AFAIK it all boils down to the fact that during embryonal development our cells, which at that point were just a blob of undifferentiated autonomous chemical machines, somehow managed to unanimously agree upon the cardinal directions (up-down, left-right, front-back) for future development - and thanks to this, we don’t have toes growing out of our ears.
Pass the joint, bud.
Heh, “bud”
That’s what SHE said! Wait. What?
It’s not that incredible, considering we can get cysts full of teeth and hair inside the body
How do I unread this
Imagine if you suddenly sprouted a tumor with functional tastebuds in your colon
“So what brings you into the doctors office today?”
“Well for some reason everything I eat ends up tasting like shit.”
Oh yes, teratomes are not fun. But thankfully they are comparably rare.
Wonder if we could use that phenomena to regenerate teeth in a lab for replacements and dentures.
Probably no different than stem cell stuff
I can’t comment on anyone with toes out of their ears, but I’ve seen a lot people with their butt where their face is. Or at least it would appear so, as a lot of shit seems to come out of the hole in their face.
All jokes aside, nice shower thought though!
That’s the core of evolution: Beings with unfavorable features simply don’t make it.
Too bad evolution is blind, and now our windpipes and digestive tracts cross over. It works, but it would have been nice if choking wasn’t a thing.
Other examples of interesting (sometimes called ‘unintelligent’) evolution might be how we walk upright, leading to complications with childbirth and back pain, blindspots because of our optical nerve, and or that recurrent nerve that does a random U-turn.
Evolution is basically millions of years of patches without ever getting a rebuild form the ground up. It’s mostly ok, but some bugs stick around
We just walkin’ with a couple billion years of biotech debt in us.
I always thought that was a poor design. Aliens likely would find that disgusting.
What interests me is that I believe all warm blooded animals also share this trait. Not certain that is true but if so, wouldn’t that mean it evolved in a very early period?
Also what I find interesting is that the layout of humans to most animals is the same. A head with eyes then nose then mouth among with the brain behind it. Most of the organs are in similar locations. It seems strange that there would not be more variety.
That 85% of DNA that apparently does nothing? Commented out.
I mean, that’s what dna is for. These machines aren’t operating blindly (or even “cooperating” or agreeing on anything, really). They’re following the code that makes up who we are.
Those who don’t usually don’t make it far.
