Werewolves and science

[Kelpten]

I don't know if this topic has been done before, but here is something to think about. If you take a scientific aproach the the werewolf theme, some things do make sense. If you took something apart down to the subatomic level and then reconstructed it, you could have a werewolf. Ignoring for the moment the amount of energy that would release and how complex it would be to reconstruct something from the subatomic, if you're werewolf form was the same mass as your human form, it would make even more sence. You could even siphon off some of the extra matter into the air. Of course, if you lost matter every time you transformed (the hair shedding thing) then you would need to eat A LOT!

Of course some people prefer to take a more mystical view of werewolves. Define something too well and it becomes common, mundane. What we love about the werewolf is that it is beyond our realm of reality. Forget the rules of science.

[white]

This has been discussed extensively in the past; for one example, see this thread I started a while ago.

[Morkulv]

Ofcourse werewolves excist, isn't it obvious?

[white]

Well, it depends how you define 'werewolf'. There's always us therians, but that's not what most people mean.

[Celestialwolf]

I think that a werewolf is possible, but right now there is no means to make it happen.

Ways it could work at a future time:

The human geonome project has identified all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA, and determined the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. With this knowledge, maybe scientists could alter certain parts of the human DNA to make werewolves possible?

In quantum physics, scientists have proven that it is possible for one thing to exist in two places at once. Wouldn't it be possible, then, for two parts of one person (human, wolf) to be in existence in different places?

With stem cells, any part of the body can currently be grown outside the body. Maybe there will be a way to combine both wolf and human stem cells and enable them to rapidly regrow a living person into a werewolf?

80% of our bodies are made up of water. Thoughts can affect and change water dramatically. Maybe if somebody thought hard enough to convince their body that they were a werewolf...

And those are some ideas I have on the issue.

[white]

<rant>I don't understand where all this telekensis stuff is coming from. I challenge anyone here to demonstrate that thoughts can affect water, or anything physical past one's own muscles, for that matter.</rant>
Anyway, other than that, LazyWolf's got it down. Werewolves probably (my opinion) don't exist yet, but I suspect we'll be able to make them soon(ish, on a large scale), and likely even transform existing people to werewolves. Or maybe I'm just dreaming hopefully.

[Lupin]

In quantum physics, scientists have proven that it is possible for one thing to exist in two places at once. Wouldn't it be possible, then, for two parts of one person (human, wolf) to be in existence in different places?

Well the thing about quantum physics, is that you only get the weird stuff on very small scales. Anything bigger than about 100 atoms and the probabilitly of seeing any quantum weirdness on a macroscopic scale becomes astronomical. (As in the frequency of the event becomes whole-number multiples of the age of the universe.)

[Scott Gardener]

If you had the power to break down and reassemble a body at the subatomic level, then you don't need to worry about conservation of mass; you'll have to syphon off outside energy anyway. You could be as big or small as you wanted. But, your shape-shifting would probably look more like a Trek style transporter beam than An American Werewolf in London.

[Figarou]

Well....in order to make a werewolf from a human, we need to take things we already have and work with it.


The fur part is easy. Humans have hair all over the body. All we need is more of it.

Restructuring the legs and head is going to be tough. In order to form the muzzle, you need more bone mass and live tissue to move it. Now where are you going to get that without the body rejecting it? And how are you going to move the ears to the top of the haed?


The very 1st artificial "werewolf" could be made of plastics, senthetics, or other man made materials.



If they do it at a genetic level, they need to figure out how to make each cell form into the shape they want it to be. Thats if the genetic code is there to begin with. For example...the tail. Is the code within ourselves? Is it hidden? Turned off? Can it be added to our exsisting code without doing any damage? Will it be deformed? Humans suffer from back pains at a later age. What would the tail do once they get older? Fall off? Be hard to move?

[white]

While the actual technology is within our reach, the knowledge required to take such advantage of it is lacking. Perhaps once we know both our and the wolf genome inside out and know how to create new ones, we'll be able to do this. Let's just hope that the geneticists get their act together before we're all dead

*plans for earning a PhD in some branch of genetics*

[Jamie]

In quantum physics, scientists have proven that it is possible for one thing to exist in two places at once. Wouldn't it be possible, then, for two parts of one person (human, wolf) to be in existence in different places?

