Prompts: New Writing Ideas for the New Year

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Happy New Year! Personally, I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions. But if I was to make one, this year it would involve pursuing a few of my writing projects to their completion. I have a couple long-term pieces that could really finish up this year if I keep at it. It will take some real commitment to get them done, along with the cooperation of my extremely understanding family (read: wife). So I urge you to do the same. Start something, anything. A short story, novel, poem, script, interpretive dance piece. And finish it in the same calendar year. Think it’s easy? Okay, go ahead and do it. And if you need any help getting your brain in gear and coming up with an idea or two, here are a few ideas from real life news items:

 

Loss of Arctic Ice May Promote Hybrid Marine Mammals

Scientists have expected for some time that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by the end of this century. Writing in the journal Nature, a trio of researchers say the seasonal loss of this ice sheet, a continent-sized natural barrier between species such as bears, whales and seals, could mean extinction of some rare marine mammals and the loss of many adaptive gene combinations.

But this could also lead to something else. The article for the first time looks ahead to speculate on what biologists can expect as these populations meet and hybridize by interbreeding and mixing their gene pools. In a chart accompanying their Nature article, the researchers identify 22 marine mammal species they believe may be at risk of hybridization. They report that several Arctic hybrids have been documented already by DNA testing. For example, hunters shot a white bear with brown patches in 2006 that later was confirmed to be a polar bear-grizzly bear hybrid. (Read more…)

Imagine a hundred years from now, arctic explorers stumble on a colony of wolf-foxes, or oxen-caribou. Or the freakish whale-walrus. As global warming continues, the breakdown of habitats extends to warmer climes, accompanied by further hybridization, creating more fantastical creatures: owl-vultures, rhino-elephants. Pure animal forms become rare as genetic mixing continues with increasing habitat disintegration.

In another hundred years, we start to see creatures from myth and legend: hippogriffs, pegasi. Humans become the last non-hybrid left. But once the flying orangu-lynx begins mating with the chimpan-verine, a new super dominant species is born, and the human-hybrid wars begin. Other species join in, like the tiguerilla, as the earth becomes consumed by inter-species conflict.

Many are killed, human and hybrid alike, some are taken prisoner. A human prisoner happens to glimpse the birth of a new hybrid while he is held captive. Terrified, he escapes, desperate to warn others about this terrible threat. After a harrowing journey, he arrives at a human outpost. Half dead, all he can communicate are a few disjointed impressions. Something monstrous is coming, something leathery and supple, with the smell of brimstone…

 

Grant To Fund ‘Pioneering’ Brain-Computer Interface Technology

Efforts to advance technology to aid people who have lost communication and movement abilities are getting support from an Arizona Biomedical Research Commission grant for a project at Arizona State University and the Children’s Neuroscience Institute at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Dr. David Adelson leads a research team at the institute working on development of “brain-computer interface” technology. The three-year grant will help fund refinement of an interface system designed to help children and adults who are unable to perform typical activities such as dressing, walking, talking, typing or writing due to severe brain disorders caused by stroke, spinal cord injury or other conditions.

The interface system will allow people to use their own brain signals to communicate or interact indirectly with their environment by controlling a computer. With improved device technologies and interactive software, people would be able to communicate and interact by using computers to control motorized carts, wheelchairs, artificial limbs, communication devices, or even robots. The technologies may also offer the possibility of communication through use of the Internet. (Read more…)

This sounds like a godsend for the disabled. A brain-computer interface could potentially help them in myriad ways to make everyday tasks easier, from simple around-the-house transportation to activities like reading or brushing your teeth. But I think we all know it’s not going to stop there. Just consider the possibilities as the technology is developed—a world where people control computers and machines with just their thoughts. Everything becomes automated and computerized in order to maximize people’s ability to control their environment. The advance is hailed as ushering in a new age.

But with this new age comes the potential for abuse. A government technology advisor starts monitoring odd occurrences around the globe, bank accounts emptying on their own, stocks fluctuating for no apparent reason, museum vaults unlocking of their own accord. The reason? Random computer glitches. Our advisor knows better; someone has been skillfully using the brain-computer interface to pull off hi-tech crimes. He traces the errant computer signals to a single location, but before he can alert law enforcement, his own personnel files have been overwritten. He’s been branded an international terrorist, and his own home security system attempts to kill him.

Now on the run, he knows that he has to hunt down the cyber criminals to clear his own name and stop their reign of crime before they use technology to end his investigation, permanently.

 

Reproductive Scientists Create Mice From 2 Fathers

Using stem cell technology, reproductive scientists in Texas, led by Dr. Richard R. Berhringer, have produced male and female mice from two fathers. In addition to aiding the preservation of endangered species, improving livestock breeds, and advancing human assisted reproductive technology, the achievement opens the provocative possibility of same-sex couples having their own genetic children, the researchers note. The technique described in this study could be applied to agriculturally important animal species to combine desirable genetic traits from two males without having to outcross to females with diverse traits.

“It is also possible that one male could produce both oocytes and sperm for self-fertilization to generate male and female progeny,” the scientists point out. Such a technique could be valuable for preserving species when no females remain, although a surrogate mother would still be needed to carry the two-father pregnancy to term. (Read more…)

This advance could be a real boon for assisted reproductive technology in terms of preserving endangered species and enabling same-sex couples to have their own kids. But it could lead to a much grimmer society. It turns out the same technique can enable women to produce their own offspring, too. That’s right, men and women basically don’t need each other to have kids.

Imagine scientists taking this one step further, developing the technology to the point that you don’t need a partner at all to have children. Just recombine your own genetic material a couple times, and voila! Without the need for each other to procreate, would the bonds of marriage and family break down?

Envision a sterile world where children are produced by individuals, raised by single parents in isolation. It is a cold place where warmth and affection are things of the past. Scientists learn that children born this way do not have the ability to reproduce the old fashioned way, like their forefathers did. Society shrugs; they’ve done without sex for generations, no loss. Until it is discovered that after the 12th generation, people can no longer continue to re-juggle their own DNA to produce offspring without serious genetic defects. Men and women come to a stark realization: they need each other again. But how, when nobody is capable of sexual reproduction?

Quietly, a global search is conducted, and the last males and females who are capable are located. Before they can be contacted, strange fatal accidents start to befall them. A group of extremists doesn’t want a return to a world ruled by the exigencies of physical love. Now government agents must act to save the last few unsuspecting “Adams” and “Eves” before the ability to reproduce is lost for good.

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So there you go, enjoy the new year. Start and finish something, whether it’s from these little story nuggets or something completely different. Make it your resolution. Times a’ wastin!

-Jason Kahn
Mad Scribblings From the Edge
The Dark InSpectre

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Author Bio

A medical editor by day, Jason Kahn lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. His stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe, Damnation Books, Something Wicked, and numerous anthologies. His hobbies include rooting for his University of Michigan Wolverines and chasing after two mischievous gnomes who claim to be his children.

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