#human genetic engineering

[urlocalwhumper]

living weapon whumpee who's never known anything but pain and violence.

their existence hurts. they were made to be effective, not happy, and their masters decided that keeping them in constant pain provided better results. they're wilder, more unpredictable, and the pain keeps them from thinking straight enough to question anything.

they're only given painkillers, only allowed a respite from their seemingly endless suffering, after a successful mission. it keeps them loyal, and most importantly, teaches their brain to associate acts of violence with relief and rewards.

everyone they've ever met has treated them as a tool, a monster, or both. they don't know how to be anything else.

that is until they're rampaging through a village, destroying, killing, whatever their masters demand of them. whatever will give them a few blissful hours of numbness.

one of the villagers steps out of a ruined building and looks them straight in the eyes. whumpee expects fear, hatred, disgust, the things they see in the faces of every person who's ever crossed their path. but they see something completely different.

compassion.

whumpee is so stunned, they don't think to move or do anything at all as the villager steps closer, gently reaching out a hand to cup whumpee's face.

"oh, poor thing." they murmur, taking in the creature in front of them - part human, part animal, part machine. "they've done a number on you, huh?"

whumpee blinks at them. pain continues to course through their body, but the gentle hand on their cheek distracts them, even if just a little. all the indistinct noise in their foggy, addled mind finally goes quiet.

caretaker had stepped out in front of the being destroying their home with the intention to get through to it or die trying, and the expectation to absolutely die trying.

they did not at all expect the seemingly feral mishmash of metal, fur, and flesh to lean so heavily into their touch that they nearly collapsed into caretaker's arms.

#whump #whump prompts #nonhuman whumpee #living weapon whumpee #mine #chariot shiori on the brain tonite #the intention here is for whumpee to be this genetically engineered fusion of human and animal #the general build and anatomy of a human #but they grow fur on their limbs and partially up their back. they have an animal's sensitive ears. sharp canine fangs and a prehensile tail #and beyond that they've been outfitted with machine 'enhancements' to make them better suited for combat and destruction #and they've never experienced a kind touch in their life #letting them feel comfort will make them crave it. 'not actively suffering' should be the best they can strive for #their masters never anticipated that having someone treat them with anything other than revulsion or detatched indifference would break them #bc they banked on no one showing positive reactions to the monster that destroyed their homes and potentially killed their loved ones #caretaker is just crazy <33

[scipunk]

Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (2010)

#mardock scramble #anime #cyberpunk aesthetic #scifi #cyberpunk anime #cybernetics #japanese animation #computers #cyberpunk #gif #genetic engineering #high tech #human experimentation #gifset #neo noir #scifi anime #anime edit #anime gif

[alangdorf]

(sorry for leaving y’all in suspense I was grocery shopping) Surprise!! I accidentally got into Len’en like two weeks ago. Whoops! I got ideas for cool drawings to do with each of the BPoHC shrine team members (and you-know-who, ofc, but that one might be… weird lol), but Tsubakura gets to go first cause theirs is the simplest; just greyscale + red color scheme with a split background and the pose is mostly random (maybe they’re squishing Tsurubami’s little eye thing? Idk). Very pleased with how everything worked out; the line for the eye is exactly where the dividing line for the background was and the way I managed to make the vest corseted while not changing the ribbon placement is just perfect. Although I did make their hat smaller out of the aforementioned cowardice also that thing is hard to draw

