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Is a headless human possible? September 18 2000 at 09:45AM People can obviously live with missing arms, legs, kidney, lung, gall bladder, eyes, ears, nose, and much more. But wouldn't a headless human be impossible? If you think so, you haven't been tracking the breathtaking breakthroughs of genetic engineering, where cloning of Dolly the sheep and creation of a headless frog embryo prompted Dr Patrick Dixon, author of The Genetic Revolution, to forecast cloned colonies of headless humans kept as spare part factories in the future. Given its technical feasibility, there will be enormous economic pressure for this to happen, Dixon told the British Press Association. It will probably occur in countries where there is little or no gene legislation. Already the world has "Miracle Mike", the headless chicken of the 1940s, as an example. Earmarked for supper, the Colorado rooster met a bizarre fate when a poorly aimed hatchet took off his head but left neck and brain stem intact - enough to keep Mike's body strutting about for a couple of years, fed via an eyedropper through the open hole of his oesophagus. Life magazine ran a photo of him amidst his barnyard brethren, captioned: "Chickens do not avoid Mike who, however, has shown no tendency to mate." http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=187&art_id=iol969263138160S365 |
