speculation time! - How would you modify the human species?

[Circusfreak]

Imagine that scientists seriously and legally started to do genetic engineering on humans in order to improve the species. Even through that might seem scary and easily turned into horror when put into the wrong hands I really like the concept. evolution is moving incredibly slowly, especially for modern humans. starting to engineer humanity could make our lives so much more convenient. what if everyone could be born without handicaps or diseases, what if sweat didn't smell badly, what if we could see in the dark or could regenerate large wounds like some lizards do.

so: how would you improve humanity if you were one of those scientists?
(lets keep it within an earshot of possible)

 

[DJjaffacake]

Evolution isn't moving slowly at all actually, at least not by its own standards, but anyway, I would improve the immune system so it is better able to fight diseases like flu and HIV that change too rapidly for it to do so at the moment. I would also make it possible for us to survive in a hostile environment like Mars to solve the overpopluation problem we are facing.

 

[bobmus]

'Do genetic engineering on humans'
Do you mean on human embryos? Imagine if we could do that!

Also screening for handicaps and diseases already happens. In IVF you can (and I believe usually do) screen for genetic conditions.
The ethical issue is in deciding what we screen for. Can we say that we should discard embryos with a genetic condition in favour of other ones? Are we saying that such a life wouldn't be worth living by doing so? And of course, at what stage is a life a life?

Doing genetics course at University <.<

 

[Heronblade]

Oh, I've got quite a few ideas along these lines, but for now I'll stick to changes that will still leave us looking relatively human, even on the autopsy table.

-Repurpose the appendix to molecular production. Ideally, it would be able to produce most if not all of the nutrients and other materials the body needs if given the necessary components. Scurvy isn't nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, but we still have other vitamin deficiency issues.

-Pseudo conscious control of most systems. One might for example increase white blood cell production if an infection seems likely (or vice versa when dealing with various conditions causing the body to attack itself), significantly lower metabolism rates in a situation where starvation was possible (or vice versa for those of us who can't seem to get rid of excess fat), or even allow females to choose when or if they are fertile (while also mostly getting rid of the menstrual cycle)

-Partial conversion away from our standard warm blooded system. Keep the temperature regulating systems, but only have them trigger in extreme climes (or by choice, as per the last segment). In the meantime, allow cells to survive a much wider range of temperatures. Done right, it would lower the required energy consumption greatly while also allowing us to survive and thrive in temperatures that would have killed us before, without necessarily rendering us sluggish and useless in the cold like standard cold blooded creatures. As a bonus, disease resistance skyrockets.

-Teeth are grown and replaced on a fairly constant basis. Strong nontoxic antiseptic is added to saliva.

-Modify DNA replication when producing somatic cells, causing it to check the new strands multiple times for errors. Gametes are allowed to proceed as normal, mutations are actually desirable there.

-Improved toxin filtering and an overhaul of the blood-brain barrier. Very few chemicals should be allowed to pass through that barrier to effect the brain.

 

[JaceArveduin]

faster regeneration of tissues. you hand healing from a bad burn faster would be nice, for example

 

[Terminate421]

Put us in the Pokemon world. And remove douchebags who ruin it.

/thread

 

[Esotera]

We already do, on babies. You can screen an embryo for genetic defects, and advise the parents so that they can decide whether they want to deal with that, or you can remove undesirable traits from an egg & then insert it via IVF.

Anyway, I probably wouldn't mess around with anything, and just fix things that have a certain solution to them. There are around 25,000 genes, each of which on average makes 5 different products, and all of these products have different effects on each other. That leaves a lot of room for screwing up.

Wouldn't mind making a human express FGP though, so they glowed in the dark.

 

[aba1]

I think the obvious choice would be to make people more prone to making logical no biased decisions.

 

[Popadoo]

I'm no neurologist, but I assume there are parts of your brain that control certain emotions? I'd remove whatever causes hate, judgement, that kind of stuff. Maybe not remove it entirely, but severely reduce the size of it.

 

[Vaishnav Reddy]

Oh, I've got quite a few ideas along these lines, but for now I'll stick to changes that will still leave us looking relatively human, even on the autopsy table.

-Repurpose the appendix to molecular production. Ideally, it would be able to produce most if not all of the nutrients and other materials the body needs if given the necessary components. Scurvy isn't nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, but we still have other vitamin deficiency issues.

-Pseudo conscious control of most systems. One might for example increase white blood cell production if an infection seems likely (or vice versa when dealing with various conditions causing the body to attack itself), significantly lower metabolism rates in a situation where starvation was possible (or vice versa for those of us who can't seem to get rid of excess fat), or even allow females to choose when or if they are fertile (while also mostly getting rid of the menstrual cycle)

-Partial conversion away from our standard warm blooded system. Keep the temperature regulating systems, but only have them trigger in extreme climes (or by choice, as per the last segment). In the meantime, allow cells to survive a much wider range of temperatures. Done right, it would lower the required energy consumption greatly while also allowing us to survive and thrive in temperatures that would have killed us before, without necessarily rendering us sluggish and useless in the cold like standard cold blooded creatures. As a bonus, disease resistance skyrockets.

