WEBVTT - Wind Beneath My Surgical Wings, Part 2 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:14.480 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.759 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie, and we're 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.200 picking up with where we left up in the last episode. 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.479 This is Surgical Wings Part two. Highly recommend that you 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.520 go back and listen to Surgical Wings Part one before 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.720 you continue with this one. Sometimes we'll have a part 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.360 two one and a part two where you can really 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:31.840 take them in any order, but this is definitely a 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.080 case where you want to go part one and then 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.640 part two so you'll know exactly why we're talking about 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.360 taking a human arm, doing a whole bunch of plastic 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:46.519 surgery on it, and turning it into a bird one indeed. Okay, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.440 so we've discussed in the past about how we have 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.400 augmented ourselves before. I believe there's someone who had an 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.160 ear grafted onto his skin um or rather that the 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.360 tissue was grown for it. Yeah, that was in our 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.480 performance art episode. Yeah, and um, you know we've had 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:07.679 we've talked about people who have taken out ribs before 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.880 to have like, you know, twelve inch wast um. We 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:17.240 have certainly manipulated and bottle bodily modified ourselves to the 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.920 extent where it's a little bit shocking, but you get 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.520 two surgical wings or the idea of it, and is 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.319 it that shocking? Yeah, it's that is the question we're 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.759 gonna talk about in the second half. First of all, 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:31.119 I do want to say just a quick thing about 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.720 plastic surgery again. And when I was growing up and 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.240 I would hear the term plastic surgery almost exclusively in 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.959 reference to people who had new noses and or new 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.240 chest augmentations. Um, I kind of had in my mind 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.560 that it was plastic, like it was actually literally plastic, Like, oh, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.840 they have a plastic nose. It's like a humpty hump 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.240 or something, you know, where it's just you know, set 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.600 that right up there in their face, or that obviously 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.440 reast implants. I was kind of like, well, that's kind 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.000 of like plastic. I guess you see them. I would 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.240 see them in like Newsweek magazine and my grandparents at 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.360 and so I'm like, oh, well, that's plastic surgery. It's 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.800 putting plastic in or on the body and making things new. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:06.920 You thought there are water balloons in there. Yeah, I 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.320 thought they were water balloons. But but just for a 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.840 quick primer, plastic and plastic surgery means plasticity. So essentially 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.239 what we're talking about is flesh sculpting. And the idea 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.400 goes back a long time. For instance, Uh, skin graphs 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.959 may have taken place as early as eight hundred BC, 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.360 which is crazy to think about that, just the the 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:29.600 idea that we were we were already figuring out ways 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.720 to sculpt the flesh of the human body. Uh, even 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.240 in eight hundred BC we have I mean, humans just 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.240 can't help but tinker with themselves, right, Yeah, And and 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.040 certainly if there's a if there's a medical advantage, even 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.320 if you're trying to help somebody, you know, improve their 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.480 quality of life, I mean that land or appeal to 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.679 their vanity, that's all. That's what you need to get 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.560 to learn more about it and to get the research 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.200 done to achieve the the already lofty heights the plastic 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.000 surgery we have today. Yeah, and of course I was 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.880 about to say, you know, of the technology is commensurate 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.160 with the procedures. So what you have in place is 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.120 what is going to determine what happens with your body 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.480 or how you decide to manipulate it. So as we 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.399 were discussing or later Rosen proposed that, Yeah, he thinks 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.080 you could. You could give people winks. Now, what would 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.440 this consist of? How would this possibly work? Because when 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.200 we're talking about plastic surgery, we're talking about sculpting the body. 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:30.240 So it's most interpretations, we're not talking about making some 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.440 wings and cooking them up in a lab and then 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.560 just stitching them on the body. We have to essentially 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.440 look to nature and see how nature flies. Right, Well, 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.400 we have to look at nature, but we also have 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.200 to look at the mind because this is an important 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.280 part of the process. Right. Um, we've talked about how 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.520 the mind also has its own type of plasticity and 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.000 can certainly conform to whatever is going on with the body. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.600 And you've used the wonderful analogy of the horse and 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.400 rider before that it's not, you know, the two things 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.120 aren't necessarily separate when you're talking about the mind and body. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.280 It's not the mind is the rider and the body 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.080 of the horse, but it's both are one. They were 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.760 essentially a centaire instead. Yeah, so you know you're this 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.000 brain plasticity. Plasticity gives us the ability to make physical 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.479 changes that are then incorporated by the brain. This is 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.160 from the Doctor Dedelius article. Rosen explains that when quote, 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.080 when we lose a limb, the brain absorbs its map 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.200 or rewires it to some other center. Similarly, when we 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.279 gain a limb, the brain almost immediately senses it and 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.880 goes about hooking it up via neural representation. He said, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.839 if I were to attach a sonographically powered arm to 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.880 your body, your brain would map it. If I were 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.320 to attach a third thumb, your brain would map this 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.440 as well. Our bodies change our brains, and our brains 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.960 are infinitely moldible. If I were to give you wings, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.480 you would develop literally a winged brain. If I were 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.919 to give you an echo location device, you would develop 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.960 in part a that brain. I mean, there's some truthfuls 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.960 right now, totally, and it's important to do think in 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.719 terms of brain mapping and and neural adaptation to these features. 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.280 Because you can talk all day about so in bits 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.040 under your body, but if you if you can't, if 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:17.800 they are not actually a part of you, if they're 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.560 not part of that centaur uh that is the mind 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.159 body connection, then it's really not a part of you 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.160 or your body. So in a sense, whatever you dream 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.599 up your brain can hang with but um, it comes 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.880 down to a matter of where really the rubber meets 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.599 the road and in the actual surgical bits that are 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.080 put onto it. And in order to really look at that, 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.160 you have to look at um. A professor in plastic 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.239 and reconstructive surgeon, Samuel Poor, who took on the idea 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.719 of surgical wings yeah, from the Division of Plastic and 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.279 Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Wisconsin. And he actually 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.120 published an article about this idea, about the the actual 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:01.279 possible details of transforming normal human into winged humans. And 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.159 he did this after Rosen had made lots of waves 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.000 with his discussions. So it's it was a response to 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.880 Rosen's work where he says, okay, well, that's assuming that 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.400 this is something we want to do and and and 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.080 and actually there's someone out there who wants it. What 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.080 would this consist of? How would we go about it 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.520 as a thought experiment and as a plastic surgeon? What 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.360 can I do? What could I do to the human 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.520 body to give that body wings? And I love this 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.359 because he really did respond to it, not just in 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.119 the philosophical sense, but like really one of the nuts 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:34.720 and bolts to make this happen if you're going to 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:39.239 take this thought experiment one step further. Because Rosen's ideas 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.120 are amazing and it's great to sort of get caught 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.640 up in them, but a lot of times he's kind 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.640 of spitball in though, or at least I mean, maybe 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.640 not in his own mind, but in terms of just 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.719 how he's commenting to other people. He's not necessarily laying 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.680 out a you know, a five step plan to make 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:01.320 it happen, but not outside of his own mind anyway. Right, Well, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.120 he knows all that, you know, he's he's pretty well 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.719 informed about all the different fields that would take to 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.680 make this happen. But you're right, he's not going to 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.960 sit there and say it's here step one. Yeah, though, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.160 I pretty much have no doubt that he has it 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.560 in his mind. Absolutely he sat down to say, like, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.600 how would you actually do this? But that's why I 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.880 think it's so interesting that Samuel Pour took this on, 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:20.880 because it does give you a sense of what the 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.920 limitations are and what the possibilities are as well. Yeah, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:30.080 so in this article, he asked, okay, well, all right, 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.400 if we're gonna have wings, what what are the aspects 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.440 of a bird wing that we would want, And in 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.640 this article he does deal exclusively with bird wings. Um, 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:40.120 I don't know why I didn't think that much about 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.000 bat wings. We'll talk about that a little a little more. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.800 But he's talking about bird wings. So evidently he, as 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.680 far as art goes, he is into the idea of 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.960 of of an angelic figure with the big, lofty, feathery wings, 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.040 which is beautiful. I'm totally into. That's like archangel from 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.920 from X Men. Yeah, like like like that character from 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.320 from x Men or or any you know, painting scene 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.480 of an angel. But but then, of course, the other 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.880 side is we have plenty of images of fallen angels 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.840 uh and and their kin creatures with bat like wings, 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.920 which some might find hideous, uh, some might find kind 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.320 of appealing. Of the pictures I had on my wall 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.640 in high school had anything, uh, you know, to do 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.760 with that. But but but certainly he decides to focus 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.480 just on wings with feathers. Sure, and why not, because 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.720 I mean, this is really the the example from nature 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.040 that we draw from the most. Yeah, so what does 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.120 a bird wing have? First of all, it has those 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.200 feathers for lift and insulation. It has a highly derived 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:42.160 shoulder and a distinct thorax. Okay, so what else do 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.600 we have to take into into account here? Then we 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.120 have to we have to look at the human body. 