#art #digital #len’en #tsubakura enraku #for those not in the know: Len’en is a game series inspired by Touhou but there’s a number of things different about it and it is rapidly #spiraling off into a very complicated story and also other game genres; also every character’s gender is officially ‘whatever’ #This character (Tsubakura) plays like Marisa but is also a shrine maiden (priest) along with the Reimu type character #Nonbinary (to me) mad scientist. #Replaces soy sauce with calligraphy ink in every culinary application. #Made a nuclear bomb once supposedly on accident. #Locked in a blood feud with their 3(ish) absurdly powerful ex-girlfriends and this has led to at least one actual war. so far #(hello high brightness users! :D) #Apparently mastered genetic engineering and mostly uses it for stuff like making it so they can put ink in their coffee and not die from it #what’s not to love #oh ya I doubt anyone cares much since this was in the tags but I got some stuff wrong due to misunderstanding & exaggeration for comedy sryy #nuclear bomb was definitely an accident cause they got really sad about it after which is soooooo funny #they do eat ink and also soap but it’s not really explained why it doesn’t kill them of why they like it #also they made an artificial human (+ several androids) who’s supposed to be an assassin and used to be an even more blatant mega reference #hasn’t actually killed anyone yet cause their first target is Tsubakura lol #and I’m barely exaggerating abt the ex girlfriend thing; they haven’t been confirmed to have dated in canon but they were quote #‘close enough to want to murder each other’ #and one of them is very homoerotic about it all the time so like rlly not that out of pocket #admittedly the one I’m drawing somewhat homoerotic art of with Tsubakura atm is probably one of the other two but whateverrrr #it still fits Arde well enough #*mgs reference

[mr-kench]

I was rewatching Batman Beyond (great show, highly underrated) the only context you need for the show is that this is in the not so distant future l, Bruce is an old man and passed to torch to a new kid named Terry McGinis. It got to the episode that really got me thinking. Not in a philosophical way or anything but just in a “humanity would 100% do this if they could��� sort of way. The basic premise is that theirs a new type of body altering fashion trend. Theirs people in the show that try to justify it as basically being a tattoo and others outright saying that logic is completely bullshit. It’s called Splicing. It’s a gene lab that cracked the code on splicing DNA for immediate and near painless transformation to the body using animal DNA. It doesn’t need to be the whole body as one girl altered her eyes to have green cat eyes. However theirs some that went full body basically becoming anthro animals, a guy that became part snake, another became part bull and a different one became part hyena. Naturally the guy in charge of this was evil and the side effect of this was increased aggression.

However that’s not what I want to focus on. Instead I want to focus on the concept of Splicing itself. Theirs tons of people who would 100% be on board for this if it was possible myself included. Having claws and fangs sounds badass. Plenty more would be willing to go all the way and become hybrids being half human and half whatever other animal. At the same time plenty of concerned adults in the show were against this. With Terry’s little brother wanting to get spliced and his mom saying no. When asked why she’d be against it since she has a tattoo she says “the difference is that I don’t have antlers growing out of my head”

Excluding the obligatory evil plot it’s a pretty good examination of theoretical Trans Humanism. I’m confident it’s going to be a thing if we make it that far as a civilization. Theirs plenty of usefulness in the technology and it’s cool looking besides but there would naturally be concerns from others seeing people willingly leave behind their humanity and become something objectively not human.

It’s an interesting thought and one that’s crossed my mind. If Splicing was real would any of you want to do it? If so how would you want to be spliced, full body, only small features?

#story writing #batman #batman beyond #terry mcginnis #Batman beyond splicers #splicer #trans humanism #genetic engineering #genetics #genetic alterations

[factorialsotherfandoms]

XCOM AU, set a bit before the whumptober exhaustion prompt (and maybe gets a chapter 2 covering either Mike's PoV post-rescue, or Pac's PoV of the rescue, but... well, I'll leave it 1/2 on ao3 until I have time to write it. It might be this evening, it might be in months, who knows). By this point the first of the eggs have been recovered, but Mike /does not know about them/. Because he was caught before then. As such, his info on what some things are is incorrect.

How the soul-bond works is not something I've explained and not something Pac and Mike quite understand, but tldr the further apart physically they are the harder it is to do anything with it, and more faint the 'passive' bond is. As in, what they just feel and get without putting effort in. Also the further they are apart the quicker doing shit like 'shielding each other from psychic powers' will tire them out. Pac absolutely ends up unconscious not long after Mike the first time around.

TW: torture, magical mind manipulation, serious head injuries

Pac is faint in Mike's brain, and for once it is a blessing. He hangs onto that fact, onto the fact he can tell his soulmate is safe - safe and not nearby - and bares his teeth at his enemy. It's been weeks now, if not months, pinned to the wall, tortured and starved and unable to move. The muscles in his arms are past strained, hands long number and still up there.

