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[RAM]

I think the big question at this point is, do we want to spend ages on theory and have no victims? Or whip up a few batches to see how the current theories would play out...

[~Neri]

I'm thinking for the heat problem, ridge like growths on head/body (bone with blood vessels running through?) to dispel heat, thicker bones, stronger muscles, multiple lung sacks (4), binary heart system so gravity can't tire out the single heart as quick by making it need to pump harder.

[RAM]

The problem is that all of that will add to weight and energy consumption, Although I have no clue whether it would be worth it. Binary hearts would have issues if they got out of alignment, but it might still work if there was a lot of circulation between them, and they were not so powerful...

[weenog]

Scaling people down is the simplest way to deal with the gravity problem, and should also reduce (though probably not completely alleviate) the breathing problem.  It works for the same reason giant monsters don't.  We should begin by activating a recessive gene for dwarfism, the material is already there.

If we can revise the urinary tract to pass liquid waste off into the fecal slurry near the end of the small intestine, water can be reabsorbed as it passes through the large intestine.  This will probably require improvements to the intestinal tract to avoid reabsorbing toxins instead of excreting them.  As a small aesthetic bonus, these people will not be urinating through their reproductive systems.

Perhaps neither hair nor feathers are an appropriate covering for our new kind of people.  We should tailor the immune system and skin to accept growth of a kind of plant, that we will engineer ourselves.  This plant will be a hardy variety that needs minimal water and exists in symbiosis with our new breed of humans.  It will cover at least part of them, providing a shield against the sun.  It will feed itself by extracting carbon from excess carbon dioxide in the blood, and release the waste oxygen back into the bloodstream.  This should help to make the most of what little oxygen is available.  We will need to pay careful attention to conditions in which our engineered plant can grow, to avoid overgrowth and sickening or killing the hosts.

[~Neri]

The heat ridges might be a good idea for the temp problem, heat filled blood moves through them and disperses with the increased surface area, sorta like cooling fins.

[a1s]

The heat ridges might be a good idea for the temp problem, heat filled blood moves through them and disperses with the increased surface area, sorta like cooling fins.

Not unless we go with the increased body temperature idea (which I'm told is impractical)- the local temperatures are almost never below your optimum body temperature, so cooling through surface area will not work, it will just make them hotter.

[RAM]

It can operate in the same way a freezer does, by manipulating pressure changes. And body temperature changes are not really a bad idea, it is great for making you immune to your previous specie's parasites, But it would mean making small alterations to just about everything. Good result but lots of fiddling around. I would probably find the more mechanical side of things more entertaining, so I would tend towards a biological refrigerator growing out of your back, but body temperature alterations should be entirely possible...

[Eotyrannus]

Okay, the general things are...

Mineralised bones are stronger, but also heavier. Honeycombed bones are stronger and lighter, and can be cannibalised from birds. And again, a hollow bone isn't a weak bone. A peregrine, with its little hollow leg bones, can still withstand hitting a pigeon in the skull at ridiculous speeds. If it's that much of a problem, however, we can always manually thicken the walls so it's more like a mammal bone with a honeycomb structure, since our bones have marrow-filled hollows in them anyway.

A bald head has no protection from the sun. A hairy or feathered head does have protection. Feathers are better at losing heat than hair, so feathers are the all-round superior option.

Complete cold-bloodedness won't give them the energy to have human-level intelligence. I'd recommend a simple lower body temperature, instead of going all the way. Platypus have a lower body temperature than normal mammals, but are still warm-blooded. Even more warm blood would mean they'd have to eat more food, which doesn't really help a colonisation attempt.

Sails generally don't work with warm-blooded animals, which our humans will need to be if they're intelligent enough to be people. They make blood overheat in the sun and you end up burning more food to stay warm if it's against the wind. It would probably be cheaper not to have to make custom clothes, too.

Downscaling is a good idea. Less food, can use smaller shade, and won't take as much damage from a fall.

The urea+digestive system idea is a good idea, although I'd still prefer uric acid.

The plants would, most likely, give a neglible amount of oxygen and sugar. It would be far easier to use a traditional hairstyle of some sort, and you wouldn't have to grow the seeds on your baby's head.

The binary heart isn't really necessary, it just needs to be a reasonable size.

I'm  all for making Velociraptors, but that isn't really part of the task we've been given. Perhaps later.

[a1s]

Mineralised bones are stronger, but also heavier. Honeycombed bones are stronger and lighter, and can be cannibalised from birds. And again, a hollow bone isn't a weak bone. A peregrine, with its little hollow leg bones, can still withstand hitting a pigeon in the skull at ridiculous speeds. If it's that much of a problem, however, we can always manually thicken the walls so it's more like a mammal bone with a honeycomb structure, since our bones have marrow-filled hollows in them anyway.

