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This makes Larry Niven's Pak Protectors more plausible. In his universe, when an adult human eats a certain food (not available on Earth), it triggers their tr
by hirundo 5y ago
This makes Larry Niven's Pak Protectors more plausible. In his universe, when an adult human eats a certain food (not available on Earth), it triggers their transformation into a larger, stronger, more intelligent being, evolved to protect us "breeders", along the lines of the transformation of a worker ant into a queen.
But one would think that an occasional rare mutation would trigger at least a partial transformation, so I'll guess this one will remain scifi.
- swayvil 5y agoThat was the first thing on my mind too. We need to find that protein in a human and switch it. See what happens. He'll turn into Donald Trump or something.
- rsynnott 5y agoIn the stories, being old _was_ the partial transformation (Protectors become sterile - older people become less reproductively able, Protectors get an extra heart where the genitals were - older people have heart problems because they only have one, Protectors are monomaniacally fixated on family, and so on). The original stories were written in an era when there was an absence of direct proof that humanity was related to other life on earth (that would be the default assumption, and there was tons of evidence, but it was theoretically semi-plausible that we weren't); molecular biology more or less killed that off, ruining the stories :)
- rsynnott 5y agoIncidentally, this has to have been one of the earliest manifestations of gene-centric evolution in sci-fi; the first story was written in 1967!
- 0aj7 5y agoYou dont have to look at sci fi. Look at what happens to dad and mom brains and hormones after a kid arrives.
- mrfox321 5y agoMind sharing some references to some explicit changes that occur?