Well the thing about quantum physics, is that you only get the weird stuff on very small scales. Anything bigger than about 100 atoms and the probabilitly of seeing any quantum weirdness on a macroscopic scale becomes astronomical. (As in the frequency of the event becomes whole-number multiples of the age of the universe.)

In order to get quantum physics on a macroscopic scale, there is only one requirement: instead of waiting around trillions of years, you need to develop technology that manipulates entropy. Granted, since entropy can only increase in the universe as a whole, any anti-entropy machine would have bad consequences that would need to be siphoned off to somewhere that didn't matter to humans. But, once you had it, werewolves and nearly anything else you could imagine would suddenly become very possible. So, it would be very like magic, but every use would have terrible consequences somewhere in the universe.

[Curan]

I think we can forget all those quantum mechanics stuff, because sub-atomic manipulations are far out of range the manipulation possibilities a biological system has. Manipulations biological beings are capable of are all together in chemical levels. All other things are too fantastic and opposes all incidents we are able to watch within our biosphere.
This brings us to a theory I developed to explain the transformation process which occurse in my novel.

This theory descripes a non-reversible transformation process on a molecular genetical level. As I think that shifting capabilities are impossible I think this would be the most realistic way to possibly create a werewolf (a non-shifting one) one time although you might have to modificate little things for werewolf-specific requirements.

Special thanks to Fenrir who helped me to translate the following to english

Okay, here it comes:

I can guess that each person has elementary knowledge of the subject area of molecular genetics. But I will have to enter in my remarks, also, among other things, with the fundamental structures of the subject of cytology, in order to clearly sort the differences out differences between the terrestrial and whough’s cells. The hereditary factors of each individual lie in a chemical form coded in the cell’s nucleus if they are members of the cell classis of eucaryotes. Moreover triplets which consist of three basins depending upon basin sequence (primery structure of the DNA) it codes an amino acid, form organic informations. Since codons are determined by the primary structure of the DNA, the selected amino acids in pre-determined order become adjacent, whereupon an entire protein is synthesized. The gene's impression runs off as follows: The double helix structure of the DNA is closely waived and the smoothed out DNA section is isolated. At the open section of the DNA chain, nucleotides can now deposit themselves, which finally forms a hnRNA strand, i.e. a strand, which still contains the introns, which are removed later and do not belong to the exon. After splicing hnRNA mRNA is developed which finally moves from the core directly into the ribosome. There finally suitable Anticodons attach themselves to tRNA, which carries certain amino acids. Finally the developed tRNA is been detached and among with the other RNA chains diminished. This happens on the ribosomes, which are in the cytoplasm of the cell, which are the molecular building material and supplies. In this way cells, enzymes and hormones are be developed which have a steering effect on the organism. The inherited information is thus responsible for the structure, the form and the organization of an organism. Even the control of the metabolic cycle holds it, since in it the necessary enzymes and hormones are encoded. Supposed the DNA of each cell would be taken and a new DNA identical to each cell injected. Since the new DNA of the cell is once again organized and another primary structure of the DNA is again present, the organism will change due to its metabolic cycle, it becomes the animal from which the DNA was taken. What in this explanation was very unintelligible for me is the treatise of the questions "what did inject me the DNA of the Crond'Llori” and “how did it happen". In order to be able to answer these questions, I must go back into the bio genesis’ development phase of whough's life. In it insists only a primitive organized way of life like on the earth in that phase. The reproduction of animal cells as well of vegetable cells proceeded with mitosis. They were potentially immortal therefore like terrestrial single-celled organisms. During this procedure energy and the necessary cell material were needed, in order to be able to accomplish a duplication. This method was and also is practiced on Terra. Certain kinds of life forms, in opposite to terrestrial life forms, were capable of a second way of realization of a reproduction process. Here the victim cell is punctured. The recipient was injected ribosomal RNA (rRNA) with donor-specific triplet identifications, which went immediately to the ribosomes. Those were blocked immediately for cell-specific RNA, since only specially marked RNA molecules could pass the diaphragms. There were formed enzymes, proteins and by means of reverse Transcriptase snDNA chains (small nuclear DNA), which moved into the core whose diaphragm are made transparent from certain enzymes while the cell-specific DNA at determined places which posses certain signal codons were ripped and divided by the afore produced Exonucleases and Endonucleases into discrete basins. The newly formed proteins exhibit an important difference to those mentioned above. Their amino acids hadn’t thrown off the tRNA and formed due to its donor-specific conformation stencils for the generation of the cDNA (complementary DNA). The developed cDNA pieces were sorted by the snDNA molecules and were joined together in the correct succession. Also during this process the still missing introns which are a characteristic of an eucaryote are inserted. The existing “fitting parts” were finally strengthened with the Enzym DNA-Ligase, so that the snDNA molecules lost their carrier function and, now being redundant, were separated and denatured. The cDNA were converted with the help of the DNA polymerase into a "genuine" DNA strand. Thus the DNA of the recipient is transformed fast to a relatively exact copy of the donor's. The advantage of this reproduction method consisted of the fact that the donor had to build only the rRNA chains and so needed less "building material" and energy as with the mitosis, since the recipient took "the building materials" needed for it from its own metabolic cycle. Indeed, the biomass could not be increased by this process of duplication, since only already existing biomass could be transformed. Indeed, in this way a donor’s duplication was produced, which exhibit a multiple count of neutral mutations. That was a real acceleration effect for the evolution. I had erred thus, as I went out from a recombination of the genes of Mom, Dad and my brothers and sisters. And I am rather sure, when and where Wolf Wilson was infected with the transmutation genes. However, this principle of duplication resembles more or less that of the retrovirus existing on earth, which has to fall back to this system of aggrandizement, since they have no own metabolism and therefore are classified from terrestrial scientists as intermediate stage of a creature and a non-living cell. On the more highly developed life forms this kind of reproduction ceases to apply, since in course of the evolution process their DNA has encompassed itself with a solid protein covering, which functions as a massive protection against this transmutagenes. Nevertheless only a few animal species, e.g. the Crond'Llor and the Polarwoundarah, have remained this ability therefore and haven’t lost it due to the evolution process.

