I'm giving an exam this morning, and I needed to get to work early to make copies, so I didn't have time for lengthy, insightful blogging. So here's a dorky poll.
This one needs a little background. A post-doc in my old group at NIST used to say that he always wished he had a prehensile tail, because there are lots of situations where you need a third hand. It doesn't have to be a very good hand, but when you're doing experimental work, you frequently wind up holding a flashlight in your mouth, while attempting to connect two wires in an awkward position, and it would be good to have a tail to hold the light.
So, here's the question:
What biological adaptation or modification would make your research life easier?
My answer: I'm a big guy, and as such, I have big hands. Many electronic and mechanical devices are designed for people who are a whole lot smaller than I am, and I wind up having a horrible time trying to fit my fingers into little spaces to get at parts in need of repair.
Thus, the adaptation I'd like to have would be re-scalable digits-- some way to make my fingers smaller or more flexible, to allow for manipulation of small parts in tight spaces. That would save me countless small cuts and soldering iron burns.
So what would make your life easier?
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Hmmmm, ability to go without sleep - and not getting tired or sleepy at all - for several days and nights in succession (this can be followed by a nice long sleeping vacation).
Ability to see in complete darkness - good night-vision goggles are very expensive and actually quite clumsy (they may be good when driving a tank through the Iraqi desert, but are barely helpful when you try to draw blood from a wing-vein of a 100g bird in the pitch darkness).
Ability to use one's own normal vision (or some other sense) and be able to clearly distinguish between a test-tube holding 10ml of a liquid and a test-tube holding 10ml + 1ul of that liquid (thus always being aware into which tubes you have added that last 1ul of a reagent, and which not).
Interested to hear vos Post's ideas....
The tail is something I've definitely wanted for a very long time, if just so I could hand myself tools.
Beyond that, I'd like Surgeon's Hands. My hands shake a lot normally, and it's a lot worse if I'm under any kind of stress (like, say, trying to manipulate a delicate and completely irreplaceable crystal with a pair of tweezers). If I could acquire the ability to completely stop my hands from shaking, twitching, or otherwise moving of their own accord, my life in the lab would be a lot easier.
I'd also like the power of Part Scrying, or the ability to look at any part and know all of its relevant specs. So, I could pick up a random socket-head screw and know which driver I need, or see an IC in a board and know what it does, how well it does it, and what sort of supply voltage it needs. This would save so much time that, were it widely available, the entire scientific enterprise might advance at a measurably faster rate.
And for the RPG geeks in the room, yes, I'm kind of thinking of these things as Feats from the D&D v3.5 rules.
So what would make your life easier?
Completely removing the need to sleep.
My hands are strong and dextrous enough that I rarely have trouble accomplishing the fiddly details of whatever I'm working on, even chained to a static strap and under a microscope. It's my mutant engineer power. (The guy in the next office has freakishly sharp eyes, etc. It's sort of like the Legion of Substitute Heroes reject hour.)
But the ability to go without sleep.... Now that'd be useful. (And Reading back, I see Coturnix beat me to it.)
A prehensile penis.
Hey, you never asked what we wanted to research...
lol I think 'the ability to go without sleep' is going to be a universal want!
Other than that, the ability to see at a microscopic level would be nice (instead of spending hours and hours staring through a microscope).
Spectrophotometric vision. To be able to assess the quality and concentration of any sample (especially RNA, but also DNA and cell cultures) at a glance, quantify fluorescence, and so on.
I'm going to go with an extra set of prehensile eyes so that when I'm trying to get some work done in the office, I can still peek around the corner and see what my kids are doing and whether they're being quiet for good or for evil purposes. Oh, and I'll take one of the "ability to go without much sleep" abilities as well (works just as well for moms as researchers).
Feynmans brain???
Ability to read my student's mind to figure out what they really are doing!
How about getting rid of my ADD!
I always thought an extra pair of arms and eyes would be very helpful. You need the extra eyes to check what the extra arms are doing.
I want the ability to mildly electrocute lazy people who are getting in my way, i.e. by not getting me cluster access when they are the sysadmin and I've been here six months, or by commenting their for-general-use code not at all or, even worse, in their native language.
I'm with coturnix here, but with one caveat:
I'd like to have the ability to put half of my brain to sleep like ducks and dolphins, while the other does the work. That way, you might never need to go completely inactive.
Oh, and an expanding bladder. Bathroom breaks always come at the most inopportune moments.
Extra storage. I want a ganglion that acts like a slave hard drive.
"Slave" being the operative word. I don't need (yet) another consciousness in here...
The ability to split and fuse like an amoeba. Not only to get extra pair of hands or eyes, but to be able to be in two places, split for increased survivability in emergencies, and to have the ability to regenerate.
Oh, and considering John Wilkins proposal, to up the number of current lovers. How couldn't two mini-me's not be a hit?
Erhm, I meant analogous to an amoeba split.
I'd like a direct pass into my memory so that I could bypass short term, when I want to, and store information directly long term. An extra set of arms and hands would be helpful to, especially when I'm not in lab and practicing cello.
I don't think I'd want the ability to go without sleep -- I quite enjoy sleep, thank you very much.
Prehensile tail would be awesome, or any other sort of appendage that could be used to grasp wires, tools, etc.
Also, having an eyeball on the end of said tail or on the end of a fingertip would be VERY useful in certain situations. Ahh, looks like Natalie beat me to that one!
If I end up going into a cell-culture-heavy field (likely), I'll want an extension of the unicorn power (purifying water). Purify reagents, re-dissolve precipitate, sterilize contaminated areas...
If I go into linguistics (not as likely), I'll probably want the ability to produce and distinguish all possible speech sounds.
In general, I'd vote for the prehensile tail. It should be several feet long but able to fold up compactly and comfortably (esp. for sitting in long meetings, on airplanes, etc).
Standard Maple or Mathematica features (equation-solving, numerical optimization, 2D and 3D plotting, etc.) built directly into brain. Ability to google own memory.
A perfect photographic memory - just glance at a paper or book, then re-read it in my head while walking the dog, driving, taking a shower, cooking, gardening....what a great time-saving ability, not to mention having all that info available without digging through your reprints...
I've always wished my feet were as dextrous as my hands, and that I had an opposable toe. Tails would be sexy, too, but I think feet would be much more useful.