Happy November! Last night, kids of all ages sported masks, fangs, third eyes and severed limbs. It's perhaps appropriate, then, that this morning we published our latest question to ScienceBloggers:
"Which parts of the human body could you design better?"
When we asked the bloggers how they'd answer it, Benjamin Cohen sent back a response that gave me pause:
Is this meant as as challenge to the anti-God bloggers, to let them show how they could do it better? I mean, I'm not even a religious blogger, neither pro or anti, but designing the human body "better"? Better than what?
Better than...well, I don't know. But Jennifer at Shifting Baselines came up with something. So did Mark Hoofnagle, and Grrl.
**Update: Angry Toxicologist has weighed in, too!**
Thanks to reader Fergus O'Connell for submitting the question. Got your own? Tell us!
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Geez, Now this is tough figuring out where to start. There are just soooo many things that could be improved on. And, do you mean in terms of known, existing, biological possibilities or do I get free range of materials and imagination. I could just go on and on.
Some of the more popularly used improvements rank high on my list as well. George Carlin's sewer running through the middle of a playground analogy of the reproductive organs is a high redesign issue for me. The esophagus/trachea arrangement and getting choked on food and drink ranks high, also. The appendix is just wrong. Little toes sticking out and getting stubbed all the time could be redesigned and materials strengthened. This cancer thing could be fixed. Some human cell cultures exist for years without apparent age or mutation, how about that built in for living people. Some amphibians can regrow amputated limbs, that could be handy as well. And, this immune system thing that only works after exposure. How about making that pro-active. As for 'women's issues,' I bet some of the gals could give you some ideas on redesign better than I can.
That's just scratching the surface. There's hardly any aspect of the human body that couldn't use at least a tweak, and that's for survival fittness and not just a fad whim.