If there are still words which don't exist in english, please give me a hint.

[outwarddoodles]

Holy Crap!!! Curan, did you write that? If you did I might need to bow down to you.

Anyway, other than that, LazyWolf's got it down. Werewolves probably (my opinion) don't exist yet, but I suspect we'll be able to make them soon(ish, on a large scale), and likely even transform existing people to werewolves. Or maybe I'm just dreaming hopefully.

I think that sort of depends. We may be capable of changing a species, yet if we had that sort of technology it would likely be used for other purposes in relation to gene therapy. It may be something scientists could jump on though, being if we could understand genes to much to make something shape shift, then we could probably use that knowledge on other things. I doubt that people are going to jump on making humans into wolves first though. Firstly we wouldn’t want to do something so dramatic first to a human, so maybe it’ll be a job left to the rats. Maybe they’ll change rats into a similair species of rats, then maybe more of a change and turn them into something outside their genus, then family, and so on. In fact maybe scientists would start off my changing a rat into another rat. Probably after that slowly move up to species more similar to humans, until finally some subject undergoes the job of being turned into something related to humans. I doubt people are going to instantly think “Oh lets turn people into wolves’ right when they start the research.

I wouldn’t doubt scientists would want to try it out. I personally feel that there isn’t much a use of cloning. Yes, maybe we’ll clone extinct species. Yet some people may be in for the cloning for, well, we’re cloning things! Who wouldn’t be interested in turning a rat into a mouse? Or something more than that? Yet apparently I don’t really see people agreeing to change regular people into animals because the person wants to be an animal, not for research. I don’t think people are going to be waiting in line one day to get this new type of surgery done to them, some may want it, yet I just sort of don’t see it.

The fur part is easy. Humans have hair all over the body. All we need is more of it.

I too think that the fur may be the easiest, yet wolf pelts grow in a different pattern then ours.


Otherwise, my personal uneducated veiw. I think it would do with changing the person's DNA and the person 'growing' into the form. In a sense, we do shapeshift from babies to adults, just we arn't changing into different species. With us growing to a certain shape like we already do, I think it would take a really long time to shapeshift.

[Lupin]

In quantum physics, scientists have proven that it is possible for one thing to exist in two places at once. Wouldn't it be possible, then, for two parts of one person (human, wolf) to be in existence in different places?

Well the thing about quantum physics, is that you only get the weird stuff on very small scales. Anything bigger than about 100 atoms and the probabilitly of seeing any quantum weirdness on a macroscopic scale becomes astronomical. (As in the frequency of the event becomes whole-number multiples of the age of the universe.)

