Story Idea Research

[stickmaker]

Assume an alternate Earth where in addition to humans a line of New World primates developed an intelligent species; something humanoid but obviously non-human. When Columbus arrived, he called the dark-skinned humans he found "Indians" and the odd, fey creatures "Elves," and both names stuck.

If one of those "Elves" were to come to our world, how would the type of DNA identification tests normally used by law enforcement agencies work if used on a sample from the creature? Would there likely be a few common alleles? None? Which genus or family is the likely parent?

Comments

[solarbird]

There are an assortment of other questions you have to answer first, and without those, the answer could be anywhere from "all" to "none," tho' you'd have to make some contraindicated decisions to come up with "none."

I mean, seriously, you share 30% of your DNA with grass. No lie.

So if you decide you want something as divergent as, say, neanderthal, then you'd be looking at a better than 99% similarity rate.

A research topic you might find interesting is the molecular clock. You could set a divergence date and make calculations from there. Very significant differences in expressed behaviour can appear from relatively small changes.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing a series of stories using this same basic premise many years ago in Asimov's. I want to say that Harry Turtledove wrote them, but I'm not completely certain.