1/10/2006: Cyclops kitten born

[capnhowdy]

I wonder if Ripley's wound up with the corpse.

[wolf]

There is a documentary called "Chernobyl Heart" that shows a lot of the malformed children born after the meltdown.

I saw it on HBO. I have a very high tolerance for stuff, but this was difficult to watch.


edit to add: HBO's description is much more comprehensive

[Kitsune]

Huge mistake: I did an image search for "cyclopia". The nightmares are going to last for weeks.

[capnhowdy]

Unfortunately those two words have become so politically charged they are both being misused way too often.

(Bruce)

I tend to avoid both terms. Both interesting but way too broadly opinionated.

[Sun_Sparkz]

True. I only use (used) the word creation as just that.. something being created. No political or spiritual meaning behind it.

Evolution i dont see coming into this, i doubt that any day soon we will evolve into cyclopic races of humans, goats and felines. But a sixth digit on our hands that acts as our car key perhaps.. longer thumbs for text messaging... Molar teeth strong enough to open that stuck on nail polish bottle lid.... a can opener bone developed into our wrists for easy baked bean access on the road.. now THATS what I'm talkin bout!!

[xoxoxoBruce]

And a finger long enough to find the G-spot.

[wah]

As a quick note to defend my original point. The definition of "cyclopia" that Snopes links to includes this bit.

Cyclopia and milder forms of the same developmental disorder result from holoprosencephaly which is a failure of the embryonic forebrain to subdivide properly. (The embryonic forebrain is normally responsible for inducing the development of the orbits.) Chromosome abnormalities (such as trisomy 13) and gene mutations can disrupt this process.

further research reveals this tidbit.

What causes holoprosencephaly?

The cause of HPE is currently unknown. Often, no specific cause can be identified. Suggested risk factors include maternal diabetes, infections during pregnancy (syphilis, toxoplasmosis, rubella, herpes, cytomegalovirus), and various drugs taken during pregnancy (alcohol, aspirin, lithium, thorazine, anticonvulsants, hormones, retinoic acid). Women with previous pregnancy loss and first trimester bleeding are also more likely to have a child diagnosed with HPE.

Although many children with HPE have normal chromosomes, specific chromosomal abnormalities have been identified in some patients. There is evidence that in some families, HPE is inherited (autosomal dominant as well as autosomal or X-linked recessive inheritance).

Several genes have been identified that play a role in holoprosencephaly.

[<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/hpe/about/">source</a>]So I think it's safe to say there there is a non-zero chance that what we've seen here today is one of the many, many, many failures along the road to more robust organisms.

As to conception being creation, well, we can parse words all day long...but let's not.

And I realize that the original writer of the word did not mean to use it in a religious manner, but I had just finished reading that opinion when this pic popped up in my RSS feed, so the connotation was very top of mind in my own personal universe.

The fact that this seems to be a mammalian disorder would seem, IMHO, to give more weight to a genetic element, as all us warm bloods share common traits (i.e. DNA), and I don't know many pill-popping alcoholic cats.

peace,
-W

[Sun_Sparkz]

so if evolution is going to come in to the equation, wouldn't that mean that it would, by definition, have to start happening more often? because THAT is a scary thought.

[Happy Monkey]

Only if it conferred some advantage. Which doesn't seem likely.

[flesh_golem]

Anyone think it may be a by-product of evolution? throw a stone in a pond and nothing in it is left undisturbed in some way. The same rules apply in the genome of any animal. Whatever gene is next to the one that gets broken/switched/lost that causes this may be related to the one that's getting passed down through mammals that survive. Hell, there are diseases caused by a piece of DNA breaking off of one allele and getting attached to another. It all happens in patterns.

In time, bloodlines will either stomp this out, or cycloptic kitties will be saved, nurtured, and stabilised by intrusive humans, and become the next American celebrity pet fad.

[Happy Monkey]

That's exactly it, though it could also involve an evironmental factor interacting with the genetics. For example, as mentioned previously, the mother eating a plant that contained a certain toxin.

The ways evolution could be involved in that case are, for example:

1) Animals who dislike the taste of the plant reproduce more successfully, eventually most of the population avoids it.

2) Animals which are less succeptible to the toxin reproduce more successfully, eventually most of the population can eat the plant without problems

Welcome to the Cellar, flesh golem.

[Undertoad]

No, the tail size is written in the DNA. But if you neutered the dogs with long tails, and only bred the short-tailed ones, after a few generations, they would all have short tails. If you tried to breed them for shorter and shorter tails, eventually they would have no tail.

All dogs are the same species -- even the chihuahua and the great dane. They've simply been bred for specific purposes for a few hundred years. But if the dane has sex with the huahua, they will have a litter of dogs.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

snip~
If you tried to breed them for shorter and shorter tails, eventually they would have no tail.~/snip

yeaaaaah, but then we'd all have to look at their assholes all the time, and what fun would that be? I mean really.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

But if the dane has sex with the huahua, they will have a litter of dogs.

As long as the dane is the female. Otherwise, there may be some rupturing issues.

[capnhowdy]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

As long as the dane is the female. Otherwise, there may be some rupturing issues.

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