His glasses are shattered on the floor and, for some reason, it makes him even angrier than the rest.

One Cucurucho sits in the corner, a desk dragged into the cell in a mockery of professionalism. It has a tablet and stylus at the ready to take notes.

Mike refuses to give it anything of use.

And then the aliens. Two Sectoids are held on leashes by a Federation Guard, ready to be unleashed at any moment.

And then the Hunter, the Federation's pet sniper, something once human, twisted and corrupted and changed. Faster, sharper, with eyes that see further and hands too steady and psionics the likes of which not even the Order have seen before.

The Hunter, the Assassin, the Warlock, the Federation's three perfect soldiers. Human DNA spliced with alien, then turned out to destroy the world.

He holds a pistol under Mike's chin, pressing up and into the soft flesh just there. Still Mike hisses and snarls and refuses to give in. His body is littered with scars and injuries from the torture, his nails broken or gone, his teeth bloody, his skin torn.

Still he does not give in.

"You will tell me," the Hunter demands. "Where are the eggs. We know your people stole them, boy..."

"I don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about," Mike snarls back, trying to push forward and only catching himself on the gun.

There's some few surviving chickens who live on Kristin's farm - Philza's mentioned them before, and sometimes they get a delivery for the canteen - but he slipped last week and mentioned that. Whatever eggs the Federation want, it's not them.

"Of course you do," the Hunter continues. "How could you not? Hasn't your little friend let something slip to you? We all know about him. We all know you two do the..." his tongue flicks across his lick, and for a horrifying moment Mike remembers the Cell of years ago "/research/."

How dare he, how fucking dare he bring Pac into this. Of course they know about him - about them - but how /dare/ he.

"Haven't done research in years," Mike just about manages to gather some spit, aiming it at the Hunter's eye. He misses, but does hit his deathly-blue tongue. "Neither's he. Tubbo and Aypierre took over R&D years ago. You know this. You tortured him, too."

Cucurucho's blank eyes are watching them now, the tablet placed down and hands folded atop the desk.

"Are you sure about that?" the Hunter's fingers move over the trigger.

"We're not so stupid as to let field agents know the details of R&D," Mike lies through his teeth. Like you could ever keep him and Pac from the labs. "Moron."

"Then I guess we have no use for you."

The Hunter's finger twitches. Mike fucking dares him to try.

He definitely went to pull the trigger, but then freezes.

"Wait."

The robotoic, familiar voice of Cucurucho says. The creature - fuck knows if its an alien, a robot, or some lab-grown abomination - slowly stands.

Slowly walks over.

Keeps its hands clasped before it.

"I will take over this investigation," Cucurucho says, completely bland.

The Hunter lowers the gun.

The Federation worker and both sectoids drop dead.

Cucurucho's eyes glow purple, and it reaches one set of claws to Mike's cheek.

He throws every secret he can from his mind, throws it all back at Pac, along their strained and distant bond. He hides the core of himself there, too, everything he should be or could be or wants, hiding in the security of his soulmate as a creature of the Federation tries to break into his skull.

Even so distant, even so far apart, Pac manages to throw a shield around them.

Keep the information safe.

Keep everything that Mike /is/ safe.

Keep Mike from dying once again.

He can feel Pac's questions now, now he's forced himself into their bond, and their terror merges into one. Mike's still linked to himself, can still feel his brain bleed information as Cucurucho rips through it, reading not just his mind but his very soul. Steals everything there - or rather copies it - from schematics of old weapons to the identities of the prominent Order members to Mike's memories from before the war.

Claws scrape along Pac's shield. The essence of Pac's being holds the essence of Mike's being closer, entwining them and the truly /dangerous/ information together for as long as he can, keeps the shield up as long as he can.

It's agony, agony, agony, to feel something tear through Mike's very soul. But he's also closer to Pac than he has been in - in months, he reads from Pac, closer than he's been in months - and he drinks the comfort he can from his soulmate.

Even like this, even expending so much energy to twine over continents, Mike still cannot feel Pac's words.

Mike tires the faster, torture and mind fuckery taking their toll, but even Pac is flagging before Cucurucho pulls away.

