The basis for the fantastic.

[cowsmanaut]

There are a number of natural phenomena that when combined could explain the possibility of how something from our fantasy could exist in the real world.

Let's look at the Dragon. We have an example of such a flying lizard already in existance in our very real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_dragon

This creature though is terribly small and not likley to be consuming anyone in the near future.. let alone destroying flocks of sheep.

We do however, have examples of what appear to be lizards of the past which had flight such as the Pterosaurs .. they appeard to be winged lizards rather than the little guy above who has a modified ribcage which allows him to glide but not fly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterodactyl

Large lizards living in our time with a meat eating taste? well we have a few. Komodo Dragon for one, but we have our alligators and crocs. The komodo has what may have been an earlier cousin which was even larger and there is still questions if they still exist..

http://www.unmuseum.org/bigliz.htm

But what about their breath of fire? Well, some thing that methane pockets which are stored in the body normally of meat eating beasts could actually be ignited in various ways to produce a flame. The electric eel for example provides a rather serious charge which could make a spark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel

or the beetle mentioned in the other thread could create a small explosion from other chemicals to ignite the flame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle

so, we can see several elements that could potentially provide us with a carniverous, fire belching, and flying/gliding dragon beast...

Next step? Genetic engineers. I just read a coment from someone during my search for info, that stated they thought there was a potential for commercial gain in creating those fantasy creatures and providing them in a zoo kind of environment.. I bet he's right.. but what would be the cost? We are looking at jurrasic park without the dinosaurs, but rather dragons, unicorns, goblins, etc.. Just a small question of morality here. Do we have the right to make new life forms?

There was a real living unicorn at one point... ok ok.. not a real unicorn perhaps but a goat that had a mutation where it had a single horn growing out the center of it's head. The money they made showing it off was probably rather high.

Would you pay money to go and see genetically modified beasts that recreated fantasy creatures?

[PaulH]

No. Creating life for the sake of it, at great cost and at possible detriment to said life seems rather absurd. I think any money into genetic research should be spent on trying to eradicate genetic disease.

[cowsmanaut]

that my good sir is right here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanorobotics

if they can ever manage it, they can teach these tiny things to recognise and kill any kind of cell they want. and then we will have the cure for most known diseases. Until then however.. we rely on current medicine. Which as you know is less than ideal. Though still has proven to have some good results and has saved many lives.

[Gambit37]

Have you read any of the sci-fi dealing with nano-tech gone mad? It's messy stuff...

[cowsmanaut]

Well to go firmly off topic for a second. I was taking a course on aviation which related to manufacture and repair of aircraft. Amongst the things we needed to learn was the things that go wrong and in some cases related to the VERY simple computer applications that control the aircraft to aid in certain situations.

One of these things is called the Dutch roll, which is caused by air flow . The air currents cause a rocking motion to the aircraft as it flies.. for commercial aircraft it's rather like a very bad fair ride and so undesireable. The pilot can attempt to correct but in many cases it can cause a more erratic flight. So, they have a simple program that measures tilt not given by the pilot. and tries to correct by turning itself at the moment of change. Since the computer can calculate more quickly and efficently the exact pressure to counteract the tilt it sits between the pilot and the actual plane control.

On the 737 series of planes there was a small bug in the system for thise dutch roll correction in that it cause the reading to invert. What this meant was it would read a roll to the right and compensate but the worng way compounding the issue and then trying to correct more until.. boom.. you are in a dead spin and spiraling to your death. 6 planes I think it was, went down before the grounded all the 737s and figured out the problem. (they are all repaired now.. they were under refitting while I was taking the course in 1998)

a tiny error that changes a 1 to -1 killed a lot of people.. so now imaging.. a single little error on a nanoid. (to get back on topic) you have a few hundred of these in your body going around to clean up whatever.. and they instead start attacking your healthy cells.. how do you fix that? how do they program a failsafe? send in more nanoids to kill the faulty ones?

scary... let's hope they are more carefull than that.

[Gambit37]

.. and they instead start attacking your healthy cells.. how do you fix that? how do they program a failsafe? send in more nanoids to kill the faulty ones?.

Exactly! Sorry to have gone off topic: as you were.

[cowsmanaut]

no no.. I was off topic

Talking about airplanes, which the example of simple tech in comparison to the complication of robots made of only a few molucules