Some very cool idea's here. I think this is a very complex question you need to ask yourself in sci-fi writing, how much information is too much information. Part of this type of world creation requires some level of simple acceptance of the possibilities without all the specifics of “how” being fully explained. The X-men’s powers come from a genetic mutation called the x-gene. If you have the x-gene then you have powers that manifest at puberty and can take many forms. This was all the explanation that was needed to create one of the most interesting fantasy/sci-fi universes in existence. In back to the future, Doc brown creates the flux capacitor which is the device that makes all time travel possible. The time machine has rules, like the fact that it needs 1.21 Gigawatts of power and must be traveling at 88 mph in order to activate, but otherwise the “How it works” is left pretty open ended. Some of the best sci fi writers of all time, Jules Verne for example, are great at giving just enough details to create a sense that their inventions can exist in reality while leaving just enough mystery to avoid their creations being overly dissected. A great example of how to much information can go wrong is Star Wars. In the original Trilogy “the Force” is a mystical system that we don’t really understand. There is a certain group of people that are able to use this force and manipulate it to do remarkable things. Nobody ever questioned this system, and it became one of the most beloved Sci-Fi inventions ever created. When lucas went about creating the prequels he added the “How” to the force, midichlorians…and hordes of fans uttered a collective “WTF” and ripped the concept apart. It was so reviled, that in the 2nd and 3rd installments of the prequels they were never mentioned again. In a sci-fi world like this you need to walk the line between too little and too much information. Don’t overdo the “How”, or readers will get lost in dissecting it rather than enjoying the story.
Seems like you could avoid some of the downstream (and upstream) complexity by just making the 4 synthetic nucleotides code for the same amino acids are regular nucleotides. You'd have to alter enzymes involved in the transcription and translation processes, and make some other changes to the cell's machinery, but you wouldn't have to re-engineer the organism from the ground up. Viral DNA wouldn't code for anything because it incorporates standard nucleotides. Question is whether it makes sense to go through all the effort to do this to avoid viral infection.
Gotcha, keep it simple. Too much information in the story will confuse some of the readers, rather than inform them. ATP is too unstable to store, so the gland/bladder idea is completely off the table - some other reason for his enhanced capabilities will be given, and it will be simple; probably the removal of "mistakes" caused by the process of evolution, such as the meandering of the vegus nerve; a better example will be used, as that one is both obscure and minor, but I imagine there are many more.
Yeah, but once you're at the level you are at, it would be very easy to suppose some sort of enzyme produced in the bladder that maintains the stability of ATP, so you could still use it if you want. I mean, by the time you're at the place where your organism is, you can pretty much handwave any of the details to make it work.
(Repeating, I know) Check out AICAR and GW50156 - for the effects and basic mechanism. They really are quite potent.
I see how these would enhance muscle performance - it wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine a scientist creating genes or enzymes which can synthesize these in the body.
As long as you keep the blood flowing properly, boosting Hgb can improve oxygen uptake. Add significantly more mitochondria to muscles and the requisite blood vessels to supply them with bits and pieces they need, and you start to get up to the super human performance levels. Add increased testosterone and no post-teen Hgh tapering and your recovery makes a quantum leap also. Allow a voluntary adrenal dose for those really intense moments and you can boost muscle performance off the scale. Provide a mechanism where this ongoing but intermittent adrenal flow does not impact the endocrine system negatively, and you have a turbo on tap. All of this is just a slight upgrade on natural human physiology, but added together they allow for super human performances.
Thanks for the explanation - it's adjustments like these which should have the desired effect overall. The only remaining part of his body I'd like to improve is his brain, but my understanding of neurology is quite limited. Still, if his base physiology is built on "biode" medical technology, then he could have a part organic, part technological brain, all synthesized by his own cells. The electronics could provide instant answers to mathematical problems, an internet interface to the sight & auditory parts of his brain, and lightning fast reflexes. Faults with this technology could also explain the deaths of his five siblings before they were ready, since no physical tests had been conducted, only simulations.
