h a l f b a k e r yThe mutter of invention.
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For thousands of years, man has marvelled at the
possibility and existence of chimeras.
Now, with the keys to the biological palace within our
greedy grasp, we seem to have shied away from that
fascination.
We have tomatoes imbued with salmon genes, to prevent
them freezing in cold storage.
We have rabbits that glow
in the dark... but we still don't have crocoducks and
fronkeys.
It's time we stopped worrying about bailing out the
economies of poorly run Mediterranean holiday parks past
their prime and concentrated our efforts on creations
really worthy of the term. A few hundred billion Euros
could be directed toward the genetic work necessary to
make a real Gryffon; a working Cerberus; a proper
Chimera or a viable Hydra.
Bread and circuses? Pah! Give me something to really
distract people's minds from the paucity of political
intellectualism under which we are suffering.
The horror!
http://www.bbc.co.u...nvironment-16554357
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 27 2012]
"The common Cormorant, or Shag ...
http://en.wikipedia...ense_verse#Variants
... lays eggs inside a paper bag ...." [8th of 7, Jun 27 2012]
[link]
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I have to say i've long been interested in whether taking the
most basal crocodilian and the most basal ratite and combining
them in some way would get you some kind of Velociraptor-type
thingy, but there are probably lots of gaps needing filling in.
Griffins are - well, you've probably read it but for the benefit of
the uninitiated - probably some kind of protoceratopsian from
Hyperborea with a neck frill which has become a wing. |
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People on here didn't even like my viral sex change so God
knows what they'll think of this. |
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I'm pretty sure you can't "imbue" a tomato with
anything. |
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P.T. Barnum had some of these (sort-of) and some were part human. |
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//Contrived creatures of unlikely evolutionary
provenance.// Hi, [Ubie]. |
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It must be nice thinking there's more than one of
you, [Max]? |
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Oh, BTW, to imbue something is to permeate it with
a particular quality. |
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"Imbue" generally (and originally, I believe) has
implications of inspiration or feeling ("imbued
with a sense of urgency..." or "imbued with
pride..."). |
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On the other hand, I've seen "imbued" used in
such contexts as "imbued with leather upholstery"
(of a car) and even "imbued with a belt-clip" (of a
retractable tape measure). So, I guess you can
imbue X with Y for almost any value of {X,Y}. |
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As for there being more than one of me, what
makes you think that there is even one of me? I
am far too improbable to exist, except (possibly)
by comparison with Sturton and our intercalary
twin. |
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Incidentally, given the made-up-in-a-hurry nature
of most Australian wildlife, are you sure that this
zoo experiment hasn't already been done? |
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WIBNI - "Wouldn't It Be Nice If". The invention describes something widely known as desirable, but unobtainable, without giving any new clues as to how it could be done. Ideas that already occur in existing science fiction usually belong here - time travel, stopping time, flying cars, infinite resources, automatic real-time translation, truth-detection, mind reading, etc. |
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WTCTTISITMWIBNIIWR - "Wasn't that cool, that thing I saw in the movie? Wouldn't it be neat if it were real?" As in, light sabers, hover boards, and memory implants. |
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magic - the author is using a technology they know very little about as magic. This imparts superpowers, among them the ability to always know where something is (just add GPS or RFID); the ability to make humans or animals do anything (just use Pavlovian conditioning), to make any organic matter do anything (just add genetics or, once people complain about the use of genetics as magic, "selective breeding"); to make inorganic matter do anything (just add nanobots); to quieten any sound (just add noise-cancelling technology); the ability to read minds (just make your device an implant); to levitate any number of objects from any distance (just attach magnets), and the ability to reliably measure someone's mood (just add a galvanic skin response). |
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I didn't see rant in the list so I guess you're excused on that part. |
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// didn't see rant in the list so I guess you're excused
