![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
I Need Vaseline
For my hands! God, you people are perverted and I love it. It's not a question of whether or not we own any vaseline, either; my entire family tends to chap and break out in hives if the temperature drops below 24F, so we started keeping it in five-gallon tubs when I was four. It's just that we are still getting the house figured out after moving back in, and have no idea where the tubs are. Probably in the basement, but the basement right now is Hazardous to Your Health.
Anywho, work sucked like a vacuum. What I spent approximately five hours today doing: going over minute details of paperwork older than I am. By four years. I am eighteen.
. . . O_o
By far the best thing I found in the box of ancient paperwork? A presentation labeled "Computer Presentation." It was about how there should be a computer in the office, so that people could type it into the computer and store it in space-saving 5 1/2 inch floppies and print them instead of using typewriters.
It was dated June '84.
This came from a warehouse that they are trying to clear of ancient shit to make room for newer shit. I have at least one more box of this to go. ;_;
Time for your dose of semi-scientific BS:
Viruses. Nasty little things that make you sick, which is a good trick considering they aren't even alive. When people first discovered them, they were quite annoyed; how dare there be some diseases that weren't caused by bacteria and couldn't be treated with penicillin?
But gradually people learned how viruses work. A virus is a little packet of protein and DNA. On the outside, a protein capsid is covered with receptor proteins; these, in turn, latch on to proteins on the cell membranes of target cells, like a round peg fitting into the round hole. Once a virus is moored to the cell, it will inject its innards into said cell. These innards can be one of three things. One, a strand of RNA and a protein called a reverse transcriptase, which will code the RNA into DNA and insert the DNA into the host cell's genes. Two, a stand of DNA and a similar protein that will do the same thing. Three, an actual protein and a reverse transcriptase that codes the protein as DNA and inserts it into the cell genes.
Once the viral DNA is in the host DNA, one of two things will happen. Either it will immediately hack the cell's biochemistry, or it will wait for the cell divide a couple hundred times (meaning that it eventually ends up in thousands of host cells) before hacking the cell chemistry. No matter what happens, the end result is the same: the cell is instructed to produce lots of viral proteins, DNA/RNA, and reverse transcriptase, which then self-assemble into a complete virus. The viruses can't get out of the cell, but the cell keeps making them. Eventually, the host cell bursts, releasing the viruses into the body and starting the whole cycle over.
(Aside: reverse transcriptase proteins are not very good at what they do, and frequently make mistakes. Many of these mistakes substitute one amino acid for another but don't change the overall protein structures. This is called viral mutation, and is very hard to stop. HIV/AIDS, for example, makes one mistake every thousand nucleotides, comparatively a huge number of mistakes. Because of this, each individual with HIV/AIDS is actually carrying around several hundred slightly different strains of the virus. To cure AIDS, you'd have to give a person one medicine for each strain they carry, a nearly impossible task. Anyway.)
However, nature can't come up with something good and expect humans not to hijack it in some way, and we have. We use viruses for gene therapy - that is, to cure deadly diseases like cystic fibrosis that are caused by problems in the genes and can't be solves without fixing the gene. Basically, we take an ordinary virus, cut out the instructions that tell it to make so many viruses that the cell bursts, copy in a working version of the malfunctioning gene, and inject it into the sick person. When it works, each cell that a virus hits gets a working copy of the gene, essentially fixing the problem.
There are obstacles to gene therapy, of course, not least of which is that the human body tends to fight off viruses. But by far the greatest challenge is to produce enough of the altered viruses, called "vectors", in a cheap and reliable way. Right now, they are grown in bacteria, which works provided that the bacteria is close enough to a human cell that the vector can attack it as it would a human cell, and that the vector can be prevented from mutating further while it's being incubated, and that the entire mess can be collected into an injectable serum. The human has to be taking drugs that deactivate the immune system, too, which makes them doubly vulnerable before the cure kicks in. And once the patient is off the drugs, killer T cells tend to hunt down and kill all the affected cells, even though they are the ones that are healthy now.
So yeah, just a few problems to work out.
