Feet!
Look at them! (Courtesy of thanshuhai)
Let's build some :D
Biologically, I mean :S
(I've decided on a way more fun and interactive format for the posting, so this is how this is going to work: over the course of these next weeks of posts, I will teach you how a biologist with infinite time and money would go about building a foot, of any size and shape (s)he wanted. We will discuss it! SCIENCE is done through hypothesis, and asking the right questions - the experiments come later.)
To start with, this has been done, sort of, actually, in chickens and in mice. Take a little embryo, pop some growth factor on the right chunk, and you'll make an extra wing. Or leg, depending on where you do the injection. (No, the chickens and mice don't normally live - ask about that later!) But! That's because all the instructions are already there, and that particular growth factor is one of the start signals for making a limb. For the sake of learning, let's pretend we have to tell the leg everything (well... the important things) on our own. My PhD is on toes, so I am pretty excited about this topic.
Now it gets interactive! Fuzzy people, what do we need to make happen to get us a nice, happy mouse leg? Let's say you're looking at a little ball of cells and you want to say unto it, "You are ridiculous! You should organize yourself into a leg or something!" List some things! and I shall respond. Don't think too hard. What is in a leg? Bones? Toes? How should we make them? Think broad - this one's easy, and there are no stupid answers! Just entertaining ones ;D
Not... quite what I meant, but hells of a good shot, MintzBuck
Biologically, I mean :S
(I've decided on a way more fun and interactive format for the posting, so this is how this is going to work: over the course of these next weeks of posts, I will teach you how a biologist with infinite time and money would go about building a foot, of any size and shape (s)he wanted. We will discuss it! SCIENCE is done through hypothesis, and asking the right questions - the experiments come later.)
To start with, this has been done, sort of, actually, in chickens and in mice. Take a little embryo, pop some growth factor on the right chunk, and you'll make an extra wing. Or leg, depending on where you do the injection. (No, the chickens and mice don't normally live - ask about that later!) But! That's because all the instructions are already there, and that particular growth factor is one of the start signals for making a limb. For the sake of learning, let's pretend we have to tell the leg everything (well... the important things) on our own. My PhD is on toes, so I am pretty excited about this topic.
Now it gets interactive! Fuzzy people, what do we need to make happen to get us a nice, happy mouse leg? Let's say you're looking at a little ball of cells and you want to say unto it, "You are ridiculous! You should organize yourself into a leg or something!" List some things! and I shall respond. Don't think too hard. What is in a leg? Bones? Toes? How should we make them? Think broad - this one's easy, and there are no stupid answers! Just entertaining ones ;D
Bone cells, marrow cells, muscle cells, tendon cells, ligament cells, skin cells and fuzz cells. And when they all love each other very much, they give one another a "special furpile" and make a tiny mouse leg. I'm right, aren't I? :V
ReplyDeleteDo you think that digitigrade, plantigrade, or unguligrade feet would be best for anthros and why?
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