Would you get a real tail?

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:46 pm

what about the gluttony guy from seven?

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:49 pm

Fenrir wrote:what about the gluttony guy from seven?

j/k

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:52 pm

Hey you shouldn't be talking here

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:54 pm

why you say that?

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:16 pm

You spam more then I do

how else would you have 2866+ quotes in here before me

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:27 pm

no not true, I just spend here more than you.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:33 pm

Couldn't graft it onto a human body anyway. You'd be up against some savage tissue rejection. The body's immune system would see a foreign protein (the wolf DNA) and go into uber-attack mode.

white · Post by **white** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:12 pm

I thought we were discussing convincing the body to grow its own tail, not grafting a new one on?

Timber-WoIf · Post by **Timber-WoIf** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:27 am

It would be plausable to have a tail grafted together from other parts of your body... only real difficulty would be how to hell to get the bone. [spoiler] This one guy lost his, erm... "junk", and had a new one (fully functional) grafted together from flesh off other parts of his body. [/spoiler]

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:33 am

*Shivers* thats creepy

Timber-WoIf · Post by **Timber-WoIf** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:42 am

*CAUTION* CREEPY AND NASTY POST

[spoiler] think thats wierd, he was unsatisfied with the first one, so he had a second one made. when they attached it, there was a chance the body wouldn't accept, so they had to leave the old one on until they were sure. so, for a period of time, he actually had two pieces of equipment. (though he did lose his wife.) [/spoiler]

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:04 am

I wasnt on a need to know basis!!

Apokryltaros · Post by **Apokryltaros** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:11 am

After my last Embryology lecture, I think it is possible to grow ourselves a tail.
I mean, if we can induce a chicken embryo to grow feathers in place of eyes, or graft limb buds onto random parts of the embryo's body, or induce a double-tipped wing, or grow a human ear on a mouse, it wouldn't be too hard to grow a tail on a human.
Though, the catch is that the procedure needs to be done while one is still an embryo, as the procedure involves grafting the "Apical Ectodermal Ridge" of the desired limb bud onto the developing embryo.
...
Nevermind.

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:11 pm

I've just been struck blind deaf and dumb by reading those posts

Apokryltaros · Post by **Apokryltaros** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:51 pm

Fenrir wrote:I've just been struck blind deaf and dumb by reading those posts

Somebody grafted mouse flank embryonic tissue onto your corneas, too?

white · Post by **white** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:55 pm

Apokryltaros wrote:Though, the catch is that the procedure needs to be done while one is still an embryo, as the procedure involves grafting the "Apical Ectodermal Ridge" of the desired limb bud onto the developing embryo.

This is why we're researching stem cells and regeneration, among other things. I think that embryo barrier won't last too long at all.

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:52 pm

Apokryltaros wrote:
Fenrir wrote:I've just been struck blind deaf and dumb by reading those posts
Somebody grafted mouse flank embryonic tissue onto your corneas, too?

ok blind, deaf, dumb, and now there's a taste of vomit in my mouth

Apokryltaros · Post by **Apokryltaros** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 10:38 pm

Fenrir wrote:
Apokryltaros wrote:
Fenrir wrote:I've just been struck blind deaf and dumb by reading those posts
Somebody grafted mouse flank embryonic tissue onto your corneas, too?
ok blind, deaf, dumb, and now there's a taste of vomit in my mouth

Why am I suddenly reminded of the "seduction" scene from Dodgeball?

lupinsmile · Post by **lupinsmile** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 1:42 am

Dr. Joe Rosen has it all figuard out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/stor ... 28,00.html

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 2:04 am

Good article...

One thing they got wrong, at least from my personal perspective, is that everyone who would want a drastic body mod like that is mentally ill and screaming for attention. I wouldn't want a tail so I could be noticed — actually I'm pretty self-effacing and like to blend in the background. But I would like a tail — provided it functions and can move — for the expressive extras and also for balance.

I wouldn't want the wings, though. They sound ugly and are purely for decoration. Nnnnnnnah.

white · Post by **white** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:31 pm

Agreement on all points, vrikasatma. Although I still don't think I'd go for a tail without the rest of the package.

Lupin · Post by **Lupin** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:41 pm

vrikasatma wrote:I wouldn't want the wings, though. They sound ugly and are purely for decoration. Nnnnnnnah.

Yeah, that just sounds weird. Plus, wings look pretty weird without any feathers, and somehow I doubt they have the ability to do that.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:58 pm

It could be done with cloned tissue. Take a real close look at your skin: see the scale-like crisscross pattern? That's vestigial scales. Feathers are highly specialized and elongated scales and are made of the same material as your fingernails and eyelashes.

Unfortunately, it's not down to just wings and pinions. The biggest muscle on the bird is the pectorals: they need it to drive the wings. Can you imagine pecs as big or bigger than the gluteus maximii? That's how big you'd need to develop the pecs in order to drive the wings. Birds don't have hands, per se. Their feet have evolved into grasping structures (I'm visualizing the scene in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" where the female chimp is writing in her diary — with her feet/paws!).

So, if I may be forgiven a slight topic drift — to get functional wings, we'd have to invert the human body system of extremities. The upper appendages would become the locomotors while the lower appendages would become the manipulators, which would be WEIRD

Nothing on this planet — chordate, anyway — has evolved three pairs of limbs. There's no model to joint, suspend and power something like that, existent in nature. Insects are built on a slightly different template and on a completely different axis. Bees, sure — but they work on a slightly different muscular structure and require an exoskeleton to anchor it. Nothing with a spinal cord and endoskeleton has four legs and wings, not here anyway. We have to go to mythological creatures — gryphons, pegasi, angels, faeries, dragons, et al — before we find something with functional wings. And those are visual koans, not extant biological models.

Unfortunately...'twould be cooler than words to be a weregryphon...

Kzinistzerg · Post by **Kzinistzerg** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:19 pm

oh, yes, definetly. I have to say, though ,that a tial owuld only be cool if it was a) prehensile, and b) was long enough, and c) if it got injured, would grow back properly, the way everythign else on your body does. however, winds are just pointless, there is no way any human will fly with biological wings with the materials we have- just no way. mechanics of flight and all that, we're too heavy and it takes fuel to carry fuel- muscles too lift weight have to lift themselves as well in flying animals. i owuld, really, only get a tial if they could give me the whole package, really.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:48 pm

Whole package — as in, full-body transformation?

I probably wouldn't go that far. People would think, "You got a tail? Cool!" or "Well, you don't see something like that everyday!" Benign reactions mostly. I'd be treated like an eccentric, which isn't a bad social existence.

But if I got totally transformed into a Wolf or whatever anthropomorph...Ahmm...well...everyone, and I mean *everyone* would back away slowly with shocked looks on their faces...and I'd never see any of them again. In short, ostracism. Being treated like an eccentric is one thing, shunning is another. One could go insane that way, and not the good insane, either.