A more economically viable way to do it would be to make vectors that do use the cell chemistry to make more vectors, but instead of bursting the cell to release them, program the cell to treat them as proteins that belong outside the cell. The cell can then deliver them to the local bloodstream. Vector-treated cells would also begin to display protein "tags" on the outside of the cell membrane, which tell other vectors not to attach to that cell. This would mean that in a surprisingly short amount of time, most body cells would have the vector-carried genes, and a couple thousand extra vectors would always be floating around in the blood, and other bodily fluids.
A different form of the same vector would probably have to be created to tell immune cells that the vector-treated cells are not a threat, and it would be nice if you left them alone, thanks. This is where the profit is made. Each individual has a different set of genetic "tags" that show up as proteins on the surface of cells. Anything without these proteins is identified as "foreign" and attacked. Although the vector cells could be made en masse, the immune vectors would have to be tailor made for each individual.
Or would they?
If it were truly desirable, which it won't be if medical practitioners want to make a profit, it would be possible to engineer an immune-cell-vector that entered a host body as a "blank" and after entering a few host body immune cells, acquired the host cell tags. It could then propagate in the body while the body recognized it as "self," and within a few months at the most fix every gene in the body. Mass production of these blank vectors would be cheap, easy, and with a little tailoring, possible to do inside of vector-treated patients. Or in other words: take some bodily fluid from treated patient A, inject into patient B, wait a few months, repeat.
This is what werewolves do, to a greater degree. The virus in question is anaerobic; while it isn't alive, nitrogen in the atmosphere quickly catalyzes the breakdown of the protein capsid. Thus, the myth that a werewolf bite turns someone into a werewolf only applies if it's a puncture wound (as of teeth), and is not immediately cleansed (as it would not be if someone were stranded in the woods miles from anybody).
So what kind of genes does the werewolf virus insert into human genetics?
Wolf DNA? Yes, some. But surprisingly little DNA needs to be added to what humans already posses to make it into wolf DNA. This is because humans and wolves share a lot of DNA that, when translated, comes out to "how to be a choelomate" (a choelom is the part of you between your skin on the outside and your digestive tract on the inside where you stick things like internal organs; also called the internal body cavity); "how to be a vertebrate"; and "how to be a mammal." About half of what is added, aside from the "how to be a canine" genes, are homoeotic genes. A homoeotic gene is one that turns other genes on and off. Depending on which genes are turned on and off during development, you can end up with vastly different animals. This is evidenced by the plethora of different breeds of dogs which are all essentially the same animal, and can all breed with each other.
This next bit requires a willing suspension of belief. It is fantasy. I will take out the logic stick and hit you with it . . .
The other half of what is added is what takes werewolves out of the realm of common science and into the realm of myth. Or, to put it another way: while the insertion of homoeotic genes in vitro could probably give you something that looks more lupine and less human, it would not give you a werewolf. Why, then, should the addition of homoeotic genes after development is complete have a greater effect? We already know, from athletic steroids, that adding proteins and hormones can change the way a person's body works but not its fundamental structure. A human is a human, even if you add wolf genes.
So, in order to allow a werewolf to change between wolf and human, there have to be a lot of genes that say things like "how to disconnect cells from each other, so that they can slide against each other, move them in exactly the right way to form a wolf body, and then reconnect them." The entire skeleton has to be taken apart and remade, the olfactory nerves functions changed and the neural net connected, the basic body plan changed to lupine. Or vice versa, in the case of wolf-to-human transformations. I'd imagine there would also be a form of anesthetic or a really large amount of adrenaline circulating during transformations, because it probably hurts like a bitch. A whole other group of genes are there to deal with the brain; although it might change shape, there's a definite issue arising from the difference between wolf and human senses. Wolves have more than humans, and the brain in wolf form has to be able to parse that.
But it's not all in the genes. A new werewolf is probably going to have to take some time learning to walk, and think through the smells, and deal with the fact that while wolves are colorblind, they can see much finer detail in the dark. In other words, there's a learning curve. Most of the classic "blind beast hunting down people in the mountains" B-movie horrors are just werewolves who haven't gotten used to it yet. Once they do, it would be well-nigh impossible to catch one if it didn't want to be caught. This is because while it's got the body of a wolf, it's got human-level intelligence, to a point. (The point is when there's fresh meat around. Don't get between a werewolf and its meat.)