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.839 What do we have? Well, we have these arms, right, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:51.160 and when you look at a bird, what does it? 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.000 Does a bird have arms? No bird has wings. So 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.280 obviously we're getting getting to the point here we have 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.280 to realize if you're going to use plastic surgery to 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.000 make what we have into something similar to what birds have, 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.080 it's not going to be a matter of strapping wings 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.840 on them on the back and turning us into six 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.400 limbed creatures. We're going to remain four limbed creatures. That 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.920 we're going to have to transform our arms into wings, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.680 which is something you don't see as often in our 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.880 fantastic visions of winged humans. We tend to imagine that 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.040 we still get to keep our arms and that we 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.439 just have wings springing out of our backs. But the 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.520 plastic surgeons of the world are here to say, actually, guys, 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.200 if you really want those wings, you're gonna have to 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.400 part with the arms. Yeah, and you're not gonna be 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.880 a big, fluffy white feather is just probably gonna be 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.959 more like a turkey culture. Yes, well, well I say that, 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.560 but Professor Samuel Poor does say that in order for 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.880 us to really get the right structure, we can't necessarily 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.160 look at modern birds as the example. Um, we would 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.040 be better off to look at something called the arch 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.640 o optics And this is a bird that existed one 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.960 and fifty million years ago. Yeah, because the archaeopter X 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:07.959 has a very primitive wing structure. It's a very early model, okay, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.199 versus birds. Modern birds would have a very high, very 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.680 highly evolved, very advanced model of the of the wing. 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.000 So if you're going to using the plastic surgery techniques 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.080 that we have today, if you were going to transform 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.400 our arms into wings, you really want to fit with 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.199 go after something a lot simpler, because that's going to 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:31.200 be something that we can actually achieve potentially arguably as 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.960 opposed to a really advanced structure. It's kind of like 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.400 if you're adding onto your house, right you have to 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.000 take into account the existing architecture, the existing structure, what 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.560 is going to work structurally as a part of the 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.040 new house, What is gonna work stylistically as part of 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.400 the new house, And uh, you know, it's just not 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.480 always in the cards to take say a medieval castle, 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.200 and then build a highly modern structure on top of it. 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.440 I mean, it's just you have to take into account 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.319 of the original form. So our arms are great arms, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.160 but they're really crappy wings, like the crappiest wing possible, 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.400 because they don't do anything, you know, so to to 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:11.160 actually change them into wings for essentially having to backtrack 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.440 on evolution and go think back to how wings really 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.360 begin to evolve and and take form in organisms, which 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.160 makes sense, right, because you do, as you say, have 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.520 to go back to the more primitive version if you're 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.080 trying to make this, you know, from soup to nuts 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.880 on a human being. It's a little bit ironic though 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:30.679 that you'd have to go back a hundred and fifty 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.720 million years in order to get some sort of futuristic 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:40.160 um structure for human wings because the archaeopter X it 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.120 had it was it was feathered, it was flying, but 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.960 it had a far less complex wrist and shoulder, which 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.320 is key because this is what really places it within 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.000 surgical reach for us. Okay, so in this article, Poor 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:56.040 lays out some possible steps to transform the arm into 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:01.040 a wing. He talks about forming a distal of carpal 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.200 bones and marta carpal's in our existing arm into a 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.800 carpo metacarpass, which is essentially a buffalo wing. Delicious. Yeah uh, 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.600 And a single fuse bone between the wrist and knuckle. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.400 So if you look if you look at at a 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.920 picture of a human arm, and you see a picture 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.000 of the of the wing of a of a bird 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.720 or or in this case a flying dinosaur, then you 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.640 see that. All right, we have the humorous, the upper 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.280 bone in the arm, both of that. But then when 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.960 you're looking at at the lower portion of the arm, 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.200 the lower bones, that's where you're talking about needing to 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.439 fuse things together. Because do you ever see a bird 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.199 using like a smartphone or typing on a keyboard? No, 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.120 they don't need the digits right, and the wrist knuckles 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.320 all ving one piece makes sense to write because they're 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.160 not sort of waving their hands back and forth. Um. 