This is just something that popped into my head. Say there was a way to permanently fuse your DNA with another person's. Would you slowly begin to take on the physical characteristcs of that person?

Are you thinking of a 'the fly' type scenario?

something like that yea, but with humans. no flies...

More like Tuvok + Neelix = Tuvix?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...but really, could it be done? serious reply's this time...

Damn thats ugly, wouldn't what your talking about be known as genetic splicing, Im sure you can find something on the net about it.

More like Tuvok + Neelix = Tuvix[/url']?

How the heck did you think of that?

Anyway heres a site:

http://www.oneworld.net/penguin/genetics/splicing.html

 

But heres a quote from the site!!!:

 

"No-one can know in advance what might happen and whether it might be hazardous. It is unpredictable."

I'll just wildly speculate Somethings are quite stable once you are fully grown, like your skeletal and nervous systems. These would change but it would be limited; eg the strength of connections between neurons is partly due to certain biochemical pathways being stimulated by firing at the synapse, which leads to physical changes in the neuron, if you change the proteins within these cycles there would be gradual changes to the brain. But if you had say, a congenital defect in your heart and missing a valve, and gained genes from a person who didn't, then the heart would unlikely to fix itself, since development is already completed. Other features which are constantly being replaced, like hair, membranes like skin and mucous layers, cells within the circulatory system, etc, would change quite rapidly. So if you gained sickle cell genes then you would gradually gain the sickle cell trait.

there`s quite a bit of anecdotal evidence wehereby a patient after receiving an organ from a donor, will start to crave certain foods that they didn`t like or had never tried before, but they were actualy the donors fave food! Spooky eh!

Anyway heres a site:

http://www.oneworld.net/penguin/genetics/splicing.html

 

"The page cannot be found"

 

Why am I not surprised that the linky is a dud?

there`s quite a bit of anecdotal evidence wehereby a patient after receiving an organ from a donor, will start to crave certain foods that they didn`t like or had never tried before, but they were actualy the donors fave food! Spooky eh!

 

 

Is that a joke?

The first thing i was going to say when i say the title was : yes, sex. Well i don't think it's possible. Maybe there could be a virus that could hijack a cell (as virus do) and turn it into a different cell, but that would be one cell. There would have to be some way for the virus to communicate with all the others, and it would take a long time to transform. there definately wouldn't be anyway to maintain your current intelligence, i don't think. unless you were transforming into a MORE intelligent creature.

"The page cannot be found"

 

Why am I not surprised that the linky is a dud?

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.oneworld.net/penguin/genetics/splicing.html