RedEye wrote:
Now, about 95% of the Human Genome being junk: maybe it's the sub-scripts of specific organ development, or maybe it's our history as a species, left there as a backup. Nature is too parsimonius to leave junk lying around, and we still don't know how the genes exactly work yet, other than certain genes seem to be involved with certain developments or processes in the human body.
Well, I'd have to disagree with you on that one.... nature does leave junk around on occasion... I mean, snakes still have the remnants of their pelvis from when they had legs, human males still have a notch on the back of their skull which used to attach to a neck muscle we no longer have....on the genetic level there's bound to be scraps left over as well.
Think of it as a lego set...you have 10 boxes of legos, and you only use half a box to build something.... you still have all the pieces lying around. Later on you might swap pieces off, add to the lego model, or replace a part entirely.
Although, there is one theory for this junk DNA..... way back when life was first evolving, a symbiotic "viroid" of sorts may have invaded the cells of our microscopic ancestors... inserting its own DNA into the works, essentially restructuring the entire inner workings of the host cell, and taking the role of the Mitochondria which now convert energy for our cells. In the process, it also left all the junk DNA that it needed to survive outside before it had integrated itself into our cells...
So rather than a virus, which conventionally is geared solely towards its own reproduction.... a symbiote would both preserve itself AND the host cell, transforming both itself and the host cell in the process to serve each other's purpose.
So, if your "viroid" isn't simply a large virus but rather a symbiote which remains in the host cell and forms an entirely new organelle in the host cell, it could probably more easily modify the cell's structure, and more importantly serve to trigger a transformation, since DNA modification alone, which is more geared towards slower, permanent changes, couldn't necessarily do something as dynamic as that.
This might also work better in terms of your body's ability to fight the lycanthropy "infection"... the very first step in the process might be the symbiote being consumed by a white blood cell, only to rewrite it from the inside, and turn your body's own immune system into a tool for converting the rest of your cells...this way, the microbe doesn't have to do all the work...what better way to rebuild your body than to reprogram the very cells that maintain it to do the job for you? Right?
I don't know if that is how you envision your viroid...but I thought I'd just throw in my input there...
Speaking of which, RedEye...i notice we're going back and forth on a number of topics about the REALLY in-depth theory/science, etc. in your book or in general. Actually you pointed this out earlier on another topic.
I know you have a topic specifically for your book, but talking about it there might distract from other book-related discussions...might we want a topic for how it all works?