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Putting Plastids in People


PlayingGawd

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Hello SF, I'm new and wasn't sure where to post this so sorry if it's the wrong place.

 

I assume most of you genii know of the Endosymbiotic Theory (mitochondria and plastids originally being individual organisms). Well since chloroplasts were/are likely alive and decided to live in plants, would it be possible to place them into other organisms and have a symbiotic relationship form?

Or could we give an archaeon or bacterium some mitochondria and see what happens?

Could we give ourselves chloroplasts and photosynthesize? Would we need to add chlorophyll to our skin pigment to be able to? Is it at all possible?

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Y'all are mean <_<:P My first post ever on this site and I'm ignored.

 

I think the best place to start (for making plant people) would be with stem cells, as ethically unnerving as that is. Attempts to give grown people chlorophyll/chloroplasts would probably fail as the body would likely see them as invaders and attack.

You could probably test with axolotls too [link] but they're endangered now.

Edited by PlayingGawd
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If you attempted to implement chloroplasts to a human stem cell, the outcome would be an utter failure and no.... You will not be able to use photosynthesis and feed off the sun. Chloroplasts and our stem cells wouldn't be instantly compatible. It took an extremely long time for the plants, though it was natural and could be sped up.

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If you attempted to implement chloroplasts to a human stem cell, the outcome would be an utter failure and no.... You will not be able to use photosynthesis and feed off the sun. Chloroplasts and our stem cells wouldn't be instantly compatible. It took an extremely long time for the plants, though it was natural and could be sped up.

 

But if we spend a long time trying, and test enough, couldn't it happen? Isn't it at all plausible? People would almost never be overweight since they'd be getting a large part of their "food" from the sun.

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But if we spend a long time trying, and test enough, couldn't it happen? Isn't it at all plausible? People would almost never be overweight since they'd be getting a large part of their "food" from the sun.

 

 

Synthetically mutating a stem cell from any animal to harmonize with chloroplasts would be nearly impossible. And this is true especially for your vision of a man using the sun's energy as a legitimate source of food and certainly admitting a greater pleasure than when eating a cake(or something of the sort).

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Synthetically mutating a stem cell from any animal to harmonize with chloroplasts would be nearly impossible. And this is true especially for your vision of a man using the sun's energy as a legitimate source of food and certainly admitting a greater pleasure than when eating a cake(or something of the sort).

 

Nearly impossible, but a lot of things in history were unlikely. The chances of life starting on any planted are slim-to-none but we're here :)

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Nearly impossible, but a lot of things in history were unlikely. The chances of life starting on any planted are slim-to-none but we're here :)

It took a few billion years for life to form naturally, and the conditions were just right. If we attempted to mutate something to such a degree synthetically and it took half the time... it would still take around a billion years. Consider that it will be virtually impossible for something to remain intact, and an experiment to continue for that long. People would always move on to another experiment(maybe not wanting to wait over a billion years) or something would happen to disturb the growth, maybe a bombing, a natural disaster, a small accident, ect....

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