Just read this article about a plastic surgeon who hopes to soon be able to attach new appendages to human bodies. He makes the claim that if he does so, the person’s nervous system and brain will adapt to the change. In effect, he claims, the human brain could “rewire” its neurons so that the person would actually be able to move their wings or their tail.
From high school biology I remember that there exist maps between regions of the brain and regions of the body. By observing what parts of the body can still move and which are paralyzed after a stroke stops blood flow to certain areas of the brain, we know that the neurons in particular locations control movement and feeling in certain parts of the body. If this is the case, then how can the guy’s claim be true? What part of the brain would control the new appendages?
Slight hijack: how large would wings have to be to keep a human aloft? Also, how strong would said wings have to be to actually propel a human body? Seems like they’d have to be a good deal stronger than our arms or legs.
I seem to remember from some discourse or other on the physical impracticability of angels that a human would need a wingspan minimally 12 feet across, but also would need a gigantic chest to house all the muscles, but this in turn would put extra stresses on the skeleton, which would probably also need strengthening, increasing the weight and making the whole thing quite a difficult engineering prospect.
The individual would also consume a lot of energy just staying alive and an unbelievable amount in flight.
The plastic surgeon is talking rather fancifully; at the moment, we can’t even reattach severed fingers in a way that you could describe as wholly satisfactory. Some of this might be able to be overcome by remodelling the body without severing the nerves (as is currently done in gender reassignment operatons), but that means you have a restricted amount of material with which to construct the pseudo wings.
I’m sure plenty of Goths will pay good money to look like Asrael :rolleyes:
A layman’s description of the problem which I once heard - look at any bird. It’s back is at a heavily-raked angle. Imagine if you lifted it up so it’s back was vertical. See how far it’s breast protudes. Quite unlike human psysiology.
Given that we’re just now getting to the point where reattaching a severed limb can result in the patient recovering partial use of the limb, when it’s his own arm, attaching a pair of batwings or a tail and being able to move them? I’m guessing “twitch” would be a more descriptive term than “move”.
We might be able to build in glide capaibility much more easily. It would still need anchorage, but not nearly as much muscle.
Hmm, this might have a bunch of interesting possibilities: just think of all the idiots who’d go out and get glide wings, then throw themselves off buildings, only to see the wings fail because they have no instinctual responses to let them fly.
I suppose the kind of wing area that a human would need to glide for any decent distance would be the kind of wing area found on a hang gliding rig (probably more when you consider the weight implications of building it out of living materials) - anything less than that is going to need to be actively flapped (which introduces problems already discussed) or is going to result in less of a glide and more (or less) of a controlled fall.
There’s a really good article on this guy from the Harper’s Magazine June or July 2001 edition. I read that article at the time it was published and I have been haunted by it ever since. I still think about it several times a year. I highly recommend it, as it explores larger questions than the technological concerns of whether it can be done. Very well written.
Oh, and I’d just like to say that, given that I have to shave, get a haircut and wear a suit for job interviews, I would like to think that somebody who has had batwings and a tail surgically grafted onto his body is going to have a freaking hard time finding a job. That’s all.
Well, maybe not for lawyers. Or exotic dancers. But that’s it.
The article I pointed to makes some interesting conjectures about what might happen. One is that anyone who actually wanted to have wings on their body might be judged to be insane, and thus the state could step in and prevent it from happening. This would be a serious damper on the human wing business, you have to admit.
