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Comment on People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?

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sxan@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

I’d have put the vocal chords in the nasal passage, allowing humans to still talk while eliminating the choking problem.

The laryngeal nerve is a much more stupid design, simply because there’s no practical reason for it to be the way it is.

Also: if we didn’t have the ability to breath through our mouths, swimming as a sport would be harder, since we don’t have the ability to close our nose-holes.

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OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I’d have put the vocal chords in the nasal passage, allowing humans to still talk while eliminating the choking problem.

Exactly. A very simple correction to the design would allow for both.

The laryngeal nerve is a great example of how flawed our bodies are. A few more are:

Our back is terrible for walking upright. It evolved as a horizontal support and doesn’t work well when compressed.

Our hips are too narrow for the size skull we give birth to. Many women die from this without healthcare.

Our eyes suck. A lot of people need corrective lenses from a young age. This gets even worse as we age.

Speaking of eyes, our retinas are backwards. The nerves that send the signals back to our brains run in front the receptors that pick up the light. We have a blind spot because those nerves need to pass through to reach the brain.
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- sxan@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I’ve saved this under “Why our ‘intelligent’ designer was an incompetent amateur.”
  
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otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yeah, I say designed, but it’s not in the “something planned it” sense. We ended up this way because of a series of random chances that just sorta’ worked in allowing us to live long enough to have more successful offspring.

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angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Quite a lot of people can close their nose-holes by curling up their upper lip. I’m not one of them, unfortunately.

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- sxan@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Like, airtight seal? For swimming?
  
  Weird.
  
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  - angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yep, my cousin dives like that, it’s a superpower.
    
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    sxan@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I have never meet your cousin, and yet I envy him.
    
    If we ever do get practical body modification, the second thing I’m doing is getting sealable nostrils and ears, so can swim in comfort at any reasonable depth.
    
    The first thing, of course, is getting everything that’s just fucking broken in my body fixed. The knee I fucked up doing moguls, and is getting more gimpy the older I get; the elbow I messed up trying to parkour down some stairs; my chronically fucked up back, thanks Army!
    
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