# Could a human being survive without a skeleton

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-human-being-survive-without-a-skeleton/397023>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 22, 2007, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-human-being-survive-without-a-skeleton/397023 "2007-03-22T15:08:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-human-being-survive-without-a-skeleton/397023/21 "2007-03-24T23:26:56Z")

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Or how about a skeleton made of cartlidge?

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**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-human-being-survive-without-a-skeleton/397023/22 "2007-03-25T03:49:04Z")

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I’m thinking Miles Vorkosigan who was born with bones that had the texture of chalk – and he did wind up having a lot of his bones replaced with artificial equivalents. While he wasn’t a jellyfish, he was pretty close to being one when he was younger. But the books didn’t go into a lot of detail about bone function other than the architectural requirements - probably because the bones were still there, just really soft.

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