27.12.08

I get to sound smert, yay!

Jennifer cruise speaking to assembled generals on the results of the autopsy of unknown biological agent 02. (Thank god for wikipedia allowing me to sound like I have some clue what biologists and microbiologists might talk about.)

First slide please, thank you. All right gentlemen, the illustration you are seeing right now is to help you understand how the basic cellular structure of this creature functions. It's actually more useful to study the cells in blocks of five, as they seem to work together in units. One of the cells is photosensitive, while three of them are very generic capable of flexibly taking on structure required, it's the fifth that is most interesting though. The fifth unit in this structure, the Turin cell we're calling it, is rather complex for a cell and actually contains a limited set of logic.

I believe that this allows each set of five cells to function almost as a sub-organism. Of course cut off from the whole for any significant length of time, they will starve to death. While connected however they may automatically move into nearby areas of damage to repair the creature, or change the function of the connected cells to intelligently correct local deficiencies in the current form. Each small piece of the creature, then, is a simple part working together to automatically create most of the complex whole.

This is a close up the spinal column, the only area of the creature to show any pre-mortem trauma. I'm sure you recognize most of this next slide, as the figure you were just looking at, with a minor exception, a sixth cell. This sixth cell appears to be an Ependymal cell, these cells belong to the membrane, Ependyma, responsible for producing cerebrospinal fluid. The function of the other three cells is incredibly varied within my sample sets, making it a high probability that this area is responsible for the more complex functions such as thought and reasoning.

Why it cannot repair this area is still a mystery for the most part. Perhaps it requires the Ependymal cells to function and has access to a very limited set, perhaps it's individual pieces simply aren't intelligent enough to repair these areas. Now, any questions gentlemen?

I wouldn't rule that out, no. The likelihood of their developing from small spores is very low given their size and complexity. However due to their structural flexibility it can't be entirely discounted.

A symbiotic relationship would be very likely in my opinion, yes. A human body would provide ample nourishment and all the elements required for it's conception. At worst it would probably be confused with a tumor, but it's also entirely possible for it to slowly phase out the host's cells with it's own. This would be characterized by feeling paradoxically more healthy, while also seeming to loose control of your own body. Of course, this is all just theory at this point.

Ah, yes well it's entirely understandable in evolutionary terms. Although the organism would be truly immortal if it could repair this one small area of itself as well, that isn't what evolution does. Evolution has no design behind it, it has no goals, no agenda, it simply mutates existing organisms into something different. The organism is then forced to survive in a harsh environment, success means it's continuation as a species. If it succeeds so well as to forcibly consume enough resources to starve out another species, or gains so much advantage as to hunt them to extinction, it will cause the extinction of the "weaker" strains. So simply put, while this species is not immortal or perfect, it doesn't have to be, it simply needs to be better than us to prevent extinction.

3 comments:

  1. Great read, although I would have liked to hear what the questions were asked to her were, from the other scientists(?) or military people, since some of them maybe really dumb questions. What would a biologists humorist response be to one of those? hehe

    Also, the last line:
    So simply put, while this species is not immortal or perfect, it doesn't have to be, it simply needs to be enough better than us to prevent extinction.

    Doesn't read right to me for some reason, I think its the word enough in there that throws it off for me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're right, the word completely threw off the pacing of the sentence.

    I wanted to keep the writing to just what she was saying as a stylistic preference. Though after reading it I had something like four more questions come to mind, unfortunately I really can't remember what those were.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The audience are all military personal, btw. Generals and their top staff.

    ReplyDelete