Some other points about werewolves:
A werewolf weighs exactly the same as a wolf an a human. Since wolves are typically between about 100 and 130 lbs. this means that as humans, werewolves are actually petite. Humans becoming werewolves might actually shrink and lose body mass; this is normal, and nothing to be concerned about.
Werewolves, like true wolves, run in packs and are extremely territorial. This can be both a good and bad thing; they tend to provide a buffer between cities that they live in and the supernatural. This city is ours, damnit, and you'd better stay out!
As part of the transformation to werewolf, a certain human blood protein is replaced by a more efficient lupine version of the same thing, and the human version is broken down and used as food. This happens to be the same protein that is used by vampires for their prions. The werewolf proteins don't treat it any differently as a prion in a vampire body, though, and break it down just the same. The process begins twelve to fourteen hours after the werewolf virus hits the vampire system, and doesn't stop until the vampire falls over dead. Given that werewolves are one of the few things that can kill a vampire permanently, it's no surprise that vampires don't like werewolves.
Werewolves don't like vampires for the same reason that dogs don't like cats. A pack will start hunting a vampire as soon as they scent it, and things like food can go hang unless it's out of their territory before they catch up with it.
The myth that werewolves always and only change at the full moon is a myth. The change is caused by a hormonal cycle, but they can also change whenever they damn well please. It's just that during the peak of the hormonal cycle they must change. Most werewolves' cycles are aligned with each other, and the moon, for the same reason that a number of women living in very close proximity all have their periods at the same time - and in fact, once the hormones in question were isolated, it turned out that the process is brought on by the onset of the female pack members' period. Isolated or loner werewolves have cycles all their own.
That took me two and a half hours to write, but it was fun. I had to do some research on wolf evolution and weight. Yay for google!
Oh, and falsechaos, I'll try to get the ectoacne explanation up by tomorrow night at the latest. And then I'll be open for prompts again! (Although possible only one per person at a time, since it is a workweek and I have too much stuff to do otherwise.)
Anywho, work sucked like a vacuum. What I spent approximately five hours today doing: going over minute details of paperwork older than I am. By four years. I am eighteen.
. . . O_o
By far the best thing I found in the box of ancient paperwork? A presentation labeled "Computer Presentation." It was about how there should be a computer in the office, so that people could type it into the computer and store it in space-saving 5 1/2 inch floppies and print them instead of using typewriters.
It was dated June '84.
This came from a warehouse that they are trying to clear of ancient shit to make room for newer shit. I have at least one more box of this to go. ;_;
Time for your dose of semi-scientific BS:
Viruses. Nasty little things that make you sick, which is a good trick considering they aren't even alive. When people first discovered them, they were quite annoyed; how dare there be some diseases that weren't caused by bacteria and couldn't be treated with penicillin?
But gradually people learned how viruses work. A virus is a little packet of protein and DNA. On the outside, a protein capsid is covered with receptor proteins; these, in turn, latch on to proteins on the cell membranes of target cells, like a round peg fitting into the round hole. Once a virus is moored to the cell, it will inject its innards into said cell. These innards can be one of three things. One, a strand of RNA and a protein called a reverse transcriptase, which will code the RNA into DNA and insert the DNA into the host cell's genes. Two, a stand of DNA and a similar protein that will do the same thing. Three, an actual protein and a reverse transcriptase that codes the protein as DNA and inserts it into the cell genes.
Once the viral DNA is in the host DNA, one of two things will happen. Either it will immediately hack the cell's biochemistry, or it will wait for the cell divide a couple hundred times (meaning that it eventually ends up in thousands of host cells) before hacking the cell chemistry. No matter what happens, the end result is the same: the cell is instructed to produce lots of viral proteins, DNA/RNA, and reverse transcriptase, which then self-assemble into a complete virus. The viruses can't get out of the cell, but the cell keeps making them. Eventually, the host cell bursts, releasing the viruses into the body and starting the whole cycle over.
