WEBVTT - Wind Beneath My Surgical Wings, Part 2 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.880 Works dot Com. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.640 I'm Julie Douglas and this week co host Robert Lamb 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.639 is off pursuing the lengthening of his tebo mirrors. At 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.280 least that's what I think he's doing. Good luck with that, Robert. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.880 In this Encore presentation of Wind Beneath My Surgical Wings, 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.240 we continue the dream of flight as a means to 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.839 transcend the limits of our biology. So, without any further ado, 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:43.839 I hope that you enjoy. Okay, So we've discussed in 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.080 the past about how we have augmented ourselves before. I 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:52.519 believe there's someone who had an ear grafted onto his 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:57.000 skin um or rather that the tissue was grown for it. Yeah, 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.920 that was in our performance art. Yeah, and um, you 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.680 know we've had we've talked about people who have taken 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.360 out ribs before to have like, you know, twelve inch 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:12.360 waist um. We have certainly manipulated and bottle bodily modified 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.360 ourselves to the extent where it's a little bit shocking. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.000 But you get two surgical wings or the idea of it, 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.880 and is it that shocking? Yeah, it's it's that is 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:24.600 the question we're gonna talk about in the second half. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:26.600 First of all, I do want to say just a 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.319 quick thing about plastic surgery again. And when I was 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.200 growing up and I would hear the term plastic surgery 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.200 almost exclusively in reference to people who had new noses 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.720 and or new chest augmentations. UM, I kind of had 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:41.680 in my mind that it was plastic, like it was 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.720 actual literally plastic, Like, oh, they have a plastic nose. 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.360 It's like a humpty hump or something, you know, where 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.120 it's just you know, set that right up there in 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.800 their face, or that obviously breast implants. I was kind 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.320 of like, well, that's kind of like plastic I guess 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:54.920 you see them. I would see them in like Newsweek 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.360 magazine and my grandparents had, and so I'm like, oh, well, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.680 that's plastic surgery. It's putting plastic in or on the 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.680 body and making things new. You thought there are water 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.680 balloons in there? Yeah, I thought there were water balloons. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:08.200 But but just for a quick primer, plastic and plastic 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.720 surgery means plasticity. So essentially what we're talking about is 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.640 flesh sculpting, and the idea goes back a long time. 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.480 For instance, uh, skin graphs may have taken place as 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.399 early as eight hundred BC, which is crazy to think 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.320 about that, just the the idea that we were we 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.040 were already figuring out ways to sculpt the flesh of 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:32.000 the human body even in eight hundred BC. We have 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.880 I mean, humans just can't help but tinker with themselves, right. Yeah, 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.840 And and certainly if there's a if there's a medical advantage, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.160 even if you're trying to help somebody, you know, improve 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.400 their quality of life, I mean that and or appeal 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.480 to their vanity, that's all. That's what you need to 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.280 get to learn more about it and to get the 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.920 research done to achieve the the already lofty heights the 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:54.960 plastic searchery we have today. Yeah, and of course I 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.880 was about to say, you know, the technology is commensurate 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.200 with the procedures. So what you have in place is 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.120 what is going to determine what happens with your body 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.480 or how you decide to manipulate it. So, as we 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.440 were discussing or later, Rosen proposed that, yeah, he thinks 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.080 you could you could give people winks. Now, what would 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.440 this consist of? How would this possibly work? Because when 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.239 we're talking about plastic surgery. We're talking about sculpting the body. 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.240 So it's most interpretations were not talking about making some 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.480 wings and cooking them up in a lab and then 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.600 just stitching them on the body. We have to essentially 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.480 look to nature and see how nature flies. Right, Well, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.440 we have to look at nature, but we also have 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.240 to look at the mind because this is an important 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:45.280 part of the process. Right. Um, we've talked about how 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.520 the mind also has its own type of plasticity and 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.000 can certainly conform to whatever is going on with the body. 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.640 And you've used the wonderful analogy of the horse and 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.480 rider before that. It's not, you know, the two things 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.240 aren't necessarily separate when you're talking about the mind and body. