It just seems like it would be a really cool thing to have gills and be able to populate the oceans in the same way we populate the land. We could have houses and shops and vehicles, andgo on walks/swims and just kind of live underwater.
Start a whole new second species of human here on earth maybe, Who knows?
- Vilian ( @Vilian@lemmy.ca ) 2•2 hours ago
Changing the color of your eye take so much changes that’s impossible todo it, gills is going to need so much changes, and we don’t even know what most of our genes do
- TheOubliette ( @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 5•5 hours ago
Yes, but being able to change genetic code does not mean being able to design entire organs and pop 'em in there during fetal development. That would be very challenging.
Gene editing has the most positive potential when it comes to things like curing/eradicating genetic diseases, doing microbiological research, or engineering metabolic products in microorgsnisms.
- Chuymatt ( @Chuymatt@beehaw.org ) 1•2 hours ago
Single loci genetic diseases. Those with numerous genes contributing will me even more difficult.
- FiskFisk33 ( @FiskFisk33@startrek.website ) 7•10 hours ago
maybe?, if we accept the mountains of dead human babies the research would inevitably produce.
- davel [he/him] ( @davel@lemmy.ml ) English27•20 hours ago
Did Jeff Goldblum teach us nothing?
- Dr. Wesker ( @wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ) English5•20 hours ago
🤮✊ 🤮🦶
- Tolookah ( @Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de ) 7•18 hours ago
- Dr. Wesker ( @wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ) English16•18 hours ago
How does Brundlefly eat?
- FiniteLooper ( @FiniteLooper@lemm.ee ) English14•19 hours ago
cd ~/me npm install gills —save
- flashgnash ( @flashgnash@lemm.ee ) 5•20 hours ago
Pretty sure you can already get those you just need to have sex with enough siblings and cousins
- spizzat2 ( @spizzat2@lemm.ee ) 1•18 hours ago
That’s what I keep telling them!
- oo1 ( @oo1@lemmings.world ) English4•20 hours ago
Have you been watching a fairly terrible late1990/early2000s tv series starring jessica alba? I’m pretty sure they had some fish-mutants.
I don’t think you can radically change a human’s environment that much faster than nature, especially not a system so critical as breathing. The whole organism (including the internal microbiome) needs to co-evolve with itself and the ecosystem it is to survive in - to function effectively as an independent organism. I don’t know how long it took cetaceans to evolve, but even they still breathe air at the surface - they’re really just big flappy hippos.
I’m sure it’s not impossible but I think you’d need, many, maybe thousands of generations for it to become something viable that can effectively provide enough oxygen to the other systems - or more likely adapt all the other systems to less oxygen. So it might have to live basically in a lab / sea-world for centuries. You might need scientists with unusual ethical standards to get to human - but an underwater rat? I’m sure you’d find a few Dr Mephestos out there eager to drown a few thousand of those.
Source: 100% ignorant opinion.
I was just thinking there’s plenty of creatures bigger than us with much more active lifestyles. And gills are kind of self-contained. Just slap them on there and away you go!
Hypothetically. 100% ignorant opinion as well.
- I_am_10_squirrels ( @I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org ) 1•6 hours ago
I take lungs now, gills come next week.
- CO5MO ✨ ( @c0smokram3r@midwest.social ) 2•20 hours ago
would