(Aside: reverse transcriptase proteins are not very good at what they do, and frequently make mistakes. Many of these mistakes substitute one amino acid for another but don't change the overall protein structures. This is called viral mutation, and is very hard to stop. HIV/AIDS, for example, makes one mistake every thousand nucleotides, comparatively a huge number of mistakes. Because of this, each individual with HIV/AIDS is actually carrying around several hundred slightly different strains of the virus. To cure AIDS, you'd have to give a person one medicine for each strain they carry, a nearly impossible task. Anyway.)
However, nature can't come up with something good and expect humans not to hijack it in some way, and we have. We use viruses for gene therapy - that is, to cure deadly diseases like cystic fibrosis that are caused by problems in the genes and can't be solves without fixing the gene. Basically, we take an ordinary virus, cut out the instructions that tell it to make so many viruses that the cell bursts, copy in a working version of the malfunctioning gene, and inject it into the sick person. When it works, each cell that a virus hits gets a working copy of the gene, essentially fixing the problem.
There are obstacles to gene therapy, of course, not least of which is that the human body tends to fight off viruses. But by far the greatest challenge is to produce enough of the altered viruses, called "vectors", in a cheap and reliable way. Right now, they are grown in bacteria, which works provided that the bacteria is close enough to a human cell that the vector can attack it as it would a human cell, and that the vector can be prevented from mutating further while it's being incubated, and that the entire mess can be collected into an injectable serum. The human has to be taking drugs that deactivate the immune system, too, which makes them doubly vulnerable before the cure kicks in. And once the patient is off the drugs, killer T cells tend to hunt down and kill all the affected cells, even though they are the ones that are healthy now.
So yeah, just a few problems to work out.
A more economically viable way to do it would be to make vectors that do use the cell chemistry to make more vectors, but instead of bursting the cell to release them, program the cell to treat them as proteins that belong outside the cell. The cell can then deliver them to the local bloodstream. Vector-treated cells would also begin to display protein "tags" on the outside of the cell membrane, which tell other vectors not to attach to that cell. This would mean that in a surprisingly short amount of time, most body cells would have the vector-carried genes, and a couple thousand extra vectors would always be floating around in the blood, and other bodily fluids.
A different form of the same vector would probably have to be created to tell immune cells that the vector-treated cells are not a threat, and it would be nice if you left them alone, thanks. This is where the profit is made. Each individual has a different set of genetic "tags" that show up as proteins on the surface of cells. Anything without these proteins is identified as "foreign" and attacked. Although the vector cells could be made en masse, the immune vectors would have to be tailor made for each individual.
Or would they?
If it were truly desirable, which it won't be if medical practitioners want to make a profit, it would be possible to engineer an immune-cell-vector that entered a host body as a "blank" and after entering a few host body immune cells, acquired the host cell tags. It could then propagate in the body while the body recognized it as "self," and within a few months at the most fix every gene in the body. Mass production of these blank vectors would be cheap, easy, and with a little tailoring, possible to do inside of vector-treated patients. Or in other words: take some bodily fluid from treated patient A, inject into patient B, wait a few months, repeat.
This is what werewolves do, to a greater degree. The virus in question is anaerobic; while it isn't alive, nitrogen in the atmosphere quickly catalyzes the breakdown of the protein capsid. Thus, the myth that a werewolf bite turns someone into a werewolf only applies if it's a puncture wound (as of teeth), and is not immediately cleansed (as it would not be if someone were stranded in the woods miles from anybody).
So what kind of genes does the werewolf virus insert into human genetics?
Wolf DNA? Yes, some. But surprisingly little DNA needs to be added to what humans already posses to make it into wolf DNA. This is because humans and wolves share a lot of DNA that, when translated, comes out to "how to be a choelomate" (a choelom is the part of you between your skin on the outside and your digestive tract on the inside where you stick things like internal organs; also called the internal body cavity); "how to be a vertebrate"; and "how to be a mammal." About half of what is added, aside from the "how to be a canine" genes, are homoeotic genes. A homoeotic gene is one that turns other genes on and off. Depending on which genes are turned on and off during development, you can end up with vastly different animals. This is evidenced by the plethora of different breeds of dogs which are all essentially the same animal, and can all breed with each other.