on that part.// |
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I think that //Bread and circuses? Pah!// could be
considered a not insignificant nod in a rantward
direction. |
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Yes, but it doesn't seem to be a reason to mark for deletion. |
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So, [zeno], are you suggesting that gene splicing,
tissue transplantation and grafting and
immunosuppressive therapies don't exist? |
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If we can grow human ears on the backs of mice and
all manner of human organs in the bodies of pigs
then we can surely head down the slippery slope of
mad science, if the Koreans and Chinese aren't
already doing it. |
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//If we can grow human ears on the backs of mice
and all manner of human organs in the bodies of
pigs// |
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Sadly, however, we cannot. The famous ear was a
scaffold over which the mouse grew mouse-skin,
as mice are wont to do. |
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And pigs grow pig organs, again according to their
nature and inclination. We can make pigs without
some of the antigenic markers, to get closer to
being able to transplant the organs into people,
but that's as far as it goes so far. |
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What is required, in order to implement this
wonderfully original idea, is some sort of GM
magic. |
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One of the biggest problems here is that you're
trying to create new morphologies, new body
plans. Morphogenesis is one of the least
understood aspects of biology. |
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We do know a few things. For instance, we know
very roughly how some of the master genes
(homeobox genes, so called for obscure reasons)
specify which bits of some animals turn into legs
or wings or heads. But how genes decide the
shapr of the leg, wing or head? No idea. We also
know a few genes
which, when they go wrong, lead to abnormal
morphology in humans. But that is very scant
knowledge. |
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If you ask how genes make the femur grow long
instead of being spherical; or how genes divide
the skin of a lizard up into scales; or how genes
make the knobbles on vertebrae; or how genes
make the aorta branch off into several large
arteries; or how genes make the cortex wrinkly -
we haven't got the first flying fuck of an idea - not
the faintest clue. |
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So, waving a genetic wand to produce a dog with a
chicken's head, or a kangaroo with a proper set of
legs, is actually far more magic than something
simple like making bacteria produce LSD or
inducing rabbits to glow in the dark. |
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If you did want to create an animal freak show,
there are much easier ways to do it. There are
plenty of naturally occurring freaks (two-headed
cats, goats with horns on their stomachs,
whatever) which, with a little love and attention
could probably survive and populate your zoo. A
very small proportion of such freaks might even
breed true (though most are developmental
accidents rather than genetic ones). |
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Alternatively, you could just scour the world for
some of the stranger species which most people
have never seen. I'm sure the intercalary twin
could get you a breeding pair of MacGuggen's
Parasitic Gibbon. Admittedly, keeping up the
supply of elephants would be a burden. |
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//But is that a major obstacle..?// |
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Only in the sense that, for example, the Pacific
ocean is a major obstacle to cyclists, or death is a
major obstacle to enjoyment of the harmonica. |
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You can't just breed random species together and
expect to get anywhere, even if the two species
in question are ready and willing. This is why, for
example, there are no dog/leg hybrids or, for that
matter, no Welshman/sheep chimeras. |
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You can breed a lion and a tiger. Lions are very
closely related to tigers (so much so that, sans
skin, they are pretty much indistinguishable). The
results are basically stripeless tigers (which look a
lot like lions) or stripey lions (which look a lot like
tigers). What you tend not to get is, for example,
a lion with a tiger's head sticking out of its arse. |
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You can also breed kangaroos and sheep but, alas,
not with eachother. |
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Plants are about the most cross-breedable things.
There are plenty of plants which can be crossed
not just between species but between genera.
This is because plants are really pretty sloppy
when it comes to morphology, and don't really
care how many chromosomes they've got either.
