When I caught the headline from The Telegraph’s Science
section, I thought well maybe there is a chance for me?
I’ve long thought that I was supposed to look like Robert
Redford at birth, but somehow ended up in Buddy Hackett’s body. Yes, I felt I was short-changed at birth.
Don’t you? But really, who do you
complain to? Certainly not God, right?
If you are one of those who believes in the science side of
all birth questions, then, to quote Popeye the Sailor, “I am what I am and
that’s all that I am.” Those types
quickly whip out things like DNA and the prune doesn’t fall far from the
tree. You know, that hard to argue with
garbage which we all owe to an Augustinian Monk named Gregor Mendel, who just
might have been an Augustinian Brau tester (beer taster).
You see, besides the not talking thing, Monk’s weren’t very
busy back in the 1850s and 1860s, so, for Gregor, the “pea thing” was simply
“something to do” sort of like my father and a crossword puzzle. In my mind, I see him sitting down at dinner
and separating his ration of peas into several categories: those with wrinkles
those that are smooth, etc.
You get the idea.
Now, we come to accept things like this as if they were
common knowledge. But back in Gregor’s
days, no one really took it to heart. In
fact, it was 35 years later before the whole concept was revisited by the
“Science Community” and found to be viable in terms of heredity. You know, the
whole deoxyribonucleic acid thing; think DNA.
What Mendel was dealing with was basic genetics. What other scientists thought at the time was
that it was merely a study in hybridization. It’s sort of amazing how a simple study of
peas could lead to something like the genetic tests people are taking nowadays
to discover that not only are they related to their actual brothers and sisters,
but the two kids down the street are siblings as well….
Well, that’s not really true because those test rely on the mitochondrial
DNA (momma genes) and not papa genes.
Which means it would be pretty hard for you to be a long lost brother to
your next door neighbor unless somewhere down the line there was a common
female ancestor. And, if that were so,
then you would far more likely be a cousin.
But enough of such speculation.
Now, I’ve already gone pretty far off course because the
story that caught my interest is one about a successful head transplant. It seems that some doctors in England
successfully reattached a head from one corpse to another. Yes I know this is Frankenstein kind of
stuff, but they say they did it successfully.
What I want to know is how they were able to figure out that
it was successful? Did the corpse
suddenly start breathing, or sing an aria, or wolf down a mouthful of Cap’n
Crunch cereal?
And who would volunteer for such a thing anyway? I know, there is a huge waiting list for
people who want to be the first ones to “travel to Mars,” but I think one’s
demise in this kind of operation is far more likely. What I guess I mean is, if Matt Damon can
live on Mars, then so can I. And, if I
really want to look like Robert Redford, then I probably will get a chance at
some point, but the results aren’t all that promising since most likely I will
already be dead.
There are a lot of other problems that pop into my head when
I read about doctors spending hours trying to attach head to body. I would think that things like attaching the
brain stem, otherwise known as the medulla oblongata for you The Water Boy
fans, would pose significant issues. We
can’t even fix spinal cord injuries and here they are dabbling with one of the
more complex nerve centers.
Personally, I’ll take the flight to Mars. At least, I should have some time to work
crossword puzzles while in flight to the Red Planet. And who knows, there might actually be someone
on the flight who doesn’t mind talking to a person whose DNA test results
resemble Buddy Hackett.