Pigeons and peregrine hawks are small- it's not that their bones are strong, it's that body mass grows faster than cross section area. Still, if we are definitely changing bones (are we?) we can do honeycomb, why not?

A bald head has no protection from the sun. A hairy or feathered head does have protection. Feathers are better at losing heat than hair, so feathers are the all-round superior option.

Agree with the first part. I'm unclear on how feathers lose heat though (do they radiate it?).

Complete cold-bloodedness won't give them the energy to have human-level intelligence. I'd recommend a simple lower body temperature, instead of going all the way.

You do realize it's insanely hot on this planet? The coldest it ever gets is about equatorial temperatures on Earth. And the variance is a lot smaller (places on Earth typically have around 15-20 degrees (K) diurnal variation and 30-40 annual, where as here we have only 19, either were the colony is or possibly on the whole planet). The problem we're solving is venting excess heat- lowering "target" body temperature will be very detrimental to that goal (and this will also slow down their metabolism to, as you pointed out, make them less intelligent).

Downscaling is a good idea. Less food, can use smaller shade, and won't take as much damage from a fall.

just wanted to point out I agree with this, so you don't think I'm just being contrarian.

The plants would, most likely, give a neglible amount of oxygen and sugar. It would be far easier to use a traditional hairstyle of some sort, and you wouldn't have to grow the seeds on your baby's head.

Just to claify- you don't plant a garden on your baby's head (nor is it just the head), it just sort of already grows there, like hair or fur. That being said, I'm not a fan of the idea.

[Eotyrannus]

Yeah, square cube law. Still, hollow-bones dinosaurs. Large terror-birds like Kelenken will almost certainly have fallen over sometimes, or had other high strains on their leg bones, but they did completely fine with it. We're making them both stronger (ala square cube) and thicker at the same time, and having air sacs helps against falling (by virtue of being lighter for body size).

IIRC, they have better air flow control, so they can release the trapped heat. I'm sure that having dense feathers works perfectly well in a hot place though. If we compare a desert antelope/mammal of some sort (oryx, maybe?) and an ostrich/desert bird, the feathers are as poofy as a polar bear while the hair is extremely short.

It isn't really target body temperature it's lowering, bad wording on my part. It's more 'not-quite-as-warm-bloodedness' instead of 'needs a low body temperature to survive'.

I'm not sure how else the plants would get there, if it's not seeds/spores. But yeah, I'm not a fan of it either.


Also, if anyone says I'm being overly negative, that's me being picky. It's more constructive criticism than trying to go 'LOL U ALL SUCK N00BS'.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The oxygen content being half...well, before I can respond, is that the total oxygen or the oxygen percentage?

Does it matter? In one case we have 50% of the required oxygen, and in the other 38%. the difference is a bare 25%

25% isn't a sneezing matter.

We want these folk to actually live out there without inventing new and colourful language to curse their creator. Having them faint if they exert themselves wouldn't be good. Forcing them to carry several litres of water whenever they leave a dam would not be good. If basic-model humans expel anything they have recently ingested whenever they look at our creation, that probably wouldn't be good either...
Lets give them ridges to expel heat, keep clothing and cleaning in mind, putting the most pronounced ridges on the head and outer limbs, with milder ridges on the torso. I think that small size is necessary, for gravitational and circulatory issues, but it would place some strain on breathing. Feathers sound good, but might insulate too well, if we could have ridges protruding from feathers without making something hideous to behold then that might be workable.
_{Lets just make velociraptors and be done with it...}

No raptors! Did you learn nothing from the mistakes of John Hammond?

I think ectothermy would be easier than ridges, and wouldn't come with wardrobe issues. Small size has lots of issues, especially with heat regulation and retaining human intellect.
And remember: K.I.S.S. Simple is also less ugly.

I'm convinced on the making them shorter vs. bone toughening question. Changing my vote to Make Shorter. I'm not 100% sure on respiratory efficiency vs. pressurized lungs. Do we have gene samples available for more efficient lungs? Something to look into. As for ectothermy, normally I would be all for it if we were designing a creature from the ground up, but in this case it seems really impractical. Consider:

1. We'd need to redo the hypothalamus to not change body temperature while still producing the required hormones that the body needs. Which means complicated and potentially dangerous brain DNA alterations.
2. We'd need to rework a bunch of proteins to accept a wider tolerance for core body temperature than is normal in humans. Again, that is a lot of work.
3. We'd have to rework the histamine response to neither cause fevers (which are not available for ectotherms) nor to rely on them in the immune system. And we can't change the histamine molecule itself, since it's also used as a neurotransmitter and for other immune system responses.
4. Beacause of 2 and 3, that means we have to basically redo the entire immune system to use different proteins, not need fever to drive out bacteria, to be more pro-active about killing bacteria to compensate for higher infection rates, but not kill of vital gut bacteria, etc.
5. Basically, what RAM said. Making them cold-blooded would mean periods of lethargy in cold, periodic sunning requirements, a change in sexual response not to get squicked out by feeling up cold flesh, and a host of other psychological changes to make the colonists feel OK about being lizard people and not become super depressed.