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.720 You'd also have to fuse the small finger, the ring 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.440 finger in the index finger, although your thumb would remain free. Yes, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.000 that's good news. Yeah, so some video games are still possi. 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.400 The hand and elbow would have to be fixed to 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.680 prevent a too broad a range of movement. But but 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.160 there's not any need for bone bony fixation in the elbow. 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.960 You need movement, um, so you make use of existing 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:20.520 muscle and skin there, you redirect the bicep intendant of insertion. Uh, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.520 you use a tissue expansion techniques to cover all of 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:28.720 this because you need skin over and then for non 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.360 functional cosmetic wings. This is this is a really good 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:35.160 stopping point, right because this is what you need in 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.120 order just to support them around town. Right. Yeah, and 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.920 we're not even talking about the possibility of of sticking 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.120 feathers in these things. That would be a whole separate 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:45.920 thing to worry about, because what are you going to 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:47.840 try and grow feathers? A You're gonna try to manipulate 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.120 the body to produce feathers. Um, that's a whole kettle 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.600 efficient and not itself. But just to transform your fleshy 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.640 arms into fleshy bat wings, you could parade around talent 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.080 in this is where you would you would stop. And 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.080 we know we can grow tissue, right, so in order 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.360 to actually grow the skin, that's not a problem. Um. 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.640 You know, of course we're talking about pretty advanced technologies here, 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.000 so I don't really see you just going into your 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.800 local clinic and getting your your wings all done up. 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.600 But again, in this idea of twenty to fifty years out, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.520 let's say you can get these wings um constructed for 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.640 you and you really want to take flight, Well, then 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.600 you need to flap them. You need to flap those 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.360 wings in order to even try to fly. And if 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.320 you want to do that, you're gonna need high velocity 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.200 rotation in the shoulder. So you're gonna need some pretty 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.640 extensive shoulder reconstruction to make that possible. And of course 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.200 you are going to need feathers. Now, this is particularly 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:51.239 problematic because feathers are so specific to the species of subspecies. 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:56.000 It's um something that has evolved for you know, billions 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.640 of years, and it's not an easy thing to just say, 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.680 off here, let's stick some turkey feathers and you'll be fine. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.440 Feathers are are a very complex and really amazing um 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:11.040 adaptation of flowing organisms. Now, some critics of Poor's article, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:12.800 and I don't want to say critics, let's just say 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.880 people having a lively discussion with him about this. They 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.920 point out, we'll bats don't have feathers, so why should 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.600 we feel limited to on on this whole feather argument. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.480 Why would that be a sticking point? Yeah, and we 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.720 can talk more about bats, but for sure, this would 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.720 this is a good model to go after. I think 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.840 it's not just birds because I really actually feel like 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.240 bats have more potential in this arena. And it would 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.240 be so cool to wrap yourself up in that wing 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.440 and hang outside downs. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.280 a quick break. Can when we come back more about 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:47.360 surgical wings? All right, and we're back, so I can. 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.280 I'm kind of already imagining, uh, like, super rich individuals 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.680 in the future surrounding themselves with beautiful men and women 0:15:55.720 --> 0:16:00.000 that they have they have had surgically adapted into winged creatures. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:01.680 So they're just kind of like they're not flying, but 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.080 they're just walking around the dinner party like, well, they 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:05.600 couldn't really hold a tray of drinks. I don't know 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.800 what they're doing. I guess they're just walking around looking 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:09.480 pretty and bird like. Well see, and why not keep 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.800 your own arms and then just do a separate wing 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.960 structure too. Yeah, well that would just this that would 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:19.000 be even that would be higher hanging fruit. All right, Well, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.040 let's get back to the flight issue because it's not 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.320 just the feathers and the ability to to actually figure 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.840 out in your dermos how to grow the feathers that 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.280 you need or to genetically game your body into doing it. Um, 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:37.520 it's also the wing loading ratio. We would need really 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.920 really large wings to support say a hundred and seventy 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.560 pound body. Yeah, and you know, I mean, look at 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.720 the size of of flying animals and the size of 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.160 their wings. Look at the albatross. Albatross is a pretty 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.240 