Mermaids!!!

[Abaddon]

Mermaid Syndrome
"sirenomelia". ​

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4235033.stm



Surgeons in Peru are preparing for an operation to separate the legs of a girl born with the rare condition "mermaid syndrome" or "sirenomelia".
Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron has been dubbed the "little mermaid" because her fused legs resemble the tail of a fish.

Usually babies with the condition die within days of birth. Milagros is one of only three known survivors.

A medical team, led by surgeon Luis Rubio, will operate on the girl on 24 February in a hospital in Lima.

The team includes trauma surgeons, plastic surgeons, cardiovascular surgeons, neurologists, gynaecologists and a paediatrician, and the operation is expected to last five hours.

Feet splayed

Most sirenomelia sufferers have severe organ damage and die within hours.

The only person who is known to have survived in the long term is 16-year-old American Tiffany Yorks, whose legs were separated before she was one year old.

Milagros - whose name means miracles in Spanish - is relatively unharmed.

Her abdomen merges into her legs, which are connected by skin down to the feet, which are splayed in a V-shape.

She has normal bone structure and independent movement within the two joined legs.

She has only one kidney, and only a single channel for her digestive tract and genitals.

Hopeful

But because the operation will not concentrate on these areas, Dr Rubio says he feels her chances of survival are good.

"Every surgical procedure has risks but we are taking every precaution," he said.

She will need operations to correct her rudimentary digestive channel and genitals at a later date.

Milagros was born in the mountain city of Huancayo, 200km (125 miles) east of Lima, to very poor family.

Her father, 24-year-old Ricardo Cerron, said: "I keep thinking about what's going to happen and how's the operation going to be."

Mother Sara Arauco, 19, said: "My dream is that everything is going to turn out well."

 

[Xanikk999]

Hope she turns out alright.

Ive never heard of such a condition. But ive heard of stranger birth defects..

 

[b etor]

awwwwwwwww

 

[warpus]

Obviously God intended for this girl to be thrown into the ocean so she can play with the dolphins.

 

[Xanikk999]

Could this be a benificial mutation in water? Not right now probably... but in tens of thousands, to millions of years it could be.

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[GenMarshall]

Surprisingly that there are still birth defects .

Why do people get mad at me when i pull a fifty or perf or whatever?

Because you fail at it . Honestly, to save face, just don't post anymore to avoid further humiliation.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Surprisingly that there are still birth defects .

Why is it surprising? Disappointing, yes, and sad, but not really surprising.

 

[White Elk]

Wow, I wish her well.

Could this be a benificial mutation in water? Not right now probably... but in tens of thousands, to millions of years it could be.

I don't know if this is a gene related condition, or if it is caused by something abnormal happening while the fetus developes. If it is caused during fetal development, then advanced medical science may be able to create similar circumstances to purposefully alter a humans physiology prior to birth. So theoretically humans could learn from this and then create mermaids and mermen. But they would not be able to pass their characteristics onto their offspring. However if humans survive another few hundred years they might be able to perfect genetic science to the point of being able to create modified humans that can pass on their traits.

I'm not for modifying the human race at all. Particularly since those that would be modified would have no say in the matter. I don't think our societies collective morality would allow for it anyway. However morality changes over time and there may come a day in our not to distant future when it becomes acceptable. There may even come a day when it must be done to prevent extiction of the human race. We have begun the first stages of this grand debate as we began mapping the human genome. The debate has barely begun and I doubt it will get far in our lifetimes. But then again we already create new races of mice etc in order to test out our medicines and science. And there are parents in this world who go to extreme lengths to 'create' uber-babies. So who knows what will happen in the next 60 years.



I have imagined a faaar future (sci-fi story) where through the process of genetic modification, some humans were altered to be able to better function within the conditions of a zero-g enviroment; while others were altered with adaptations to allow them to survive conditions on other planets. In the course of the story, a millennium passes (give or take a couple centuries) and the 'colonizers' are half-way through the terraforming process and their uber-evolutionary friendly genes are adapting each succesive generation to be able to better cope with the rapidly changing enviroment they are creating. Meanwhile, after hundreds of years of travel, the 'spacers' finally make it back to Earth in time to chauffeur the human race to the new planets before our sun goes supernova. However.. there are a bunch of howevers...

People change, ideas change, moralities change.. this is the way it has always been and I think it will always be. It is tough to plan a future many generations in advance. But already in our contempary times we (in the collective) are begining to face the need to plan well beyond our own deaths. For some societies like the Lakota (aka Sioux Indians), this was always a concern. They look ahead seven generations in all that they do. Now as our nations and planet grow more populated, our cities denser and our enviroment changes; we are being forced to adopt a similar philosophy.

 

[GenMarshall]

Why is it surprising?

Dispite medical advances of today, we still see genetic and birth defects in children .

 

[Tomoyo]

I don't think medical advances actually do much about genetic defects. If anything, they make them more common.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Dispite medical advances of today, we still see genetic and birth defects in children .

I still don't follow. How should medical advances prevent birth defects?

 

[cubsfan6506]

I would like to see a full sized one swim. just to see how it owuld do but thats weird.

 

[azzaman333]

Creepy. Although when I saw Abslozdon had posted a thread titled 'Mermaids!!!' I assumed it was of the ones with scales that are more fishlike. With pictures.

 

[Bartleby]

I still don't follow. How should medical advances prevent birth defects?

Early detection and abortion.

 

[Abaddon]

But birth defects happen within the womb, during development, long after a suitable abortion age.

 

[Turner]

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[Bad Player]

Modern society is apparently causing more genetic mutations due to (presumably) pollution and stuff.

 

[Rossiya]

Good luck to her.