Everybody expects bar stools to be built #sturdy, to support regular patrons and quickly end irregular fights. In Pat's bar, you might notice the extra-wide windowsills and wonder why. It's because of the vampire bats' conservation of mass.

Inspiration: sturdy
Potential: Low. As a setting, this is just funny to me.
Notes: Magic makes them fly, but it doesn't make them light. Urban fantasy or possibly humorous regular low fantasy.

The experiment was supposed to produce a hybrid of the tea tree that would have extra power against mosquitoes but cause no reaction on human skin. A few human genes were slipped in, to make it produce an oil that would "think" it was human. Later some lab scientists blamed the part-time voodoo priestess who was also an assistant in the gene lab. Others blamed the gene splicer, said he'd gotten confused and slipped a few tea tree genes into a human. Nobody could quite explain how it was even possible for the treegirl to come to viability, but there it was. All the little sprouts in their controlled nutrient pouches, and one sprout that stayed curled up for a long, long time. Jokes were made about it looking like a fetus. Then the jokes stopped, as it became readily apparent that that's exactly what it was, even if it was green and had rootlets trailing out from it.


Inspiration: Flickr photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/neon_tambourine/6904691093/
Story Potential: Medium
Notes: Could be whimsical magic realism, but that's not really my cup of tea at the moment. So to speak.

The scars were shocking. She had them. Across her elbows, where she'd had surgery to fix her elbows. On her stomach. In a long line down her face--that was the most shocking. They'd all had surgery there, of course, to get the linkchip put in, but they'd done it the civilized way. Greenlight lasers made sure there were no scars. Many of them had also had their appendix out, but again, they'd done it the civilized way. She had scars on her elbows and knees, mementos of an unimaginable childhood in a colony so primitive--

Inspiration: Green laser light heals without scarring (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=photochemical-tissue-bond&sc=DD_20100505)
Story Potential: Low
Notes: Pity this isn't a better story, but there you are. And the dye the laser light interacts with is called "rose bengal," which is awesomely exotic.

His lactation was not proceeding apace, he noted with worry. It was possible, scientifically possible, but the baby had starved enough that it was having trouble sucking and without that--his shoulders shook with suppressed sobs. Manly sobs. He reassured himself that he was still 100% manly. When the kid grew up (he wouldn't let himself think if), he'd teach it to fight and hunt and swear and drink beer. If they ever escaped this hellhole. He didn't allow himself to think about the kid's mom. They didn't know if she was alive or not. He hoped that she was. He hoped that the freaking asshole aliens had just not realized--


Inspiration: Weird news story about a male Swedish college student who has begun pumping his breasts at 3-hour intervals to see if he can produce milk.
Potential: Low.
Notes: Weird news, yes. Interesting story, no. Though it's good to keep in mind in science fiction that there's no reason aliens would understand human family/nurturing structure instinctively. Or vice versa.

He wanted to know--happily fishing in the river with his dead dad? White light at the end of the tunnel? Something even stranger? Sure, they said there were side-effects, there always could be, being sustained at that high a G level, but he figured it was worth it. If his brain was struggling to make sense of the pressures and the convulsions of his body, what would it give him? Some had seen God. Some had seen the dead, and still believed it was true to this day. (Some had also tried taking peyote before going into the white light tunnel, but he figured that was a really bad idea, judging by some of their results.) The first time went really well. So did the second. At that point, he had enough money--


Inspiration:Radiolab's Where Am I? podcast.
Potential: High.
Notes: Not quite there yet, in this excerpt, but there's something to this. If high G forces can induce blacking out, physical convulsions, and in 40% of the test subjects, a religious/afterlife experience--what is the future extent of the uses?

They were birthday-wishing chimps, sitting at her door wearing silly hats and blowing out streamers. She smiled, keeping her lips closed over her teeth so as not to upset them. They were probably well enough trained to understand that humans didn't mean a threat when they did that, but there was no sense taking chances. She didn't want to be like that woman in Cleveland--no matter what the surgeons did, she'd never look the same. She felt a little sad, looking at the chimps in their silly outfits. One of them held up a clipboard for her to sign, saying that she'd gotten her chimp-gram. She signed it. The chimps' eyes were liquid sorrow, but they curled back their lips in a fake smile and signed, "Thanks, ma'am." She wondered if it was really better to have uplifted them. Certainly, they might have gone extinct without the adaptation, but at least they would still be themselves. It was better for the sea creatures--.

Inspiration: They Might Be Giants song about chimp postcards, plus the recent news story about the woman whose "pet" chimpanzee ripped her face off.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: High potential not as a story--there's no plot here--but as a setting. Uplifting and using as many animal species as possible for manual jobs would be one rather twisted approach to the coexisting-with-other-species problem that humans have.

Countering the "aliens won't contact us until we're worthy" viewpoint. What if civilization has to be "unworthy" in order to be contacted, either to take advantage of it, or because civilization is so fucked, the initial horrible culture collapse/shock (die-off?) is better than the alternative?

This post brought to you by me getting my CONvergence-inspired ideas in the same place as the rest of them!