Oh yes! Finally something about my major! Anyway I haven't really read any comments right now so forgive me if I write something that the others has already covered in great detail. So here we go... 1. ATP-producing gland. ATP synthesis can be done in any cell. If you want the villain to produce ATP with astonishing rates, you can just GM his cells so that each of his cells will carry more mitochondria than any usual cell. That way he can produce tons of ATP without the need of that gland. Also ATP is unstable (as the phosphoanyhydride bond is carrying too much energy) so it will be hard to store large amounts of ATP in a human body. They will degrade eventually so you may have to store something like pyruvate (one of the products of Glycolysis) instead. This can be done by altering his enzymes' structure and/or activity. Sure it will be a long shot with today's technology and information but I don't see why this cannot happen in the future. 2. Lactate production. In anaerobic respiration, Lactate (or lactic acid. Normally they are the same) becomes the end product for the process. However if your villain can somehow store ATP, his cells can just burn the ATP instead. (Assuming that you can transport the ATP to his cells without degradation, that is) This will not produce any lactate as long as his respiration process is "turned off". (Side note: this can be done by a number of ways. For example nanorobots can act as a non competitive inhibitor for essential enzymes in key steps of the anaerobic respiration process) After that is done, your villain is officially immune to fatigue. Alternatively, if you think storing ATP is a bad idea (which is likely the case according to my limited biological knowledge), you can say that his body simply rely on anaerobic respiration and his liver can break lactate down in some unknown biochemical process. Normally it takes oxygen to break lactate down but now his liver cells (or better yet, any body cell) can break lactate down with the help of man-made enzymes and/or nanorobots. That way your villain will be immune to fatigue but be warned: anaerobic respiration is highly inefficient comparing to aerobic respiration. Aerobic respiration can completely oxidize a glucose molecule and generate 38 ATP molecules (if I remember correctly) while anaerobic respiration generate a few ATP molecules only via incomplete oxidation. That's why even though your cells can conduct anaerobic respiration, you will still suffocate if you are trapped in a basement with no oxygen supply. You may have to make a highly efficient anaerobic pathway up for the villain. 3. Man-made nucleotides. Cool concept... wait... more like cool reality (http://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-create-alien-life-form-with-artificial-genetic-code/). However, he is still human as long as he can breed with another human and produce a fertile offspring. (That means if he had sex with a woman and the woman gave birth to a child that can have a son of his own, than your villain is still a human). Of course this is not supposed to happen, right? The fertilized egg will simply refuse to fail to conduct meiosis II and there will be no embryonic development as long as the length and/or the number of the homologous chromosomes are different from one and other. Err... sorry for all the rambling but I was just studying that part before my summer break so...yeah... 4. Bleed plasma. If his blood only contains plasma, I doubt how he can live on. Firstly Red blood cells carry carbon dioxide out of the body (well fine. Not that much CO2 but still it is responsible for carrying 10% of it) so without red blood cells he may have to increase his ventilation rate to make up for it. Also he will have to find a way to defend himself from pathogens because it will be impossible for him to live in our world for too long without any immune cells, even if his biology is different from a normal human's biology. For example, avian flu originated from birds. The RNA virus mutated quickly and started to infect humans. Rabies came from dogs but soon humans found that it is nearly 100% fatal without a vaccine. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus came from bats and camels and now it is infecting humans either. Even NASA has been researching ways to contain a possible extraterrestrial pathogen should we make contact with aliens. The villain will most likely be infected by a type of RNA virus and die if he has no immune system. Finally, why would he need 2 hearts? Why can't he just have additional heart chambers and separated blood vessels? Sorry for my real bad English. I have been very busy lately. So if you spot any mistake (grammatical or biological) plz point them out.
Hi Bustead, Thanks for your input. Your suggestion regarding an ATP stabilising protein is interesting - it could make the whole idea work. I'm now thinking of a different model: Glucose is carried in a SINGLE circulatory system from its storage locations (liver, other places?) to the lungs. The cells in the lungs metabolize the glucose from the blood and oxygen from the air to produce ATP, stored on a special protein - this is then secreted into the blood to become part of the plasma. Red blood cells also exist and carry oxygen around the body, but only for non-respiratory processes, such as (but not limited to) protein synthesis and killing bacteria. Lactic acid isn't produced in large quantities by the muscles because they get their ATP from the bloodstream - no need for anaerobic respiration to produce the ATP locally; ATP goes in, ADP comes out. There might still be some lactic acid around, but the liver can handle that, as you suggested. The 8 nucleotide system is intended to provide "data compression" for his genetic code; this again allows for faster cell division, while preventing viral infection. This can be achieved using the following model (or something similar): We have the four natural nucleotides, A & T and C & G, as well as four synthetic nucleotides - let's call these B & D and E & F. A standard ribosome looks for an "ATG" codon (or "AUG", because it's using RNA) to begin protein synthesis. What if our synthetic ribosome is looking for "BFD" to begin protein synthesis? The nucleotides in this codon won't exist in a naturally occurring viral genome, so the virus will infect the cell and its mRNA will be ignored; the cell will simply recycle or destroy the viral genetic material. Additionally, the natural system of RNA uses 3 nucleotides in a codon, so there are 4*4*4 or 64 possible codons. The synthetic system would have 8*8*8 possible codons using a 3 nucleotide system, or 512 codons. Alternatively, we could use only 2 nucleotides per codon, still resulting in 64 combinations, the same as in the natural system. Our start codon could then be just "BD". Also, yes, he won't be capable of reproducing with regular humans. His creator attempted to make him one of six, but he was the only surviving life form from the experiment. He does have plans to repeat the experiment to create himself a bride - wow, this is straying into Mary Shelly territory Now that he only has a single circulatory system, he won't be bleeding just plasma and platelets as there will be some red blood cells in there too, just not as many. His blood might be noticeably thinner, but it will still be red. If his cells are using ATP from the blood directly, they won't churning out CO2 - this will only happen in cells containing mitochondria. So he can also get away with having a single four chambered heart, but because his blood is thinner it won't need to be as big, so he can use that extra space for slightly larger lungs. That's much tidier than the original idea
Could you use the synthetic nucleotides as start codons for DNA polymerase and avoid wasting energy making useless RNA?