This next bit requires a willing suspension of belief. It is fantasy. I will take out the logic stick and hit you with it . . .
The other half of what is added is what takes werewolves out of the realm of common science and into the realm of myth. Or, to put it another way: while the insertion of homoeotic genes in vitro could probably give you something that looks more lupine and less human, it would not give you a werewolf. Why, then, should the addition of homoeotic genes after development is complete have a greater effect? We already know, from athletic steroids, that adding proteins and hormones can change the way a person's body works but not its fundamental structure. A human is a human, even if you add wolf genes.
So, in order to allow a werewolf to change between wolf and human, there have to be a lot of genes that say things like "how to disconnect cells from each other, so that they can slide against each other, move them in exactly the right way to form a wolf body, and then reconnect them." The entire skeleton has to be taken apart and remade, the olfactory nerves functions changed and the neural net connected, the basic body plan changed to lupine. Or vice versa, in the case of wolf-to-human transformations. I'd imagine there would also be a form of anesthetic or a really large amount of adrenaline circulating during transformations, because it probably hurts like a bitch. A whole other group of genes are there to deal with the brain; although it might change shape, there's a definite issue arising from the difference between wolf and human senses. Wolves have more than humans, and the brain in wolf form has to be able to parse that.
But it's not all in the genes. A new werewolf is probably going to have to take some time learning to walk, and think through the smells, and deal with the fact that while wolves are colorblind, they can see much finer detail in the dark. In other words, there's a learning curve. Most of the classic "blind beast hunting down people in the mountains" B-movie horrors are just werewolves who haven't gotten used to it yet. Once they do, it would be well-nigh impossible to catch one if it didn't want to be caught. This is because while it's got the body of a wolf, it's got human-level intelligence, to a point. (The point is when there's fresh meat around. Don't get between a werewolf and its meat.)
Some other points about werewolves:
A werewolf weighs exactly the same as a wolf an a human. Since wolves are typically between about 100 and 130 lbs. this means that as humans, werewolves are actually petite. Humans becoming werewolves might actually shrink and lose body mass; this is normal, and nothing to be concerned about.
Werewolves, like true wolves, run in packs and are extremely territorial. This can be both a good and bad thing; they tend to provide a buffer between cities that they live in and the supernatural. This city is ours, damnit, and you'd better stay out!
As part of the transformation to werewolf, a certain human blood protein is replaced by a more efficient lupine version of the same thing, and the human version is broken down and used as food. This happens to be the same protein that is used by vampires for their prions. The werewolf proteins don't treat it any differently as a prion in a vampire body, though, and break it down just the same. The process begins twelve to fourteen hours after the werewolf virus hits the vampire system, and doesn't stop until the vampire falls over dead. Given that werewolves are one of the few things that can kill a vampire permanently, it's no surprise that vampires don't like werewolves.
Werewolves don't like vampires for the same reason that dogs don't like cats. A pack will start hunting a vampire as soon as they scent it, and things like food can go hang unless it's out of their territory before they catch up with it.
The myth that werewolves always and only change at the full moon is a myth. The change is caused by a hormonal cycle, but they can also change whenever they damn well please. It's just that during the peak of the hormonal cycle they must change. Most werewolves' cycles are aligned with each other, and the moon, for the same reason that a number of women living in very close proximity all have their periods at the same time - and in fact, once the hormones in question were isolated, it turned out that the process is brought on by the onset of the female pack members' period. Isolated or loner werewolves have cycles all their own.
That took me two and a half hours to write, but it was fun. I had to do some research on wolf evolution and weight. Yay for google!
Oh, and falsechaos, I'll try to get the ectoacne explanation up by tomorrow night at the latest. And then I'll be open for prompts again! (Although possible only one per person at a time, since it is a workweek and I have too much stuff to do otherwise.)