Prompts: Time Jumping Snails and Zombie Jocks
Technology and scientific advances can benefit mankind in many and wonderful ways. But as with anything, they are neither good or bad in and of themselves. It’s all in how such discoveries are used. Given the conflicts and moral dilemmas that can arise from misuse of science, breakthroughs make for excellent sci-fi story fodder. Here are several examples, pulled from real-life news items:
Mass Extinction Victim Survives! Snail Long Thought Extinct, Isn’t
A major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed. Now, a population of one of those species—a freshwater limpet called Rhodacmea filosa last seen more than 60 years ago and presumed extinct—has been found in a tributary of the heavily dammed Coosa River in Alabama’s Mobile River Basin. Researchers reported the rediscovery May 31 in the online, open-access journal PLoS One.
Limpets are snails with shells shaped like caps rather than coils. The Mobile River Basin was extensively industrialized throughout the 20th century, and 36 major dams and locks were built. At the time, few thought much about preserving biodiversity. But the habitat was destroyed and 47 of 139 endemic mollusk species were lost, representing a full one-third of all known freshwater mollusk extinctions worldwide.
Then, about 20 years ago, biologists began searching patches of the drainage that weren’t affected by damming, trying to find remnants of the original, rich fauna. It was through those efforts that researchers discovered the surviving population of what was thought might be Rhodacmea filosa. Using century-old reference specimens, in addition to performing detailed morphometric and DNA analyses, the identity was confirmed. (Read more…)
This seems like a real victory for our mollusk friends. Now that the little limpets have been saved, they’ll no doubt be kept safe in a habitat free of any hostile influences. But what if one day in their cozy little containment area, something gets loose, a predator from the outside. Before our researchers can flush the animal out, they notice something amazing. As it nears one of the limpets, looking for a snack, the snail simply fades away.
The researchers are astonished. They have no idea where or how the snail disappeared. They begin to study the other mollusks more closely, and through exposing them to various stimuli, they are able to make them disappear. But to where? Then the mollusks start reappearing—they’re tagged so the scientists know which one is which—and the incredible truth is revealed. The snails are jumping foreword in time. This particular strain adapted to the original threat to their environment by developing the ability to jump through time.
The news rocks the world, the scientists are universally famous. They soon isolate the compound in the snails that allows them to time travel. One catch—the snails cannot survive without it. There are only a few of them left, and so we are left with a choice, to harvest the wonderful gift of time travel for ourselves, or keep one tiny species from extinction. Government officials, people everywhere wrestle with the conundrum. But the snails take the decision out of our hands. One day, before the final verdict is in, they simply vanish, every single one.
Color Red Increases the Speed and Strength of Reactions
A new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Emotion finds that when humans see red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. And people are unaware of the color’s intensifying effect. The findings may have applications for sporting and other activities in which a brief burst of strength and speed is needed, such as weightlifting. But the authors caution that the color energy boost is likely short-lived.
The study measured the reactions of students in two experiments. In the first, 30 fourth-through-10th graders pinched and held open a metal clasp. Right before doing so, they read aloud their participant number written in either red or gray crayon. In the second experiment, 46 undergraduates squeezed a handgrip with their dominant hand as hard as possible when they read the word “squeeze” on a computer monitor. The word appeared on a red, blue, or gray background.
In both scenarios, red significantly increased the force exerted, with participants in the red condition squeezing with greater maximum force than those in the gray or blue conditions. In the handgrip experiment, not only the amount of force, but also the immediacy of the reaction increased when red was present. (Read more…)
Anybody who follows college or professional-level sports can see where this research is inevitably headed, right? How long before some jock studying sports medicine figures out a way to attach red-colored implants directly inside his or her eyeball against the retina? All red, all the time. Then just stand back and watch the athlete blow away the competition. The next day: instant arms race. Soon every ballplayer all the way down to pee-wee’s will be demanding them. Steroids? Forget it, everybody wants to see red. And the beauty is, they’re not illegal since they’re not a “substance.”
Everybody’s getting them, and the darker the shade, the better. Records fall until people start to notice something. A strange side effect of the implants that affects one in every hundred people who try them. Any light other than red hurts their eyes, especially yellow light, like from the sun. They become nocturnal, overly aggressive, uncontrollable, even attacking other people. They become pale from lack of sun exposure.
That’s right, super athletes becoming zombies, and they’re stronger than us. With this new development, though, will those striving to be the best still risk the implants? What are the odds it will happen to them…?
Drug May Help Overwrite Bad Memories
Recalling painful memories while under the influence of the drug metyrapone reduces the brain’s ability to re-record the negative emotions associated with them, according to University of Montreal researchers. The team’s study challenges the theory that memories cannot be modified once they are stored in the brain.
Metyrapone is a drug that significantly decreases the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that is involved in memory recall. Manipulating cortisol close to the time of forming new memories can decrease the negative emotions that may be associated with them. “The results show that when we decrease stress hormone levels at the time of recall of a negative event, we can impair the memory for this negative event with a long-lasting effect,” said Dr. Sonia Lupien, who directed the research.
Thirty-three men participated in the study, which involved learning a story composed of neutral and negative events. Three days later, the researchers found that men who received two doses of metyrapone were impaired when retrieving the negative events of the story, while they showed no impairment recalling the neutral parts of the story. The decreased memory of negative information was still present once cortisol levels had returned to normal. The research offers hope to people suffering from syndromes such as post-traumatic stress disorder. (Read more…)
There is no doubt such a drug could be a huge benefit to people who suffer horrendous trauma, battlefield injuries, sexual assaults, the kind of incidents that can be emotionally and mentally crippling. Wouldn’t it be great to have a drug that can just erase them like they never happened? Or perhaps the worst aspects of them?
But such drugs are never limited to their primary use, people always push the boundaries. What if certain not entirely ethical psychiatrists start prescribing metyrapone to some of their overly emotional patients? Experience a bad break-up? Pop a pill. Get fired from your job? Pop a pill. Never happened.
People start erasing all the negative events in their lives. Everybody’s much happier, though some individuals need to be reminded occasionally that certain events actually happened. But there are always outliers, people for whom a drug doesn’t work, and some are inevitably immune to metyrapone. They see how society has anesthetized itself, how people are no longer experiencing life. They start speaking out, warning against a life devoid of even the slightest discomfort.
But the pharma company, Globodrug, maker of metyrapone, is perfectly content. They really don’t feel like having any malcontents rocking their monopoly, so they begin to take steps. The outliers begin to disappear, until there are only a few left, along with a group of psychiatrists who are very disturbed by the fact that their profession has basically become a bunch of drug pushers. They go underground, using guerilla tactics to take down Globodrug, but what chance do they have against a multi-national monolith? But they have to try, because someone must rouse humanity from its endless sleepwalk…
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Isn’t technology great? Except of course when it’s horribly misused in ways that warp us all. Naturally, those make for the best stories. Just remember that the next time you read about a new cure or advance. Remember to say, “Hmm, I wonder…”
-Jason Kahn
Mad Scribblings From the Edge
The Dark InSpectre
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Authors: Jason Kahn. Form: Column. Length: 1500 words. Editor who accepted this story: Previous Editors.
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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