Agreed. However I am worried about viral infections may lead to mutations and even cancer. Viruses randomly insert genes into the genome, disrupting normal genetic functions when doing so. It doesn't matter if the starting condon is different. This is because the part of genome is different from what it was (ie additional extra codons inserted by the insertion mutation) so the protein produced may be unusable/overactive. Unless the DNA polymerase in your villain's body is capable of proofreading his DNA, that is.
Indeed - my example cited the use of synthetics "B" and "D" as a possible Start codon. I understand how fragile RNA is, so a new type of ribosome that can handle DNA instead of RNA would speed up many aspects of cell function. This is assuming the viral genetic material makes it to the nucleus, which can happen in current eukaryote cells, so far as I understand. Using the above suggestion, any RNA based viruses simply wouldn't work, but DNA based viruses could have the above impact. This reduces the risk, but I'm assuming it doesn't happen often to regular humans very often, otherwise we'd be getting cancer all the time. He wouldn't be immune to a synthetic virus, targeted towards his type of DNA, which could be called SDNA (Synthetic DeoxyriboNucleic Acid).
What would be the point of having 512 different codon combinations when there still isn't more than 20-ish amino acids to match? Also, re DNA viruses, there are probably more viruses inserting DNA and other such stuff than you think. I have no numbers, but I'd say there's a lot of cells that go "cancerous" due to things like viruses, failed replication, etc. Pretty much every single one of these cells will activate apoptosis, and not become completely uncontrollable.
The line following the one mentioning 512 combination suggests reducing the number of nucleotides per codon to 2, which gives us 64 combinations again - the same number of combinations available in natural DNA / RNA processes. I'm not suggesting he wouldn't be immune to viral induced mutations / cancer, but he would be immune to viral infection since naturally occurring viruses lack the four synthetic nucleotides. That said, with his different biochemistry, he could find cancer treatments need to be applied slightly differently if I decided to give him cancer - which may or may not happen. I have yet to decide.
Cool. I love genetic science. Are you in biology, microbiology, genetics or something else? Here's another link on the substitute nucleotides: First Life with "Alien" DNA Created in Lab
Military history Molecular biology. Don't ask me about all that advanced genetics though, I am just a year 1 student with very poor grades
I read this thread with interest, and tend to agree with bustead's views - aeons ago I studied biochemistry and much of what s/he said rings a bell. When I write (science-fiction, currently) I like some of what I create to be feasible, and try not to get too bogged-down in the detail - if there is sufficient scope for suspension of disbelief, then readers will accept what you write as part of the universe you create. What powered the Nautilus/Enterprise? How did the Martians (War of the Worlds) create a screw thread without inventing the wheel? Just how does Harry Potter's magic wand work? We never learnt the answers to these and I doubt many even asked. When Asimov was asked how his positronic brains worked, he simply said, "I don’t know." And yet, when he wrote a short story early in his career that was exact and detailed part of a chemical analysis, that story took quite a while to sell, because it wasn't interesting to the reader. CSI is a classic example - does anyone here think a CSI knows intimately, all aspects of examining a crime scene, DNA analysis, ballistics, drug analysis, document examination, etc.? And stand around explaining to their colleagues everything they're going to do? Nope. Yet if the scripts accurately reflected the procedures (to say nothing of the time-frames), it would be poor viewing. Some of the dialogue too, was dumbed-down (quite appallingly, at times) for the viewers. The point I make is that if someone writes fiction, and a reader picks it up, there can be no expectation of factual perfection, and I don't try - I just use my judgement to determine what is going to engage the reader and keep them engaged. That will have to suffice. Finally, @ToeKneeBlack, there was something similar in The Legacy of Heorot, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and another, I think. It might be worthwhile reading how Niven, et al, handled the topic and idea.
I know many of us have discussed the various details of this at great length, but doing so has allowed me to describe some of his abilities and attributes in a consistent manner. How can the other characters find out who's human and who's synthetic without a convenient DNA test? Now I have a consistent and explainable way, by stating his blood is thinner than that of a regular human. I don't have to explain why in the story, but I could place details and clues throughout the series sparingly, allowing any curious readers to put the picture together themselves and think, "What a well thought-out character." You're right - this would be too much information, but it's something I can refer to and use for consistency when writing the published narrative. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed; your insights have been most valuable.
