Feasibility Of Cellular Biology Constructing Advanced Technology...

[Spacescifi]

If anyone saw the finale of Picard you know that somehow, much of starfleet's officers were altered so that their bodies had the potential to create cyborg implants on their own.

Scifi scenario: Suppose a scifi race enjoys playing god by creating designer sentient species. One day one of the designer gets a bright idea.

"Instead of trying to make AI or cyborgs with implants, why not make a species with cells that construct cyborg implants on their own?" Instead of necessarily making a humanoid body plan, they design the body wholly around whatever type of cyborg implants the cells are designed to construct.

Main Question: DNA and cells already do amazing things. I do not doubt that if programmed, it could construct circuits, small computers, radios,  and sensors inside a body. Do you think this is feasible?

I think it is but it would I think it would be best to occur after the body has reached adulthood and stopped growing. Furthermore, cyborg implants would need electricity to run, so the body would need to be good at generating electricity as well as good at evaporatng ir dissapating waste heat from it. Might need large flapping appendages like elephant ears for that.

Also any cell constructed implants would need to be made of safe metals that won't rust inside.

Cyborg implants would be for life and require surgery to remove. Also in order to have enough metal to build them the creature would have to eat enough of the specific nutients and minerals required over time.

 

Thoughts?

[KSK]

Some thoughts on this.

Biomineralization, i.e. the formation of metal crystals or inorganic materials is well known in a whole range of species. The obvious examples are bone or shells but bacteria do interesting things with other metals.

Generating small amounts of power shouldn't be a problem. Mitochondria are effectively tiny biological storage batteries, and provided you didn't go into too much detail, I don't think that using the electron transport proteins in mitochondria to build a battery for your implants would be a crazy hand-wave. 

I would have any computer circuitry be based on neural tissue - again, making use of structures that DNA can already produce. Making complex circuitry out of metal parts would probably be a whole lot harder. Not necessarily impossible but designing a set of proteins which can a) template metal crystal formation or semiconductor crystal formation, b) deal with multiple inorganic material, and  c) self-assemble into the required circuitry pattern, would be a hell of a piece of bioengineering. 

In general, minimizing the use of metal parts, in favor of remodeling existing bony structures would probably make these implants feel more realistic. Forget about Borg style widgets sprouting from the implanted patient, and think about an unnaturally thickened eye socket. In fact, I'd imagine most of these 'implants' would augment existing biological structures, for example, additional neural tissue modules  built onto the brainstem,  existing glands engineered to secrete engineered hormones in response to particular stimuli, or bones reinforced with metal nanofilaments.

Getting enough exogenous DNA into the right cells to create these implants is going to be a task all by itself.  Gene therapy vectors are typically quite payload constrained - i.e., they can only get so much DNA into a cell.  Again, best to gloss over the details, but if you want to sound a bit more authentic, you might have your patients treated with a series of vectors, groups of which are targeted to specific cells.

Alternatively, the implants could be grown outside the body and then surgically implanted. The classic example of this is probably the Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. 

[kerbiloid]

14 minutes ago, KSK said:

The classic example of this is probably the Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. 

The Nurglites are even self-repairing.

[magnemoe]

37 minutes ago, KSK said:

Some thoughts on this.

Biomineralization, i.e. the formation of metal crystals or inorganic materials is well known in a whole range of species. The obvious examples are bone or shells but bacteria do interesting things with other metals.

Generating small amounts of power shouldn't be a problem. Mitochondria are effectively tiny biological storage batteries, and provided you didn't go into too much detail, I don't think that using the electron transport proteins in mitochondria to build a battery for your implants would be a crazy hand-wave. 

I would have any computer circuitry be based on neural tissue - again, making use of structures that DNA can already produce. Making complex circuitry out of metal parts would probably be a whole lot harder. Not necessarily impossible but designing a set of proteins which can a) template metal crystal formation or semiconductor crystal formation, b) deal with multiple inorganic material, and  c) self-assemble into the required circuitry pattern, would be a hell of a piece of bioengineering. 

In general, minimizing the use of metal parts, in favor of remodeling existing bony structures would probably make these implants feel more realistic. Forget about Borg style widgets sprouting from the implanted patient, and think about an unnaturally thickened eye socket. In fact, I'd imagine most of these 'implants' would augment existing biological structures, for example, additional neural tissue modules  built onto the brainstem,  existing glands engineered to secrete engineered hormones in response to particular stimuli, or bones reinforced with metal nanofilaments.

Getting enough exogenous DNA into the right cells to create these implants is going to be a task all by itself.  Gene therapy vectors are typically quite payload constrained - i.e., they can only get so much DNA into a cell.  Again, best to gloss over the details, but if you want to sound a bit more authentic, you might have your patients treated with a series of vectors, groups of which are targeted to specific cells.

Alternatively, the implants could be grown outside the body and then surgically implanted. The classic example of this is probably the Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. 

Good points, outside of simply raising your IQ its would be pretty trivial to add stuff like an calculator including ballistic biologically, You mostly avoid the we hacked your army group, you can still have an computer interface better than keyboard or mice and also has video an voice in. 
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3800/fc03750.htm
And yes with implant who could control people you could hack an zombie apocalypse or buy one on the dark web.
Wasteful and inhuman  I say, rater make them want to serve me as their primary objective. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

OK, HR Geiger. 

[Nuke]

use a cuttlefish as a screen, a human head for your cpu, a cat as a keyboard (you are going to end up with a cat on it anyway so just cut out a step), and a chinchilla as a mouse. speakers can just be a couple of parrots. if you need a webcam, grab a mantis shrimp. wire together with synthetic neural conduits. 

i wouldn't be surprised if bioengineered products would be available within the next 100 years. were talking machines that run on meat.

On 5/1/2023 at 3:38 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

OK, HR Geiger. 

almost makes me want to play scorn again. if were being honest, thats probibly where were headed barring a hard reset (read nuclear war). 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Nuke