1. Why? Wouldn't it simply be disabling the creation of whatever hormones or proteins are used in temperature regulation, one of the easiest bits of gengineering?
2. Probably, yeah, but we could just use homologous proteins in (say) lizards.
3. True.
4. Perhaps. But it can't be that tough.
5. The psychological bit might have a point, but it never gets that cold. The temperature bottoms out around 90 Farenheight.
It certainly works better than big rays.

Scaling people down is the simplest way to deal with the gravity problem, and should also reduce (though probably not completely alleviate) the breathing problem.  It works for the same reason giant monsters don't.  We should begin by activating a recessive gene for dwarfism, the material is already there.

The problem being that thermoregulation is tougher in small creatures due to the greater ration of surface area to volume and such. This cuts for "keeping warm" and "keeping cool".

If we can revise the urinary tract to pass liquid waste off into the fecal slurry near the end of the small intestine, water can be reabsorbed as it passes through the large intestine.  This will probably require improvements to the intestinal tract to avoid reabsorbing toxins instead of excreting them.  As a small aesthetic bonus, these people will not be urinating through their reproductive systems.

Agreed. Especially since it's not mutually exclusive with uric acid.

Perhaps neither hair nor feathers are an appropriate covering for our new kind of people.  We should tailor the immune system and skin to accept growth of a kind of plant, that we will engineer ourselves.  This plant will be a hardy variety that needs minimal water and exists in symbiosis with our new breed of humans.  It will cover at least part of them, providing a shield against the sun.  It will feed itself by extracting carbon from excess carbon dioxide in the blood, and release the waste oxygen back into the bloodstream.  This should help to make the most of what little oxygen is available.  We will need to pay careful attention to conditions in which our engineered plant can grow, to avoid overgrowth and sickening or killing the hosts.

...
Hm. Heterotrophs in symbiosis with plants?
Lichenthropes.
I like the idea.


Alright, can someone assemble a list of the major suggestions and which ones are mutually exclusive?

[RAM]

Trying to get a bit of an idea what has been discussed, standard disclaimer about errors and such...

Code: [Select]

Voters= Eotyrannus(Eo), Knave(Kn), GreatWyrmGold(GW), Grek(Gr), RAM(RM), a1s(a1), Kevak(kv), weenog(we)
Votes=
Temperature:
Eo  Head feathers
Eo  Long fingers
Eo  Better panting ability
Eo  Wilful sweating
GW  Bald
Eoa1    against
GW  Ectotherm
GrEo    against
GW  Reduced fat
Gr  Non-perspiratory method for cooling the body, such as feathers
Gr  or capillated hairs
a1  Raise the normal body temperature to 48 centigrade
GrGW    against
RMkv  Ridges to expel heat
a1Eo    against
Water:
EoGW  Uric acid instead of urea
Breathing:
EoGW  Larger lungs
EoGW  Increase the amount of mitochondria
EoGW  Avian lung
Gr  Modify the epiglottis to shift from an inhale-exhale cycle to an inhale-compress-decompress-exhale cycle without fiddling with the delicate avolli
GW    against
kv  Multiple lung sacks(4)
weEo  Urinary tract to pass liquid waste off into the fecal slurry near the end of the small intestine
Gravity:
Eo  Shorter limbs
Eo  Stouter limbs
Eo  Shock-absorbing
Eo  Hollow bones
KnGW    against
Kn  Durable
Kn  Extra Muscle Mass
Kn  Faster Reflexes
Gr  Stronger bone mineral-content
Eo    against
kvEo  Thicker bones
kv  Stronger muscles
kv  Two hearts
RMGrweEoa1  Make them smaller
GW    against
Food:
Kn  Digest grass
KnGW  Cattle
Other/multiple:
RM  Hybrid heat-sink/exoskeleton
RMEo  Velociraptors
we  Symbiotic plant
Eo    against
Eo  LOL U ALL SUCK N00BS

Stupid ninja doesn't get their post processed...

[~Neri]

You forgot meh!

I'm voting ridges.

Also can't we just use all the ideas in separate batches and let Darwin take his pick? We do have 250 gametes you know.

(Also later we need to make ourselves grow cat ears and a tail)

[RAM]

Yes, in the interests of an exciting game, I vote to make a few experiments using the current ideas. The moral implications are a touch unnerving, but that is unlikely to reflect badly on us...

[Cheesecake]

Wow... I'm like a five-year old in a whorehouse. I thought this would be simple, but I've learnt more from this in a few pages than a month in biology class.

Um, I'm just going to vote on whatever. I don't understand anymore...