Keeping Up With the Joneses, by Sophonisba [continuing education challenge]

[saphanibaal]

-title- Keeping Up With the Joneses
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-ratings/warnings- Gen. No warnings necessary that I can think of.
-timeframe- The first week in Atlantis.
-spoilers- Uh... "Rising"?
-characters- Teyla, Beckett, Biro, Heightmeyer, Ford, others
-notes- A bit of spackleness; this was supposed to be longer, but the next scene tied itself up

Comments

[bratfarrar]

Ha! That article title is priceless. :D

^_^

[saphanibaal]

If the mess hall scene had disentangled itself, one of its elements would have been the revelation that the article in question (despite the authors' incognizance of Ancients as anything other than "hypothetical human strain in which the Lee-Msamati node arose") is about:
a) the ability of humans with enough of the right Ancient genes to respond to low-level radiation overexposure by apparently absorbing the energy and using it to fuel a hurried-up version of replacing old cells with new ones, such that a full overhaul might take a few months rather than its normal seven years, and less likely for the replacements to themselves be damaged (such as the normal wear and tear of age tends to do);
b) the tendency of said humans to respond to high-level radiation overexposure by, rather than the random mutation of individual cells, random sequence(s) of otherwise junk DNA to turn on and affect replacement cells as the body goes through its regular swapout (whether sped up due to a) or not), and the correspondingly poor response of cancer in