On the other hand, it requires real enthusiasm to
stand in front of an enclosure and say "wow, a
hybrid fern" with any real conviction. |
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//maybe the encyclopedia we had wasn't that
accurate.// |
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Was it the famous "Gullock's Enclycopeadia of
Things", distributed in weekly instalments on the
back of Wheat-Ohs boxes? |
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That was a fine and respected publication apart
from the typos, such as mis-spelling "other
kangaroos" as "sheep"; or mis-spelling "almost
invariably fatal" as "rather like milk". |
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// death is a major obstacle to enjoyment of the harmonica // |
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"Enjoyment" needs to be clarified. If you are referring to the sound emitted by a harmonica, then a speedy death is infinitely preferable, particularly when applied to the individual inflicting the harmonica noise on others. |
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A dead harmonica player, particularly one who has died as a result of vigorous insertion of said harmonica into a bodily orifice not well adapted y evolution for same is indeed a thing of beauty. |
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Enjoyment of an actual harmonica per se is best gained from the driving position of an Aveling and Porter steam-powered road roller. If you listen carefully, you can just make out the sound of the tiny, joyous crunching as the demon device becomes nothing more than an elongated stain on the tarmac. |
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When driving a steamroller, creeping up on a harmonica player while they indulge their vile perversion is admittedly difficult, but ever so satisfying when success is finally archived. The trick is not to sound the whistle. |
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//You can also breed kangaroos and sheep but, alas, not with eachother.// |
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I read that as: You can also breed kangaroos and sheep but, alas, not with alterother. |
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It's a joke. The offspring of a sheep and a kangaroo is
a woolly jumper. |
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Rapid and violent insertion of an accordion into a
bodily orifice not well adapted by evolution for same
is a thing of great mirth and merriment and a
fantastic opportunity for some truly bizarre sound
effects. |
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I like [Max]'s point about seeking out things which already seem to be chimeras - Duck-Billed Platypuses for example seem to be about five different animals crudely stuck together by someone drunk. Also, much as I would like to see vast herds of unicorns roaming the plans of Africa, I worry that this will somehow play into the hands of the ID/creationism loonies. |
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This is a great sequence of annotations; is there some way to pin
it (within the HB) so it doesn't go "missing", later? |
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[hippo] wins the prize, for spotting the "creation"
slant. |
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//We have tomatoes imbued with salmon genes, to prevent them freezing in cold storage.//
Oh, that's disappointing. I thought it had been done so that the tomatoes could more easily swim upriver to their traditional spawning grounds.
//What is required...is some sort of GM magic//
Someone should jolly well get on and invent that then, shouldn't they. I mean, 'struth! What are you all lounging around here for when you haven't even invented GM Magic yet? |
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Saul Kripke would argue that you wouldn't see unicorns doing
that even if it turned out that there were horse-like animals with
single forehead horns which could be captured only by virgins et
caetera, because a unicorn is not rigorously defined enough. A
hypothetical such creature might be found with, for example, the
ability to ruminate and another without it, but since the question
of rumination is not covered in the myths, either has an equally
dubious claim to unicornity. |
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On the issue of frameworks, why not just go with that? Arrange
a frame like bat wings inside the back of a Komodo dragon
embryo
and you have a Komodo dragon with wings after a fashion. |
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// I thought it had been done so that the
tomatoes could more easily swim upriver to
their traditional spawning grounds // |
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No point- they would simply fall victim to
marauding groups of vegetarian bears. |
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I thought, 8th, that that's why they put them in tins. To give them some protection against bears? |
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No, you're thinking of Cormorant eggs, the "paper bag" approach having been found to be unsuccessful in the face of repeated depredations by ursines. |
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// You can also breed kangaroos and sheep but, alas, not
with alterother. // |
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Yeah, for some reason having me around just kills the
mood for the kangaroos. At least, that's what the sheep
told me. She looked a little disappointed, but with sheep
it's hard to tell. |
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Especially from the back ... |
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//No, you're thinking of Cormorant eggs// |
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Well, obviously, he wasn't. He was thinking of
tomatoes, and that was the problem. |
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It shouldn't be just for sheep stocks. Many investments are
adversely affected by a bear market. |
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The correct term is actually a "crush", used for restraining animals for examination or treatment; however, in wales, the traditional method of trapping the sheep in the gap between the dry-stone wall and the village telephone box is still widely used, unless the Vicar wants to make a phone call. |
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I've seen an angry ewe attack someone and I wouldn't want to piss one off. |
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I've seen an angry me attack someone. Admittedly, it
seems as though it was a long time ago, in a galaxy
far, far away. |
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In better shape than the Wookie. |
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Yes, I hear it still walks bow-legged. |
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Being kicked in the goolies by an AtAt will do that to
you. |
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Hey Bubba, I can't help thinking this looks a lot like
my comment on your Zoo Of Everything, and
noticed
that the date of the post reconciled with the
creation of this one....hmmm Nah must be a
coincidence eh... and worse still this one didn't
even get positive Buns ! Heathens and Luddites
they
will never learn, reminds me of the Southpark's
five-
assed monkeys etc. [+] despite the plagiarism. |
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Oh and while I am in a bad mood.
//vegetarian bears// [8th of 7] have you never
heard of Giant Pandas (which do actually eat
carrion when given the chance) Now Giant Blue
Pandas that Eat animals, surely thats gotta be
more exciting. humf |
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//Hey Bubba, I can't help thinking// I believe that
[Ubie] has left the building. |
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