Genetic engineering taken to extremes

Post Reply New Topic

In alot of science fiction there are such things as living space ships. Anyone ever seen the series Lexx? They fly around in basically a giant insect which seems to have been genetically altered to be an effective spaceship which creates food and even accomodates the personal hygiene needs of it's crews.

How possible might this be someday? Would it also be possible to genetically create such things as living cars which are basically some animal on wheels which you could climb inside of and it would be genetically altered to be comfortable for you, perhaps even airconditioned with nice wool seats. These living cars would not run on gas so there would be no pollution, which is another benefit. They'd run on an "internal digestion engine" just like humans and horses and all other animals do. When your living car is low on fuel you can feed it whatever you are eating, or have it pull off the road so it can eat some vegetation... heck, perhaps it would even scoop up roadkill as it is cruising along for a bite to eat.

Or what about a living house which would be based on plant DNA and would have wooden walls that would be alive and would keep the interior a comfortable temperature year round. Am I dreaming, or could such things be possible some day? Imagine your new house growing from a seed...

Theoretically yes...

But it would be more cost-effective and practical to just build a vehicle or house out of metal and wood...

You could however genetically engineer wood... you could put spider silk DNA in a tree and make bulletproof wood... or put jellyfish DNA and make glow in the dark wood...

Or you could make wood that doesn't need to die to turn it into a house... you could live in a genetically engineered tree like the Bernstein Bears...

What senseless horrors we visit upon ourselves in the name of science...

Ever played Starcraft? Zerg structures and vehicles are ALL biomedically alive...

Some of these things are possible in the future. Nothing is unpossible, we have evolved a lot.

Deleted

Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In William Gibson's Neuromancer horses are extinct...

The environment has destabilized so much that they can't clone a horse... it dies of toxic shock syndrome...

That's a pretty good satire...

Okay, WHERE would you get DNA for a car?! Or a house? You have to have the DNA in order to genetically engineer.

Aren't those called horses???

That was my first thought exactly!

Thank yew. Thank yew...

Deleted

Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What? No comment on my curtsy???

The DNA doesn't exist naturally so it would have to be created/altered to suit our needs. I liken it to a computer programmer making a program. He may start out with bits and pieces of code but he may have to create new code and combine those pieces in such a way to create the program he wants.

Couldn't someone program DNA in a similar fashion? Then you could plant a seed and grow a living house, or have two living cars mate to produce baby cars which grow into fullsized cars.

Well, similar, but with wheels. I wonder if it is possible to create DNA for an animal to be equipped with wheels. Also, add the speed of a cheetah and the size of an elephant with the comfortability of a sheep to create something that could replace the automobile forever.

The Sheepelephacheetah would have to have something with good back support for those like me who have bad backs. And also good crash test ratings and low food mileage.

I don't know why you'd want wheels, they are pretty impractical. Legs are much better... or better still, slug/snail ooze! That way you could literally drive people up the wall!

SPIDER CAR