In order to get quantum physics on a macroscopic scale, there is only one requirement: instead of waiting around trillions of years, you need to develop technology that manipulates entropy.

Well no. You'd have to build a machine that manipulates the fundimental constants of the universe. There is an action figure on the desk I'm at. We can calculate the probablity of it going through the wall if I throw it at the wall. To change the probablity of it going through the wall, I'd have to change the constant ℏ (h-bar.)

[Curan]

Holy Crap!!! Curan, did you write that? If you did I might need to bow down to you.

Yes I did. As I mentioned above I developed that theory for my novel Metamorphosis.

[white]

In reply to outwarddoodles:
I agree with you, really; the required technology won't be researched for it's potential in creating werewolves, it'll be for other things like gene therapy and a sort of plastic surgery; eventually we'll have people changing their entire look; going from short, heavy, wrestler to tall, thin, basketball player. Once that sort of thing is being done, it shouldn't be too hard at all to design and become a non-shifting werewolf.

[Lupin]

I think that sort of depends. We may be capable of changing a species, yet if we had that sort of technology it would likely be used for other purposes in relation to gene therapy. It may be something scientists could jump on though, being if we could understand genes to much to make something shape shift, then we could probably use that knowledge on other things. I doubt that people are going to jump on making humans into wolves first though. Firstly we wouldn’t want to do something so dramatic first to a human, so maybe it’ll be a job left to the rats. Maybe they’ll change rats into a similair species of rats, then maybe more of a change and turn them into something outside their genus, then family, and so on. In fact maybe scientists would start off my changing a rat into another rat.

Actually it probably won't even be that complicated. It will probably start off with research on how to cure genetic diseases by adding DNA that 'works correctly'. Basically swapping out individual genes for others. Like swapping out one brick in a wall for another.


(The real trick eventually becomes swapping out 'human' genes for 'werewolf' genes without having the wall fall over.)

[white]

And making the body conduct such drastic changes without killing itself. DNA isn't just the code for your body; it's the code for how to grow your body.

[Lupin]

And making the body conduct such drastic changes without killing itself. DNA isn't just the code for your body; it's the code for how to grow your body.

Well yes. That's what I meant by 'the wall falling over' in my analogy.

Edit: spelling

[Apokryltaros]

Gene therapy isn't as easy as it sounds...
THe problem is to have insert the correct(ed) gene into enough cells (that survive), and have them not turn into cancer cells (like, when the gene is inserted in the middle of another gene by accident.

[Fenrir]

Wo I didn't expect to see it on the forum this fast.
You really out did yourself when you wrote this!

[white]

Admittedly we don't have gene insertion down yet, but we're well on our way.

[Celestialwolf]

<rant>I don't understand where all this telekensis stuff is coming from. I challenge anyone here to demonstrate that thoughts can affect water, or anything physical past one's own muscles, for that matter.</rant>

I don't think it has anything to do with telekenesis. Like I said, we're 80% water. As our nervous system communicates with the rest of the body, it also influences that water to do certain things. When we think long or hard enough about something, we can also change the shape that the water is in.

That's what I meant.

[Vuldari]

<rant>I don't understand where all this telekensis stuff is coming from. I challenge anyone here to demonstrate that thoughts can affect water, or anything physical past one's own muscles, for that matter.</rant>

I don't think it has anything to do with telekenesis. Like I said, we're 80% water. As our nervous system communicates with the rest of the body, it also influences that water to do certain things. When we think long or hard enough about something, we can also change the shape that the water is in.

That's what I meant.

I still don't have a clue what you are talking about. Could you give me an example of a situation where thought changes the shape of water?

...no matter how many times I read your post, I can't make any sense out of it. I don't understand what you are referring to. Yes...80% of our mass IS water...but what is this about changing the shape of it? I'm totally confused.

Water is the element in which our body's functional components reside. It provides a channel for blood cells to travel through, and serves as an insulator and a lubricant between parts and even individual cells that shoud not rub against each other too much, or need to be shielded against things like heat and chemical exposure.

However, our bodies do not send commands to the water in our selves any more than a sailor sails his ship by commanding the sea to carry him to where he wants to go. All that H2O is not what makes our bodys run. It is the other 20% that does that. It just so happens that our bodies, like a boat, would be useless and non functional if they are not floating in the stuff.

[Akela]

Water has no shape, it takes the form of its container....

Am I the only one who's completely lost?