I've chosen to deviate from my traditional blog format to entertain with my portion of the ALGEBRA class project I had due today. The premise is that I am to compare human life with The Blob from the oh-so-classic 1958 horror/sci-fi flick, and explain where we fall short on becoming blobs ourselves and how to remedy this problem. Enjoy:
Section 4: The Blob and You
There are many distinct ways in which humans differ from blobs. Most importantly, we humans are multi-cellular organisms, while blobs are a single-celled creature much like an amoeba. While single-celled organisms absorb all their nutrients through their cell walls, human’s skin can only absorb small molecules such as water and minute organic compounds. Our tiny pores prevent us from eating through our skin; as a result touching someone can never result in their digestion bi-proxy. Instead, our bodies require a digestive system to break down our food. This digestive system includes the stomach, gall bladder, pancreas, intestines and many other organs of the human body. Because we are multi-cellular, these organs must work together to provide our bodies with the nutrients we require to exist. While the blob absorbs its nutrients through its outer cell wall, ours are absorbed through our intestines- limiting the amount we can take in at one time. Our stomach also hinders us from being more blob-like because it can only hold so much food at one time. Our skeletal system also keeps us from growing past a certain point without becoming immobile. The bones in our bodies form us into a general shape that cannot be deviated from without serious harm to our health. The blob’s cellular structure contains no skeletal system, allowing it to “creep and leap, and glide and slide across the floor, right through the door, and all around the wall”.
In order for humans to overcome their obvious physical handicap, some major biological changes must ensue. Our skin pore size must be increased greatly, and some sort of skin liquefaction system must be developed. This would allow us to soak up our needed nutrients through our skin, much like the blob. As a result, we would no longer need to eat in the traditional sense; rather, we would just absorb. Another way to increase our blobiness would be to develop stretchable stomach walls, enabling us to ingest much larger and copious amounts of food. With this development, we could continuously ingest food throughout the day, while feeling no ill effects. A perfect way to counteract our blob-defiant frame would be to simply eradicate our skeletal system in its entirety. This would solve the dilemma caused by our unchanging general form. Paired with a well-toned muscle system, our new bone deficiency would allow us to grow exponentially larger, and still “glide and slide” like the blob.
By following these simple suggestions, we could increase our absorption surface area while decreasing our total volume. This would allow us to overcome the intake v. metabolic rate ratio. While all of these changes are currently genetically impossible, scientific advances may someday allow us to truly become human blobs. Fast food restaurants are already plunging us toward our bright blob futures- with the help of science it could be closer than we think. “Be careful of the blob.”