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.280 It's not the mind is the rider and the body 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.080 of the horse, but it's both are one. They were 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.760 essentially a centaur instead. Yeah, so you know you're this 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.000 brain plasticity. Plasticity gives us the ability to make physical 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.480 changes that are then incorporated by the brain. This is 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.159 from the Doctor Dedelius article. Rosen explains that when quote, 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.440 when we lose a limb, the brain absorbs its map 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.240 or rewires it to some other center. Similarly, when we 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.320 gain a limb, the brain almost immediately senses it and 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.920 goes about hooking it up via neural representation. He said, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.840 if I were to attach a sonographically powered arm to 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.880 your body, your brain would map it. If I were 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.320 to attach a third thumb, your brain would map this 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.440 as well. Our bodies change our brains, and our brains 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.000 are infinitely mouldiple. If I were to give you wings, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.480 you would develop literally a winged brain. If I were 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.920 to give you an echo location device, you would develop 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.960 in part of that brain. I mean there's some truthless 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.640 right now totally. I mean it's important to to do 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.160 think in terms of brain mapping and and neural adaptation 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.040 to these features. Because you can talk all day about 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.120 sow in bits under your body, but if you if 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.400 you can't, if they are not actually a part of you, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.200 if they're not part of that centaur uh that is 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.920 the mind body connection, then it's really not a part 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.760 of you or your body. So in a sense, whatever 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.159 you dream up your brain can hang with. But um, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.279 it comes down to a matter of where really the 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.280 rubber meets the road, and in the actual surgical bits 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.599 that are put onto it, and in order to really 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.120 look at that, you have to look at um a 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.720 professor in plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Samuel Poor, who took 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.200 on the idea of surgical wings. Yeah, from the Division 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.360 of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Wisconsin. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.920 And he actually published an article about this idea, about 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:55.680 the the actual the possible details of transforming uh normal 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.960 humans into winged humans. And he did this after Rosen 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.840 had made lots of ways with his discussion, So it's 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.160 it was a response to Rosen's work where he says, Okay, well, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.120 that's assuming that this is something we want to do, 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.039 and and and and actually there's someone out there who 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.479 wants it. What would this consist of? How would we 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.080 go about it as a thought experiment and as a 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.800 plastic surgeon? What can I do? What could I do 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.000 to the human body to give that body wings? And 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.760 I love this because he really did respond to it, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.240 not just in the philosophical sense, but like, really, what 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.400 have the nuts and bolts to make this happen? If 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.000 you're going to take this thought experiment one step further? 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.640 Because Rosen's ideas are amazing and it's great to sort 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.120 of get caught up in them. But a lot of 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.160 times he's kind of spitball in though, or at least 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.840 I mean, maybe not in his own mind, but in 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.560 terms of just how he's commenting to other people. He's 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.839 not necessarily laying out a you know, a five step 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.719 plan to make it happen. Um, but not outside of 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.080 his own mind anyway. Right, Well, he knows all that, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.839 you know, he's he's pretty well informed about all they 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.839 different fields that would take to make this happen. But 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:04.280 you're right, he's not going to sit there and say 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.279 it's here step one. Yeah. I pretty much have no 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.400 doubt that he has it in his mind. Absolutely he 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.720 sat down to say, like, how would you actually do this? 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:13.920 But that's why I think it's so interesting that Samuel 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.160 pour to this on because it does give you a 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.400 sense of what the limitations are and what the possibilities 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.600 are as well. Yeah, so in this article he asked, okay, well, 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:27.840 all right, if we're gonna have wings, what what are 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.920 the aspects of a bird wing that we would want? 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.160 And in this article he does to deal exclusively with 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.680 bird wings. Um. I don't know why I didn't think 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.200 that much about bat wings. We'll talk about that a 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.280 little more. But he's talking about bird wings, so evidently 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.480 he as far as art goes, he is into the 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.240 idea of of of an angelic figure with the big, lofty, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.280 feathery wings, which is beautiful, I'm telling, into that art 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.360 change from from X Men. Yeah, like like like that 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.520 character from from X Men or or any of you 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.960 know painting you've seen of an angel. But but then, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:07:59.480 of course, the other side is we have plenty of 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.760 images of fallen angels uh and and their kin creatures 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.920 with bat like wings, which some might find hideous. Uh, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.720 some might find kind of appealing. Of the pictures I 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.040 had on my wall in high school had anything, uh, 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.120 you know, to do with that. But but but certainly 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.520 he decides to focus just on wings with feathers. Sure, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:23.760 and why not, because I mean this is really the 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.160 example from nature that we draw from the most. Yeah, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.720 so what does a bird wing have? First of all, 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.160 it has those feathers for lift and insulation. It has 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:37.240 a highly derived shoulder and a distinct thorax. Okay, so 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.400 what else do we have to take into into account here? 