Restoring the Mermaids

Restoring the Mermaids

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Nor were there mermaids in the sea. Anyone who hasn't been living with their heads immersed in a bucket of water for the last 100 years, knows that there have been no verified sightings of dragons or mermaids during that time. Back in the Middle Ages they were plentiful and could be found in deep forests and on isolated islands. Today the dragons are asleep deep in their caves, and the mermaids that are left hide deep in the oceans.

But here I speak of mermaids. Back in their heyday they particularly liked shorelines with boulders for sunbathing, and they enjoyed following sailing ships and teasing the sailors. But, alas, they disappeared.

The sad circumstances of their near extinction are chronicled in the Atlantis Sea Scrolls which were accidentally found by a submersible during a deep-sea expedition in 1991 which was searching for a lost atom bomb that had been dropped during war games. The scrolls, written on shark skin using squid ink, were found stored in a giant clam shell and hidden in a sea cave 600 fathoms deep northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Only recently with the help of Watson, the IBM Supercomputer artificial intelligence software, have scientists been able to translate the Atlantisian language.

The scrolls tell how Atlantisians evolved after sinking into the sea, creating multiple species in the process. Mermaids represent one of those species just as Neanderthals represent a branch of humans. Unfortunately, mermaids had to migrate every year to Antarctica and then return to their coupling grounds in the Pacific. On one of those migrations a virus infected the mermaid population. Although the virus did not kill the mermaids, the residual effect was the permanent loss of the muscles and stamina necessary to make the annual migration.

Atlantisian establishment scientists, who were already experimenting with gene splicing and DNA modification, attempted to find a way to reverse the permanent negative effects of the virus, but to no avail, and after years of unpromising research moved on to more promising endeavors.

One scientist did not give up. Dr. Slank Kzneist, a specialist in marine mutations was sure he had found a solution. His idea was to conjoin the best attributes of a Great White Shark with the best attributes of a mermaid. Sharks have survived for millions of years, have strength and stamina, and if spliced successfully would create a more robust mermaid that could survive as the sharks have survived.

With private financing from Clam Farms Consolidated, Dr. Kzneist, using cells volunteered by mermaids and collected from the waste at the Shark Seafood Factory, embarked on a research program equal to cancer research programs conducted by land people.

Late one day in the aftertide, one of Dr. Kzneist's young researchers bounded into his office waving a handful of documents yelling "Eureka. We've done it!". What they had done was find a combination of shark and mermaid DNA that was not rejected by a mermaid volunteer.

In that sense, it was successful. But in terms of the research objective, it was a total disaster. They injected the merged DNA into a mermaid egg, and using cloning techniques allowed it to grow. As the fetus developed, x-rays showed that the dominant stronger DNA of the shark had given the fetus a shark's head and a mermaid's tail, just the opposite of what Dr. Kzneist had theorized.

They immediately terminated the pregnancy and made a thorough review of all their work as well as the few relevant studies underway elsewhere. Nothing looked promising. Funding was withdrawn. The program of research was abandoned.

The mermaid population continued on its path of extinction to the point that when the Atlantis Sea Scrolls were written, there were only 37 known living mermaids and they were in poor health. Given the data collected over the years, scientists predicted extinction in 20 to 25 years.

The Scrolls are rumoured to contain additional information pertinent to the survival of Atlantisians as well as to land people regarding the pollution of the oceans. However, the Scrolls are under the control of the government, who in fact deny the existence of the Scrolls. IBM scientists are mute on the subject.

If and when more translated parts of the Scrolls are released by a whistleblower, they will be reported here.