Mike is aware of all of himself at once, of course, starts instinctively placing memories back in their proper place while Pac tries to cling to him longer.

"Useless," Cucurucho deems him.

Relief he didn't let anything slip floods Mike, even as Pac grows in terror. The grip they have on each other is slipping, slipping, slipping..

Cucurucho returns to its desk.

The Hunter raises the pistol.

Mike readies himself to die, and Pac refuses to let him go.

It's not a gunshot that comes; the pistol slams into the side of Mike's head.

The force is too much; Mike's head cracks to the side, and he feels something break.

Everything goes black.

When the world comes back, there are hands on him - he doesn't get it, doesn't understand, but Pac is still distant - reaches to cling to him as soon as the black fades - so Mike doesn't care. He doesn't have the energy to reach along the bond for Pac, but he knows how to fight and fight and keeps on fighting.

His skin is torn and he tears skin in turn and he doesn't know what is happening, but the hands are not human hands and the claws are distinctly monstrous claws so he fights and he fights and he keeps on fighting.

He sees but does not understand, touches but does not feel, listens but cannot hear, so he keeps on fighting.

A rifle butt cracks across the back of his skull.

This time he can hear Pac's scream as light turns black once more.

#qsmp fanfic #qsmp mike #qsmp pac #qsmp cucurucho #qsmp tazercraft #qsmp au #qsmp x xcom #hybrids and similar count as human for internal monologue and legal purposes so long as they are naturally occurring and native to earth #the hunter assassin and warlock are actually proto-eggs #proofs of concept before they started making eggs for purposes of possession #they became too individual to overwrite and so are now the federation's genetically engineered supersoldiers #its not actually seconds between the two cracks to the head its days #mike is... really not in a good way by the time people find him

[never-was-has-been]

I may know about those mushrooms. I've seen a bowl of chili start moving as if they were maggots squirming...

#Adam & Eve were the first genetically engineered humans by ET's 60-100 thousand years ago.

[jcmarchi]

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-protein-found-in-human-sweat-may-protect-against-lyme-disease/

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks, affects nearly half a million people in the United States every year. In most cases, antibiotics effectively clear the infection, but for some patients, symptoms linger for months or years.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Helsinki have now discovered that human sweat contains a protein that can protect against Lyme disease. They also found that about one-third of the population carries a genetic variant of this protein that is associated with Lyme disease in genome-wide association studies.

It’s unknown exactly how the protein inhibits the growth of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, but the researchers hope to harness the protein’s protective abilities to create skin creams that could help prevent the disease, or to treat infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“This protein may provide some protection from Lyme disease, and we think there are real implications here for a preventative and possibly a therapeutic based on this protein,” says Michal Caspi Tal, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and one of the senior authors of the new study.

Hanna Ollila, a senior researcher at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears today in Nature Communications. The paper’s lead author is Satu Strausz, a postdoc at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki.

A surprising link

Lyme disease is most often caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. In the United States, this bacterium is spread by ticks that are carried by mice, deer, and other animals. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a distinctive bulls-eye rash.

Most patients receive doxycycline, an antibiotic that usually clears up the infection. In some patients, however, symptoms such as fatigue, memory problems, sleep disruption, and body aches can persist for months or years.

Tal and Ollila, who were postdocs together at Stanford University, began this study a few years ago in hopes of finding genetic markers of susceptibility to Lyme disease. To that end, they decided to run a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on a Finnish dataset that contains genome sequences for 410,000 people, along with detailed information on their medical histories.

This dataset includes about 7,000 people who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, allowing the researchers to look for genetic variants that were more frequently found in people who had had Lyme disease, compared with those who hadn’t.

This analysis revealed three hits, including two found in immune molecules that had been previously linked with Lyme disease. However, their third hit was a complete surprise — a secretoglobin called SCGB1D2.

Secretoglobins are a family of proteins found in tissues that line the lungs and other organs, where they play a role in immune responses to infection. The researchers discovered that this particular secretoglobin is produced primarily by cells in the sweat glands.

