If We Were More Like Animals...
WHAT IF HUMANS HAD WINGS?
Live Science | Elana Spivack
Humans don't have hollow bones like birds do, so how big would our wings have to be to lift us off the ground?
For the many wondrous things humans can do, we can't fly on our own. But if we could, how big would our wings be?
Of course, the answer depends on the person's size. But someone who's about 155 pounds (70 kilograms) and at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall would have a wingspan of about 20 feet (6 m), said Ty Hedrick, a professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "which I thought was surprisingly small."
Hedrick arrived at this figure using an equation developed by Robert Nudds, a senior lecturer in biological sciences at the University of Manchester. Nudds described this equation in a 2007 paper published in the Journal of Avian Biology, in which he describes the scaling of bird wing parameters with respect to body mass.
But in this hypothetical scenario, we can't simply slap on a pair of wings and call it a day. It requires a complete reimagining of our anatomy. If we want to fly, we need other features in addition to wings.
What Kind of Wings?
First, we must consider what kind of wings we'll have. The classic angel look portrays a flying human with a huge pair of feathered wings protruding from the back. Anatomically, that would require a separate shoulder blade, Michael Habib, a research associate at the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told Live Science. Those wings would also need flight muscles wrapping around from the chest to the back.
According to Habib, bat-like wings would make more sense on humans. In this setup, the entire arm and hand would stretch out, creating that 20-foot wingspan. A fleshy membrane wing would cover these limbs.
But to actually fly, the rest of our body would have to produce enough power, which would require strong muscles. In birds, an average of 16% to 18% of their muscle mass comes from muscles used for flying. In some, up to 30% of their muscle mass comes from the chest. This is also true in bats, though the mass is distributed across more muscles. "It's what sets them apart from the build of a nonflying animal," Habib said.
The corollary in humans creates a funny visual. "You're going to have a chest sticking way on out," Habib said, "and a back that's super, super ripped."
Type of Flight
The type of flyers humans would be also factors into this question. "Not everything flies in exactly the same way," Habib said. "How you fly will be determined by your anatomy." There are a few types of flight, and all flying creatures specialize in different kinds, like flapping, gliding, hovering and soaring. Each of these specialties involves different types of wings. For example, Habib said that a bird that flaps throughout a journey has shorter, stouter wings. On the other hand, a soaring bird like an albatross has much longer wings relative to its size. Humans, with their relatively large size, would likely soar.
There's also the question of takeoff, especially with 20-foot-long, bat-like wings. With wings this large, we would not be able to flap our way up. "You can't flap very much when you're close to the ground," Hedrick told Live Science.
Habib suggested what's known as a quadrupedal launch, or a launch from a position where all four limbs start out on the ground. Pterosaurs, which were some of the first vertebrates to evolve the ability to fly more than 200 million years ago, likely walked and took off this way too, according to a 2010 paper co-authored by Habib and published in the journal PLOS One. Some bats, like vampire bats, walk and run on all fours as well.
Of course, humans are at an evolutionary disadvantage. Flying animals have been perfecting their anatomy for flight for millennia. "We'd need a lot of the other adaptations birds have acquired over the years," Hedrick said.
WHAT IF HUMANS HAD TAILS?
Live Science | Joanna Thompson
If humans had tails, what would they be like, and how would we use them?
From mermaids to the ancient Babylonian scorpion people, stories of humans with tails abound in mythologies from around the world. Often, these figures possess some sort of magic power or wisdom beyond mortal understanding. But what would it be like if humans actually had tails? How would the extra appendage change our daily lives? And what would they look like?
For some people, this is more than a thought experiment; in rare instances, babies with spina bifida — a condition in which a baby is born with a gap in the spine — or an irregular coccyx might be born with a vestigial "pseudotail." These fleshy outgrowths often contain muscle, connective tissue and blood vessels, but not bone or cartilage, according to research published in the journal Human Pathology. They are not functional and are usually removed shortly after birth.
The Disappearing Tail
Looking at human evolution, our distant primate ancestors had some sort of tail. Tails disappeared in our direct lineage around 25 million years ago, when great apes diverged from monkeys. Our ancestors may have ditched the extra appendage to save energy and calories as they evolved better bipedal balance. But of course, tailed primates are still hanging around today.
Certain species of monkeys native to South and Central America (dubbed "New World" monkeys, a phrase coined by European colonizers and later picked up by scientists) have prehensile tails — tails that can grasp objects — that can curl around tree limbs and even support their body weight, according to Field Projects International, a nonprofit research and educational group. But our closest living tailed relatives are the so-called "Old World" monkeys that live in Africa, Asia and southern Europe, such as baboons and macaques, which use their tails mostly for balance. "None of them has a prehensile tail, because that's a step back down in the family tree," Peter Kappeler, an evolutionary anthropologist at Göttingen University in Germany, told Live Science.
So our tails probably wouldn't be prehensile. However, Kappeler said, that doesn't necessarily mean they would be useless. A long, furry tail like a macaque's could be useful to wrap around ourselves for warmth, like a built-in scarf. And if we had evolved to hibernate during the winter, our tails could come in handy as a fat-storage system (a strategy employed by some non-primate mammals, such as beavers).
Things Your Mother Should Have Told You
1. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
2. Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!
3. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
4. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
5. To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.
6. For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.
7. Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.
8. Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!
9. Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel, and it really works.
10. Expanding Frosting. When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.
11. Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.
12. Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.
13. Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go. Cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.
14. Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.
15. No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.
16. Squirrel Away!
To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.
17. Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
18. Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... guess what! ... static is gone.
19. Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out. (Or spray the measuring cup or spoon with Pam before using)
20. Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
21. Re-opening envelopes
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.
22. Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.
23. Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
24. Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works, and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
25. Dryer Filter
Even if you are very diligent about cleaning the lint filter in your dryer it still may be causing you a problem. If you use dryer sheets a waxy build up could be accumulating on the filter causing your dryer to overheat. The solution to this is to clean your filter with a toothbrush and hot soapy water every 6 months.
