Goldfish evolved to survive for months without oxygen!

Originally posted by @humy
by genetically modifying the liver cells, along with all the other types of human body cells, so that they remain undamaged by massively high concentrations of ethanol within them ( + don't chemically breakdown the ethanol else this scheme wouldn't work ).
To do that, must take into account how massively high concentrations of ethanol normally damages cells. ...[text shortened]... h can withstand massively high concentrations of ethanol within them without them being damaged!

Yeah. I like the idea as a thought experiment, but you'd have to rewire almost every organ system to tolerate this. Brains would shrivel up. You'd be blind and deaf and hypertensive. You'd be nauseous and vomiting and lose muscle function. It'd be a total mess.

Edit: What you'd be left with, after all the gene modifications, would probably not be considered human.

Originally posted by @humy

Yeast excretes alcohol as waste in to the beer wort or wine. How would a genetically modified person do that?

by genetically modified person's cells to be like that of goldfish cells which do just that.

Urination would be a convenient way, but is that possible without any help from the liver?

Urination is possible ...[text shortened]... n mainly via its kidney function. But, either way, its liver would have nothing to do with that.

Interesting theory. I am reminded of that old sci-fi movie "blade runner" where people were genetically modified to terraform a world or something like that. I heard a remake was done of that movie recently and would like to see how different it is from the original with Harrison Ford.
Like Wildgrass I think it would be difficult to achieve. I sometimes brew my own wine and have noticed that some strains of brewers yeast have a higher alcohol tolerance than others because of selective breeding. I think it would be a significant achievement to genetically modify a yeast to have a very high alcohol tolerance. What you are talking about would be much harder and it brings up a lot of questions like "would people still breath air even though there is no oxygen?" How could you turn off the strong instinct to breath if it was necessary?
Fascinating though. I like to think of stuff I have never thought of before and you helped me do that. Thanks for that.

I thought maybe the ethanol had a dual purpose of protecting the fish from freezing so I did a search and found this article. Thought it was interesting.

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=132798

Originally posted by @metal-brain
Interesting theory. I am reminded of that old sci-fi movie "blade runner" where people were genetically modified to terraform a world or something like that. I heard a remake was done of that movie recently and would like to see how different it is from the original with Harrison Ford.
Like Wildgrass I think it would be difficult to achieve. I sometime ...[text shortened]... is article. Thought it was interesting.

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=132798

Yes I think you'd have to stop the lungs somehow, and maintain normal blood acidity. Otherwise whatever else was in the air would muck up the blood. Heck, you could even remove lungs if you didn't need oxygen, and the metabolic waste from respiration (C02) would not need to be there. You would still need circulation, though, for immunity / filtration / clearance of waste.

Related to the freezing issue, frogs will actually stop their heart and lungs and can survive the winter mostly frozen. They have some unique metabolic mechanism that makes their entire body extremely hyperglycemic prior to this, ensuring that cells will have lots of energy around in the absence of circulating oxygen. There's researchers studying this process intensely to improve storage of organs for transplants.

Originally posted by @wildgrass
Yes I think you'd have to stop the lungs somehow, and maintain normal blood acidity. Otherwise whatever else was in the air would muck up the blood. Heck, you could even remove lungs if you didn't need oxygen, and the metabolic waste from respiration (C02) would not need to be there. You would still need circulation, though, for immunity / filtration / cl ...[text shortened]... here's researchers studying this process intensely to improve storage of organs for transplants.

In the movie "Blade Runner" the genetically engineered man who sought out his genetic designer killed him because he revealed his shorter lifespan was permanent. I suppose in reality a genetic designer would prevent that by inserting a passive gene or something like that. This brings up the ethical implications of genetically engineered slaves. What a mess the future might be.

Like you said this is an interesting thought experiment. It really got me thinking about the implications. For that reason I think this is one of Humy's better threads.