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:41.520 Then we have to we have to look at the 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.839 human body. What do we have? Well, we have these arms, right, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:47.200 and when you look at a bird, what does it? 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:48.840 Does a bird have arms? No, a bird has wings. 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.160 So obviously we're getting getting to the point here. We 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.000 have to realize if you're going to use plastic surgery 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.480 to make what we have into something similar to what 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.560 birds have, it's not going to be a matter of 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.360 straping wings on on the back and turning us into 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.000 six limbed creatures. We're going to remain four limbed creatures, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.959 but we're going to have to transform our arms into wings, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.680 which is something you don't see as often in our 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.880 fantastic visions of winged humans. We tend to imagine that 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.040 we still get to keep our arms and that we 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.480 just have wings springing out of our backs. But the 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.520 plastic surgeons of the world are here to say, actually, guys, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.200 if you really want those wings, you're gonna have to 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.400 part with the arms. Yeah, and then you're not gonna 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.880 be a big, fluffy white feather is just probably gonna 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.480 be more like a turkey vulture. Yes, well, well I 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:41.000 say that, but Professor Samuel Poor does say that in 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.920 order for us to really get the right structure, we 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.800 can't necessarily look at modern birds as the example, Um, 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.640 we would be better off to look at something called 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.760 the arch o optics and this is a bird that 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.200 existed one and fifty million years ago. Yeah, because the 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.640 archaeopter X has a very primitive wing structure. It's a 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:06.200 very early model, okay, versus birds. Modern birds would have 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.000 a very highly, very highly evolved, very advanced model of 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.439 the of the wing. So if you're going to using 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.000 the plastic surgery techniques that we have today, if you 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.320 were going to transform our arms into wings, you really 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.360 want to fit with go after something a lot simpler, 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.720 because that's going to be something that we can actually 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:29.640 achieve potentially arguably as opposed to really advanced structure. It's 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.400 kind of like if you're adding onto your house, right, 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.640 you have to take into account the existing architecture, the 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.160 existing structure, What is going to work structurally as a 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:39.880 part of the new house, What is going to work 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.640 stylistically as part of the new house. And uh, you 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.679 know it's just not always in the cards to take 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.920 say a medieval castle and then build a highly modern 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.360 structure on top of it. I mean, it's just you 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.480 have to take into account the original form. So our 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.840 arms are great arms but they're really crappy wings, like 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.679 the crappiest wing possible because they don't do anything, you know, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:06.200 So to to actually change them into wings, were essentially 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.440 having to backtrack on evolution and go think back to 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.080 how wings really begin to evolve and take form in organisms, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.040 which makes sense, right, because you do, as you say, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.320 have to go back to the more primitive version if 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.720 you're trying to make this, you know, from soup to 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.880 nuts on a human being. It's a little bit ironic though, 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:26.679 that you'd have to go back a hundred and fifty 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.720 million years in order to get some sort of futuristic 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.400 um structure for human wings because the archaeopteryx it had 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.280 it was it was feathered, it was flying, but it 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.120 had a far less complex wrist and shoulder, which is 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.880 key because this is what really places it within surgical 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.360 reach for us. Okay, so in this article, Poor lays 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.520 out some possible steps to transform the arm into a wing. 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.520 He talks about forming a distal row of carpal bones 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.240 and marta carpals in our existing arm in to a 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.720 carpo metacarpuss, which is essentially a buffalo wing. Delicious, yeah, uh, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.600 And a single fuse bone between the wrist and knuckle. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.440 So if you look if you look at at a 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.960 picture of a human arm, and you see a picture 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.000 of the of the wing of a of a bird 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.680 or or in this case a flying dinosaur, then you 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.679 see that. All right, we have the humorous the upper 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.280 bone and the arm, both of that. But then when 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.080 you're looking at at the lower portion of the arms, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.199 the lower bones, that's where you're talking about needing to 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.439 fuse things together. Because do you ever see a bird 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.240 using like a smartphone or typing on a keyboard? No, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.120 they don't need the digits, right, and the wrist knuckles 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.440 alving one piece makes sense to write because they're not 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.400 sort of waving their hands back and forth. Um. You'd 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.079 also have to fuse the small finger, the ring finger 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.440 in the index finger, although your thumb would remain free. Yes, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.240 that's good news. Yeah, so some video games are still possible. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.440 The hand and elbow would have to be fixed to 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.720 prevent a too broad a range of movement. But but 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.200 there's not any need for bone bony fixation in the elbow. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.000 You need movement. Um, so you make use of existing 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.959 muscle and skin there. You redirect the bicep intendent of insertion. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.560 You use a tissue expansion techniques to cover all of 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:24.120 this because you need skin over right, and then for 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.120 non functional cosmetic wings, this is this is a really 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.040 good stopping point, right because this is what you need 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.040 in order just to support them around town. Right. Yeah, 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.480 And we're not even talking about the possibility of of 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.560 sticking feathers in these things. That would be a whole 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.840 separate thing to worry about, because what are you going 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:43.400 to try and grow feathers? A You're gonna try to 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.360 manipulate the body to produce feathers. Um, that's a whole 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.760 kettle efficient and of itself. But just to transform your 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:55.400 fleshy arms into fleshy bat wings, you could parade around 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.880 talent in Yeah, this is where you would you would stop. 0:13:58.000 --> 0:13:59.760 And we know we can grow tissue, right, so in 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.080 to actually grow the skin, that's not a problem, right. Um. 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.640 You know, of course we're talking about pretty advanced technologies here, 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.000 so I don't really see you just going into your 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.800 local clinic and getting your your wings all done up. 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.640 But again, in this idea of twenty to fifty years out, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.800 let's say you can't get these wings, um, constructed for you, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.800 and you really want to take flight, well, then you 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.040 need to flap them. You need to flap those wings 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.440 in order to even try to fly. And if you 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:32.800 want to do that, you're gonna need high velocity rotation 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.680 in the shoulder. So you're gonna need some pretty extensive 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.760 shoulder reconstruction to make that possible. And of course you 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.800 are going to need feathers. Now, this is particularly problematic 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:47.320 because feathers are so specific to this species of subspecies. 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:52.000 It's um something that has evolved for you know, billions 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.040 of years, and it's not an easy thing to just say, oh, here, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.760 let's stick some turkey feathers and you'll be fine. Yeah, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:03.160 feathers are are very complex and really amazing um adaptation 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.320 of flying organisms. Now, some critics of Poor's article, and 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.080 I don't want to say critics, let's just say people 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.280 having a lively discussion with him about this. They point out, 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.280 we'll bats don't have feathers, so why should we feel 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.080 limited to on on this whole feather argument? Why would 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.000 that be a sticking point? Yeah, and we can talk 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.120 more about bats, but for sure, this would this is 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.040 a good model to go after. I think it's not 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.680 just birds, because I really actually feel like abouts have 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.520 more potential in this arena, and it would be so 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.840 cool to wrap yourself up in bat wings and hang 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.840 outside down. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take a quick 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.240 break and when we come back, more about cervical wings. 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.880 All right, and we're back, so I can I'm kind 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.560 of already imagining, uh, like, super rich individuals in the 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:53.120 future surrounding themselves with beautiful men and women that they 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.160 have they have had surgically adapted into winged creatures, so 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.000 they're just kind of like they're not flying, but they're 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.680 just walking around their party like, well, they couldn't really 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:03.200 hold a tray of drinks. I don't know what they're doing. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.640 I guess they're just walking around looking pretty and bird like. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.360 We'll see, and why not keep your own arms and 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.920 then just do a separate wing structure too. Yeah, well 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.440 that would just this, That would be even that would 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.680 be higher hanging fruit. All right, Well, let's get back 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.040 to the flight issue, because it's not just the feathers 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.160 and the ability to to actually figure out in your 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.000 dermos how to grow the feathers that you need, or 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.640 to genetically game your body into doing it. Um, it's 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:35.160 also the wing loading ratio. We would need really really 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.160 large wings to support say a hundred and seventy pound body. Yeah, 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.960 and I mean look at the size of of flying 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.360 animals in the size of their wings. Look at the albatross. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.600 Albatross is a pretty large creature and h and kind 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.560 of a clumsy bird as well. You know it. Flight 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.040 is not the most graceful thing for this this creature. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.000 So it's win but it wings have to be pretty big. 