To find out how this protein might influence Lyme disease, the researchers created normal and mutated versions of SCGB1D2 and exposed them to Borrelia burgdorferi grown in the lab. They found that the normal version of the protein significantly inhibited the growth of Borrelia burgdorferi. However, when they exposed bacteria to the mutated version, twice as much protein was required to suppress bacterial growth.

The researchers then exposed bacteria to either the normal or mutated variant of SCGB1D2 and injected them into mice. Mice injected with the bacteria exposed to the mutant protein became infected with Lyme disease, but mice injected with bacteria exposed to the normal version of SCGB1D2 did not.

“In the paper we show they stayed healthy until day 10, but we followed the mice for over a month, and they never got infected. This wasn’t a delay, this was a full stop. That was really exciting,” Tal says.

Preventing infection

After the MIT and University of Helsinki researchers posted their initial findings on a preprint server, researchers in Estonia replicated the results of the genome-wide association study, using data from the Estonian Biobank. These data, from about 210,000 people, including 18,000 with Lyme disease, were later added to the final Nature Communications study.

The researchers aren’t sure yet how SCGB1D2 inhibits bacterial growth, or why the variant is less effective. However, they did find that the variant causes a shift from the amino acid proline to leucine, which may interfere with the formation of a helix found in the normal version.

They now plan to investigate whether applying the protein to the skin of mice, which do not naturally produce SCGB1D2, could prevent them from being infected by Borrelia burgdorferi. They also plan to explore the protein’s potential as a treatment for infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“We have fantastic antibiotics that work for 90 percent of people, but in the 40 years we’ve known about Lyme disease, we have not budged that,” Tal says. “Ten percent of people don’t recover after having antibiotics, and there’s no treatment for them.”

“This finding opens the door to a completely new approach to preventing Lyme disease in the first place, and it will be interesting to see if it could be useful for preventing other types of skin infections too,” says Kara Spiller, a professor of biomedical innovation in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, who was not involved in the study.

The researchers note that people who have the protective version of SCGB1D2 can still develop Lyme disease, and they should not assume that they won’t. One factor that may play a role is whether the person happens to be sweating when they’re bitten by a tick carrying Borrelia burgdorferi.

SCGB1D2 is just one of 11 secretoglobin proteins produced by the human body, and Tal also plans to study what some of those other secretoglobins may be doing in the body, especially in the lungs, where many of them are found.

“The thing I’m most excited about is this idea that secretoglobins might be a class of antimicrobial proteins that we haven’t thought about. As immunologists, we talk nonstop about immunoglobulins, but I had never heard of a secretoglobin before this popped up in our GWAS study. This is why it’s so fun for me now. I want to know what they all do,” she says.

The research was funded, in part, by Emily and Malcolm Fairbairn, the Instrumentarium Science Foundation, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Younger Family, and the Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

#000 #Analysis #Animals #antibiotic #Antibiotics #antimicrobial #approach #Bacteria #Biological engineering #Biology #Broad Institute #Cells #communications #data #Delay #Disease #disruption #engineering #eye #factor #fatigue #Finland #Foundation #Full #genetic #Genetics #genome #growth #how #human

[sorcerous-caress]

Ironic of fate to make birds so in love with humans

#genuinely birds are infatuated with humans it's not even funny #i really wanted wings as a kid #i used to dream of ways to genetically engineer them into human beings #that's why I hated birds #hated them even when they'd curiously play in front of my window each morning #building their nests so close by and never flinching away when kid me opened the window to glare at them #hated how much they liked following humans and cooing at us #i wanted their wings so bad Why couldn't we have it #I wanted to fly and feel the sky I wanted to see the world and feel free #they have the choice to be literally anywhere so why are they choosing to stay here near me what is so interesting in my bedroom window #i hated people who kept them as pets because I thought birds should never be pets. it robbed them of their freedom #what I hated most was the people who kept them in cages. who made them miserable or clipped their wings. i hated them so much more. #because I envied birds deep down but I never wished harm upon them. i never wanted to steal their beauty or freedom away I only wished that #I would be half as free

[crqstalite]

so random thought — was it a plothole that the nexus really didnt have a single quarian, drell, volus, etc. onboard to help with engineering or other tasks? like every other species had a couple on the nexus, even if their ark hadnt arrived properly. i dont believe that lol

chalking that up to dev hell probably

#andre plays mea #the quarians were absent??? #you mean those guys were great at engineering?? #girl bye lmao #should i write a couple in if i get around to writing andromeda? #was it politics #i bet you 20 bucks it was politics #bc theres no virtual shot #that the asari turians humans and salarians were genetically close enough that they could speedrun building the arks #and they couldnt stick a couple of the other races there?

