czwartek, 13 sierpnia 2015

When You and I had tails

Hello! You might not remember it, actually you stand no chance of remembering it, but once upon a time you had a tail. So did I.  (P.s: My new blog address is here: https://papercoffeestore.wordpress.com/ )

source:tumblr

Not like this, though. Sadly! Nevertheless, that's a real info, and it takes us back to evolution. Actually everything takes us back to evolution. What kind of a queen/king of everything! As Theodosius Dobzhansky, a well known evolutionary biologist titled his essay: "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution". Now you might ask - when did you become interested in biology and why are you writing about this? Well, I'll give you my answer: my anthropology course on Open2study (I'm definitely going to write a post about this website soon!) covers a lot of evolutionary material, and the second thing: it's fascinating. I hope you will find it fascinating too. Let's get back to the title, though. We all used to have tails. Evidence? You still have a tail bone - coccyx. Before coccyx, near the base of your spine you had five vertebrae, which later on fused into a bone. It all happened when you were just an embryo.

source: www.biotate.com/

What is its function? Well, it's kind of useless - though some scientists disagree - but it's a kind reminder that: your ancestors did have tails. Had you been a different breed, you would also have it now, but humans changed and they don't need it anymore. So what did happen to your tail? Well, when the DNA, which controlled the process of your development figured out you didn't really need the tail, so it was absorbed by your immune system. Once in a while, a child is born with a tiny tail, but professionally we call it "a caudal appendage" (you can google it for pictures!) . It happens, when the instructions saying "Get rid of it" become a bit illogical, and the tail isn't reabsorbed. There have been over 100 documented cases like that. Fascinating, isn't it? Well, the world's first name should be fascinating. To end with a poem would be nice, so here we come, Mr Bukowski.

Oh Yes - Poem by Charles Bukowski

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often 
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than 
too late. 


So if you need to stay home alone tonight, and you're missing so much fun, just remember you could learn something new and fascinating and that's cool too. Explore, dream, discover.

Would you like to have a tail? Let me know!


Have a lovely day,
Jessie




6 komentarzy:

  1. What an interesting post! I am aware that we had tails from biology and you know Shallow Hal lol but it's always fun to read other people discovering and spread the word of evolution.

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    1. I guess it's better late than never. :) Thanks for the feedback! Xo

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  2. Quite an interesting post! I love evolution and these types of tidbits. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. This was a fun post. I think if I could have a luxious tail like my two cats I could be convinced to have one.

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