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.480 And so you know, when you're looking at the at 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.320 the wing ratio in an organism, and you're looking at 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.639 the possibility of creating wings on a human from that 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.560 human's existing flesh, sculpting their existing body into this Because again, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:10.600 you have a blump of clay, and you're gonna sculpt 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.200 that lump of clay into a vase. That vase better 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:16.800 have equivalent mass to that lump of clay. That's just 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.199 the basic limits of of what you're working with. So 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.440 if you're going to try and build wings big enough 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.159 for the human for a human to fly, there's not 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.400 enough material to go around. I don't care how much 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.879 like butt flesh and extra bones have You're not going 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.800 to build proper fliable wings. Now poor did say that 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.520 four hundred sony pound body you would need about twenty 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.120 ft of wingspan, which you know, then becomes sort of impractical, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.840 especially if you're taking mass transit can imagine trying to 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:45.840 get on mortar with those I mean, I guess you 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.399 could get like donor flesh, that would be about the 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.280 only way you could really start looking at that. Then 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.600 you're having to like scrap you could get, you know, 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.080 flesh from a corpse, I guess, and and use that 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.280 in the process. I mean, you know, it's not impossible, 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.760 but it's like something to think about you that you 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.520 just you can't completely just reshape the existing form into 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.760 the flying form. There are a lot of other considerations 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.359 to make. The blog Human Enhancement and Biopolitics takes on 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.800 some of these issues, and in that blog they're talking 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.160 about the larger problem, which is muscle, because birds, bats, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.840 and pterosaurs have really large peck muscles, and they're so 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.919 large that they actually take up about thirty of their 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.480 body mass. So that would mean that humans would then 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.040 have to grow these bionic peck muscles that somehow where 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.959 you know, maybe nano materials were used somehow lighter than 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.879 actual muscles in order to really power yourself. Um. So 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.359 again that's an issue of actually trying to take flight 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.800 because we were pretty undeveloped, underdeveloped in our chest areas 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.879 because obviously we don't fly and we don't need those 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.560 those muscles. Yeah, I mean you get into a situation 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.480 where the classic idea of just sort of the the 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.840 art idea of angels with them and backs, that kind 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.840 of thing. It's it's just more complicated than that. You 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.680 can't just you can't just add something of another species 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.480 to this animal and it to and expected to be 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.320 a steamless transition. There are a lot of complex questions 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:14.719 to come with that. Well, if you're gonna have those 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.720 wings again, you're gonna need the pex to power of 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.240 where are you gonna put those um because if you're 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:20.679 if you're doing the model where the wings are on 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.520 the back, then where the muscles in the wings. I 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.199 mean it's it's sort of like in that article that 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.120 we are discussed in the Center episode where you had 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.000 a German surgeon who is looking at the at the 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.399 Center as a mythological creature and saying how would that 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.520 actually work? And when you get down into the the 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.920 theoretic bo theoretical biology of that. They are all these 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.320 different complications you wouldn't even possibly think of. Of course, 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.080 the thing I remember was where do you put the 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.320 penis front of back? I mean, you know, in some 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.960 ways it's the same thing with wings, are there's no penis, 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.560 but you have some of the same engineering problems. Um. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.439 Of course Poor did say that in microgravity zero gravity, um, 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:58.960 it could be helpful to have wings, which is which 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:00.800 brings us back to the where of principle and the 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.440 idea that should can and can we adapt the human 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.120 body to make it better suited to life on say 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.840 a long space flight to somewhere, uh, to life in orbit, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.680 to life on another world, uh if it. If it 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.879 one ended up making the argument that yes, small wings 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.160 would be highly effective and navigating this environment, then maybe 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.600 that's something we have to consider well. And again go 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.080 back to bats, right, because as we've discussed before in 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.920 our podcasts or episodes about bats, they are governed their 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.160 their wing structure by a rogue finger gene. So if 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.600 you look at the structure of a bat wing, it's 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.720 really just a modified a million arm and it's got 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.040 these Why you should call them fingers. They don't actually 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.560 call them fingers, but if you think about their wings 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.200 as sort of these fingers like the spokes of an umbrella, 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.119 that's how they get the structure. So why not tinker 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:59.000 with our own genetics to game our you know, jeans 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.159 in the arm bud that begin to produce that this 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:04.400