Myoglobin (New Home, Final Part)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The suit worked! It actually worked! It had cost three months in development and a lot of money, but Michelle’s concept of a diving suit that made an air tank obsolete had worked out exactly as she had planned.

It looked a bit like a morph suit, covering the whole body in a soft material. And when it was worn under water and working to full capacity, it sparkled because the engineers had decided to add tiny LEDs. Not to make it sparkle, of course. That was just a pretty side effect. No, the LEDs were supposed to bring light into the darkness of the deep ocean.

While she had been waiting for the development of the suit, Michelle had perfected her mixture of antioxidants. The current test subject had been submerged in deep water for 10 hours at once, 7 days in a row, without any increase of free radicals in his blood. Most of the other issues previously encountered were fixed too.

All that success had attracted the attention of several governments, which had started to give increased funding to Michelle’s lab. It wasn’t a small lab with only a handful of employees anymore, oh no. Michelle had three assistants, better than any she had before. Combined with groups of engineers, biologists, physicists, and chemists, she was now the leader of the most sophisticated lab in Europe.

Of that, she was proud. But there were always downsides to everything. The downsides of her lab were hidden away in the basement.

Scientific progress doesn’t happen without failure. In fact, most scientific research consists of failure over failure over failure until finally, something works. In Michelle’s case, those failures were bodies.

Still, those were fewer bodies than a future would have held in which those people hadn’t died for science. That’s what Michelle told herself every day, every night. Every time she lay awake in bed.

Her achievements legitimated those thoughts. And after all, she was almost finished. Almost.

Despite the improvements in air storage, there was still way too much oxygen needed to keep a human alive for several hours or days. It wasn’t that problematic for humans that stayed in the domes, but merchants, algae farmers, explorers and other travelers would have problems after a very short time

To solve this issue, Michelle had finally decided to consider the possibility of using bioengineering. In contrary to most other experiments, she needed to convince her superiors to let her do this.

As she stood in front of this group of famous scientists, she started sweating. The presentation she had prepared suddenly seemed dumb. Childish.

She swallowed hard. ”You got this”, she told herself. ”They already think you are great. You only need to show them that your new idea is even greater.”

Michelle took a deep breath, put on a smile and greeted her superiors.

”I know you have all followed the progress I have made in the New Home Project. Maybe some of you were skeptical when I first proposed it, but the last months have shown that there is great potential. We are almost ready to move our home into the ocean. Just one last goal needs to be reached.”

Curious looks from all over the room gave her the courage she needed.

”There are several kinds of mammals who already spend most of their lives underwater. Their secret is already known: The concentration of myoglobin in their muscles is about ten times more concentrated than it is in human muscles. This allows them to store much more oxygen than we do so that they can hold their breath for several hours! And all that’s needed is positively charged myoglobin to keep those proteins from forming clumps.”

”But how does this info help us?” One woman wanted to know. Michelle smiled.

”We just need to change our own biology! Let’s re-write our genome to enable us to produce the same kind of myoglobin and have a higher concentration in our muscles. You all know that it is more than possible with our modern gene editing methods.”

Her listeners started discussing the words they just heard, first in hushed voices, then with increasing volume.

”Ingenious!”

”Outrageous!”

”There are reasons we banned gene editing, we can’t just allow it again.”

”Are you serious? This is our future. Sometimes, rules have to be broken.”

Michelle watched how the group of scientists split in two. One part loved and supported her idea, one stood against it with all they had. Who would win?

The answer to this question was given to her a few weeks later in form of a letter.

*”Dear Dr. Wittek,

As we weren’t able to reach a final decision that satisfied all those involved, we decided on a compromise. Half of our team will join you and found humanity’s new home under the surface of the oceans. The others will stay on land and continue to try and find a way to save those who choose to stay.
We’d be happy if you would help us decide on the location to start the project.

Best Regards

The committee of global science”*

With a smile, Michelle put down the letter. She would not be able to save all of humanity, but at least some of it would be preserved. And that was already more than anyone had expected.

And in a way, this was only one more step in human evolution. She pitied everyone who would stay with the less evolved species.

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The New Home series is intended as a prequel to a collaborative story by @steemitadventure and me. He will illustrate and I will write it. Keep an eye out! You will definitely enjoy it.

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Sources:

How Diving Mammals Stay Underwater for So Long

How diving mammals evolved underwater endurance

Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath

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