-Teeth are grown and replaced on a fairly constant basis. Strong nontoxic antiseptic is added to saliva.

-Modify DNA replication when producing somatic cells, causing it to check the new strands multiple times for errors. Gametes are allowed to proceed as normal, mutations are actually desirable there.

-Improved toxin filtering and an overhaul of the blood-brain barrier. Very few chemicals should be allowed to pass through that barrier to effect the brain.

Goddamnit! Somebody start working on what this guy says ASAP.

 

[bobmus]

I'm no neurologist, but I assume there are parts of your brain that control certain emotions? I'd remove whatever causes hate, judgement, that kind of stuff. Maybe not remove it entirely, but severely reduce the size of it.

These aren't really emotions. I guess you could just dope up the population (say, increase the natural level of dopamine secretion), but I'd hardly consider this a plus for the world.

 

[theparsonski]

We already do, on babies. You can screen an embryo for genetic defects, and advise the parents so that they can decide whether they want to deal with that, or you can remove undesirable traits from an egg & then insert it via IVF.

Anyway, I probably wouldn't mess around with anything, and just fix things that have a certain solution to them. There are around 25,000 genes, each of which on average makes 5 different products, and all of these products have different effects on each other. That leaves a lot of room for screwing up.

Wouldn't mind making a human express FGP though, so they glowed in the dark.

Holy shit, it's Gattaca.

I think all you people are being too complex with your ideas. Where you would improve the immune system and repurpose the appendix, I would attach GREAT BIG METAL WINGS!

 

[Esotera]

Holy shit, it's Gattaca.

I think all you people are being too complex with your ideas. Where you would improve the immune system and repurpose the appendix, I would attach GREAT BIG METAL WINGS!

Would greatly like to see how those humans fare in thunderstorms

I've always thought it'd be cool if humans had a really hard layer of skin, with loads more keratin than we currently do. It'd be like inbuilt body armour, you could basically breed a race of super-soldiers.

 

[Tanis]

I have no issue with this, as long as it VERY VERY regulated.

I LOVE it if I didn't suffer from migraines, fibromyalgia, a sleep disorder...and wear glasses.

If, somehow, the doctor's could have removed/less the likelihood of these things I'd be eternally grateful.

 

[Burst6]

Holy shit, it's Gattaca.

I think all you people are being too complex with your ideas. Where you would improve the immune system and repurpose the appendix, I would attach GREAT BIG METAL WINGS!

For what? Lower back pain?

Or are you secretly a construction worker and you want people to pay for more material to build bigger door frames? You see, greed like this is why people are scared of genetics.

 

[orangeban]

Remove gender and sex differences, everyone shall have the same genitals, you choose whether you wish to be pregnant or just fertilise. All the trouble I've had with gender, I'd happily do away with it.

 

[rednose1]

Huge wings, so we can all fly. Just imagine the kind of crazy offshoots we'd get from society as a whole just because we could fly around.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Easy: less need for sleep. I've been sleep deprived for about 60% of the last 6 months because of school. If we reduce the need for humans to sleep by, like, 2 hours so that we only need 6 hours of sleep to get a good rest, I wouldn't have to deal with this stupid physical and mental fatigue. I think that it'd be beneficial for people other than myself, as well; there's only a certain amount of time in a day, so reducing the amount of time we need to spend sleeping will increase the amount of time we have to do things. More things would get done in a shorter period of time.

This one may be a bit controversial, but I'd also either decrease fertility rates, make it more difficult to conceive a child or decrease human inclination toward sex. The population is growing at an extremely unsustainable rate and measures should be taken to at least stabilize it. Not like the friggin' Krogan genophage which almost wiped out the species; I mean we need to severely decrease the net growth of the population in order to stave off the inevitable depletion of resources for long enough to use science to discover ways to PREVENT the depletion of resources. I like the last one the best, though it may be the least effective, because I think that sex is too intrusive in our world; I would like to be able to watch television or walk down the street without being bombarded with sexual messages. Don't get me wrong, I don't make a big deal about it. I just ignore it, but I just wish that I didn't have to.

I would also like to make less of the population pants-on-head stupid. I'm hesitant to use the word "retarded" to finish the quote, though it would be nice to lower rates of mental disability, as well. I just wish we had fewer people doing stupid things in the world I wouldn't just reduce the amount of stupid people, though; needlessly selfish and/or aggressive people are completely unnecessary in society. While aggression and selfishness may have had uses for survival in the distant, distant past, they're outdated. These kind of people are why people "lose their faith in humanity". "One bad apple spoils the barrel", as they say, and I think that there should be fewer "bad apples" to spoil things for everyone else.

I also like the OP's non-smelly sweat suggestion. I hate the smell of sweat, but I realize that it's a necessary part of body temperature regulation in humans. Taking away the smell would be the most logical solution.