large creature and and uh and kind of a clumsy 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.040 bird as well. You know it, flight is not the 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.400 most graceful thing for this this creature. So it's win 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:58.760 but it wings have to be pretty big. And so 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.200 you know, when you're looking at the at the wing 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.919 ratio in an organism, and you're looking at the possibility 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.679 of creating wings on a human from that humans existing flesh, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.879 sculpting their existing body into this Because again, you have 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:13.760 a blump of clay and you're gonna sculpt that lump 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:18.119 of clay into a vase. That vase better have equivalent 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.199 mass to that lump of clay. That's just the basic 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.480 limits of of what you're working with. So if you're 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.000 going to try and build wings big enough for the human. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.920 For a human to fly, there's not enough material to 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.520 go around. I don't care how much like butt flesh 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.600 and extra bones, you're not going to build proper fliable wings. Now. 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.359 Poor did say that four hundred seventy pound body you 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.399 would need about twenty ft of wingspan, which you know, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.560 then becomes sort of impractical, especially if you're taking mass transit. 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.680 Can you imagine trying to get on mortar with those 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.439 I mean, I guess you could get like donor flesh. 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:52.120 That would be about the only way you could really 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:53.720 start looking at that. But then you're having to like 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.399 scrap you could get, you know, flesh from a corpse, 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.960 I guess, and and use that in the process. I mean, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.760 you know, it's not impossib but it's something to think about, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.439 you that you just you can't completely just reshape the 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.760 existing form into the flying form. There are a lot 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.800 of other considerations to make. The blog Human Enhancement and 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.600 Biopolitics takes on some of these issues, and in that 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.439 blog they're talking about the larger problem, which is muscle, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:23.920 because birds, bats, and pterosaurs have really large peck muscles, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.200 and they're so large that they actually take up about 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.320 thirty of their body mass. So that would mean that 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:34.240 humans would then have to grow these bionic peck muscles 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.760 that somehow where you know, maybe nano materials were used 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:43.520 somehow lighter than actual muscles in order to really power yourself. Um. 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.840 So again that's an issue of actually trying to take 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.280 flight because we were pretty undeveloped, underdeveloped in our chest 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.400 areas because obviously we don't fly and we don't need 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.879 those those muscles. Yeah, I mean you get into a 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.920 situation where the classic idea of just in sort of 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.440 the art idea of angels with wings on their backs, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.520 that kind of think it's it's just more complicated than that. 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.000 You can't just you can't just add something of another 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.280 species to this animal and it to and expected to 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.800 be a seamless transition. There are a lot of complex 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.399 questions that come with that. Well, if you're gonna have 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.520 those wings again, you're gonna need the pecks the power 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.919 of where are you gonna put those um because if 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:23.479 you're if you're doing the model where the wings are 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.560 on the back, then where the muscles the wings. I mean, 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:28.239 it's it's sort of like in that article that we 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.199 are discussed in the Center episode where you had a 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.879 German surgeon who is looking at the at at the 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.280 Center as a mythological creature and saying, how would that 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.399 actually work? And when you get down into the the 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.760 theoretic bio theoretical biology of that, they are all these 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.160 different complications you wouldn't even possibly think of. Of course, 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:47.960 the thing I remember was where do you put the 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.199 penis front of back? I mean, you know, in some 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.240 ways it's the same thing with wings all the obviously 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:53.760 there's no penis, but you have some of the same 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.840 engineering problems. Um. Of course Poor did say that in 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.480 micro gravity zero gravity, um, it could be helpful to 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.000 have wings, which which brings us back to the werewolf 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.439 principle and the idea that should can and can we 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.800 adapt the human body to make it better suited to 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.720 life on say a long space flight to somewhere, to 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.000 life in orbit, to life on another world if it. 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.480 If it one ended up making the argument that yes, 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.160 small wings would be highly effective and navigating this environment, 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.600 then maybe that's something we have to consider well. And 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.400 again go back to bats right, because as we've discussed 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.840 before in our podcasts or episodes about bats, they are 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.399 governed their their wing structure by a rogue finger gene. 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.720 So if you look at the structure of a bat wing, 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.280 it's really just a modified a million arm and it's 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.560 got these why you should call them fingers. They don't 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.960