs to survive during 6000 years on board. They will not get any help and they need to survive on their own. How many persons would need to be ...
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What Could Aliens Do To Devolve Humans With A Germ Line Virus?
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 civilized ...
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Taxonomy of genetically engineered species
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, but ...
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What can be said about phenotype inheritance based on this family tree?
Take the following family tree, which is meant to show individuals exhibiting in their phenotype a particular genetic trait.
White boxes (A, ...
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How do I create a gene simulator? [closed]
I want a machine that can read DNA and then project what the creature looks like. I have a computer that is as powerful as needed but I don't know where to start.
What are there major challenges to ...
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Future People on Earth [closed]
I watch the TV show The Last Man on Earth and there is only a handful of women and men living. In the show the few are trying to conceive. They haven't covered how eventually they will have to inbreed ...
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