[seraph-bile]

Still stressed after being enlightened about the horrors of nekopara

#like WHAT do you mean they are genetically engineered CATS they made to look and act human and not HUMANS that were genetically modified #WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT THE OLDWST FUCKABLE CAT GIRL IS A LITERALLY TODDLER #because they age in cat years

[mistress-strex]

((I just realized that I’m now actually the age that Divina was supposed to be when I started this page 10 years ago. And she should TECHNICALLY be physically 43 years old. Instead she’s forever 33 because reasons.))

#ooc #She’s not even an actual human in canon #if the strex science peeps can genetically engineer a whole ass person to become the perfect businesswoman #then I don’t see why she can’t stop aging in her early 30s #NO RULES

[nachosforfree]

If you're a parent who likes taking their kids camping gasoline2 would be really useful because you wouldn't need as much to start a campfire and you wouldn't have to worry if one of your kids accidentally consumed it. Good job gretchen you just solved two of the camping fandoms biggest problems (I think idk I'm not in the camping fandom i could be wrong)

See? Gretchen's inventions AREN'T totally useless to or actively harmful to society!

#at this rate we might even find a use for the man eating sharks (sharks genetically engineered to crave human flesh) #asks

[capnsoapy]

the most underrated and overlooked piece of sci-fi world-building is in Red Dwarf I think, just because you simply don't notice it at first

there are no aliens. not a single one. no sign of life out any intelligent life out there. or even stupid life

every single monster or sign of intelligence is just other junk from Earth which has drifter the same three million years as they have

#they met holograms. evolved cats. a roast chicken. physical hallucinations. androids. ai. alternate universe humans. GELFs. simulants. #mechanoids. a sentient vindaloo. wax works. living planets. viruses. a genetically-engineered squid. experimental life forms. clones. #but all from earth #once you notice it it's insane

[alteredsilicone]

New Loka is essentially anti-Orokin but they decided to just do a hard reset and reject anything that has even a tinge of Orokin in it.

#in their idea pure human = not affected by Orokin meddling in any way #which is an interesting idea bc #like we know NOTHING of pre-Orokin humanity #so who says that most humans arent the result of Orokin genetic and societal engineering #wf tag

[garlend]

I recently saw a future of furry tf video and I knew it was gonna be bad but watched it anyways.

It was at least not egregiously bad, but there's a fundamental lack of knowledge about how genetic engineering works and how organisms attain the form they do.

A lot of people are under the impression that genetic engineering will turn you into a furry through... science magic. It's never very clear or explained what the actual mechanisms are, but there's a big conception that it'll actually involve animal DNA somehow.

And it's just frustrating that people have no idea how stuff like that works, that we wouldn't be actual fox/human hybrids but humans shaped in an animal way, with genetic engineering to express features reminiscent of animals and actively biologically or physically shaped into the new form. It's more plastic surgery than a tf serum, is what I'm saying.

#futurism #transhumanism #fur #misconceptions #like sorry but a wolf/human half breed would be stillborn #maybe having experience with code and how the surface is extremely divorced from the implementation is why that's so intuitive to me #and I think that some really cool stuff is being ignored in favor of that fantasy #I'm looking forward to biorobots #genetically engineered cells that are a mix of computers and robots and chemical factories #that kind of misconception also applies to nanites but I think that's a little more justifiable since they're in the magic realm right now

[lilbluntworld]

#anders sandberg #transhumanism #space #bioengineering #ai #longevity #dysonsphere #dyson sphere #swarm #drone #gods #humanity #immortality #genetic modification #engineering #cybernetic #cyber #cyberspace #cyberpunk #cybercore #CRISPR #god #science #bio #biohacker #posthuman #posthumanism #lunar cosmism #von nuemann #futurism