Genetically engineered human crossbreeds

james patterson has had some success with flying kids.

Deviations from wild type (normal human) are likely to be negative in overall effect even when done by design, but fiction is about suspending disbeleif

I thought Greg Bear did a pretty good job in Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children.

Try and do some thought experiments as far as humans criss-crossing with any combination of the following:

Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fish
Crustacians
Insects

All kinds of criss-crossing posssibilities there. Go with it.

I personally find the platypus to be the most fascinating creature due to how utterly psychotic his biological profile is. If ever there was a case for some higher power in the universe exercising his/her/its sense of humor, the platypus is it. That critter has got all of the following:

- warm-blooded
- egg-laying
- mammallian
- aquatic
- duck-billed
- burrowing
- and he's even got a deadly venomous stinger

Try and beat THAT combination.

A short stocky man crossed with a roll of electrical tape.

I take it back Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children is not about cross breeding but a jump in the evolutionary ladder.

a_morris said:

What sort of human crossbreed do you think would be interesting? Why?

What would they be able to do better than ordinary humans?

Where would they be more limited than ordinary humans?

Click to expand...

Cross breeds are probably less likely than XTREEM! genetic enhancement. Tinker with genetics and you can get a fairly normal looking human that could outperform every Olympian in every sport every day of the week. And solve differential equations, write a novel in his head, and give a lecture on constitutional theory while doing it.

a_morris said:

What would they be able to do better than ordinary humans?

Where would they be more limited than ordinary humans?

Click to expand...

It seems to me that you would get a bit of both. They would be better than humans at some things and worse at others. If you crossed a human with a bird to give him wings, for example, the muscle structure of the chest and back are going to have to change fairly drastically. While it would result in flight, it's also going to result in some not-so-beneficial stuff when your are talking about doing some normal people stuff on the ground. I'm no scientist, but I do know that we are not built for flight. Therefore, it would require some drastic rebuilding of some physical sturctures.

I agree with Plot Device; do some thought experiments.

Personally I find non-genetically engineered (i.e. natural result of interspecies romance or magic) crossbreeds more interesting and appealing to read about. And that way you can get basically whatever traits you want in the cross because you can make up the other parent species, whether it's an alien race, a fantasy race, or a non-humanoid alien or fantasy creature.

I think a human worm would be fun. They'd be great at digging, but suffer on hot days. Any bird that tries to eat this worm gets a punch in the beak. So it all balances out.

Polenth said:

I think a human worm would be fun. They'd be great at digging, but suffer on hot days. Any bird that tries to eat this worm gets a punch in the beak. So it all balances out.

Click to expand...

This just really caught me really off guard, so I must salute you! Nicely done!

If you want to see the human worm, try reading children of Dune. I think that's the book were Leto II starts becoming the sandworm. Not sure if it counts as "crossbreeding" but, well, it's interesting.

I did a story that featured four different groups of such people, each created for a different environment on an experimental planet and then abandoned. The story was called "Egg" and appeared in an issue of -Cicada-. Its hero was one of the Corvid people, who found himself amongst the Leonine folk, and had to escape from Drakes...I haven't yet revisited that world, but I plan to some time....

MattW said:

Cross breeds are probably less likely than XTREEM! genetic enhancement. Tinker with genetics and you can get a fairly normal looking human that could outperform every Olympian in every sport every day of the week. And solve differential equations, write a novel in his head, and give a lecture on constitutional theory while doing it.

Click to expand...

I agree with that. Nancy Kress's "Beggars in Spain" being a good example. (I like to think of how much writing I'd get done if it weren't for that darn need to sleep!! )

Beggars in Spain is a good story.

M.A. Foster's The Gameplayers of Zan has a deliberately-designed human descendant species sharing the planet with regular humans. The designers were going for a superior species, and the changes they made are both biologically plausible and the sorts of things your average genetic engineer would probably think would produce a superior species. However, the result was not a clear improvement on the baseline, and was sufficiently alien that they didn't know how to interact sensibly with regular humans. The book then plays out the consequences quite effectively IMO. However, you do have to read past a certain amount of weird mystic fluff and unnecessary sex, and the other two books in the series (The Warriors of Dawn and Day of the Klesh) are not nearly as good.

Plot Device said:

I personally find the platypus to be the most fascinating creature due to how utterly psychotic his biological profile is. If ever there was a case for some higher power in the universe exercising his/her/its sense of humor, the platypus is it. That critter has got all of the following:

- warm-blooded
- egg-laying
- mammallian
- aquatic
- duck-billed
- burrowing
- and he's even got a deadly venomous stinger

Try and beat THAT combination.

Click to expand...

A carnivorous platymus with human intelligence...why do I have a feeling that Peter Jackson will have a buckets of blood play with that?

How about crossing a human with an agent?

Sorry for quoting myself but ...

Plot Device said:

I personally find the platypus to be the most fascinating creature due to how utterly psychotic his biological profile is. If ever there was a case for some higher power in the universe exercising his/her/its sense of humor, the platypus is it. That critter has got all of the following:

- warm-blooded
- egg-laying
- mammallian
- aquatic
- duck-billed
- burrowing
- and he's even got a deadly venomous stinger

Try and beat THAT combination.

Click to expand...

... I stumbled upon the following National Geographic article about the recent genome mapping of the platypus.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080507-platypus.html

Platypus Genome Reveals Secrets of Mammal Evolution

May 7, 2008 -- by Scott Norris


Decoding the platypus genome has long been an important goal for biologists seeking to understand the origins of mammal evolution.

The study, appearing in today's edition of the journal Nature, gives scientists a new window into the genetic architecture of the earliest mammals.

"The platypus genome, like the animal itself, is an amazing amalgam of reptile-like and mammal-like features," said project co-leader Jennifer Graves, of the Australian National University in Canberra.
The analysis confirms that the platypus was the earliest offshoot of the mammalian family tree, Graves noted.

Click to expand...

"Beggars in Spain" really irritated me. These people have no need for sleep, and how do they fill in their time? WORKING! Employers love them apparently because they automatically pull double shifts, thus rendering the rest of the population redundant. Which probably means they didn't have the sense to ask for overtime. I never understood why the Sleepless couldn't think of anything better to do with their time. Hands up the people who love their jobs so much they'd leap at the chance to do twice as much of it. "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will'. How about "Eight hours for work, eight hours for writing, eight hours for what we will". I couldn't even finish the first book.