Ask Ms. Jessica Issue 26 – Less is more

(The content for Ask Ms. Jessica comes from real questions from real people sent to AskMsJessica@gmail.com)

Dear Ms. Jessica,

I have a few questions regarding the loss of body parts due to mutation. How and why are there fusions and mutations that occur where the people mutating only lose limbs and other body parts? (SWBs for example) And how do mutants that have lost their eyes, ears, and/or mouth retain their basic senses? Do they have different internal mechanisms for these processes, or do they require outside assistance?

Well, a good portion of this question was answered in issues 16 and 19, which I’m aware haven’t been posted at time of writing, so I’ll include a copy in this response.

I do think there is a fundamental question here that is worth answering though: why? Why do mutants mutate to lose body parts, or otherwise mutate in a way that seems like it would make life more difficult?

It is the prevailing theory that all mutations are beneficial. The only reason why a mutation would not be fought off by the immune system would be if the body somehow “thought” that the mutated body was better than the human body. Note, your body doesn’t actually think. This is just cold unfeeling chemical, biological, and genetic machinery doing what is best for survival. Also note, I’m only talking about mutations caused by an active mutant gene. Other mutations, like random genetic mutations to other parts of our genetic code, can still be harmful. Random is random afterall.

So what is “better” about losing body parts? Well, as I mentioned in issue 16, SWBs have a much more efficient organ system than full humans. People with no face adopt new forms of sensing that many times provide better spacial awareness than before.

This might be a little hard to wrap your head around, so let’s take another example. Surely you have seen mutants with snake-like tails instead of legs. For all intents and purposes, they are losing two legs, which seems detrimental. But then when you look at the data things come into focus. 

And what data are we going to look at? Watermelons!

It’s become a bit of a trend online to attempt to break watermelons between your thighs. To do so, you would need to be able to exert approximately 21 pounds of pressure per square foot, or 1005 pascals of pressure.  It’s a fairly impressive feat, for human legs. 

For snakes, on the other hand, it’s barely a trick at all! An anaconda’s crush strength is estimated to be 90 psi, that’s pounds per square INCH not foot. Do you know how many pascals of pressure that is? 620,528! An anaconda can crush 617 watermelons at once while a human struggles to crush one! And snake mutant tails are thicker, wider, and stronger than anaconda tails, since they are generally larger in volume. 

A little bit of math like this can reveal quite a bit about some mutations. An average SWB weighs about 70 pounds, but their leg strength is comparable to an average human of 150 pounds. This allows them to run faster, jump higher, and be active for longer distances than most humans. 

Or let’s look at merged fingers and toes. Surely having three fingers on your hands is worse than having five, right? Wrong! An average five fingered human can exert about 35 kilograms of force with their grip. However, distributing the same muscles over just three fingers instead of five increases that grip strength to well over 80 kilograms of force! 

Doesn’t make sense? Well think about mutants who have even fewer fingers. Mutants who have crab-like pincers. They can exert well over 200 kilograms of force with their grip strength!

Or think of tentacles. Mutants with tentacles lose their bones and fingers and lots of dexterity right? Wrong! They retain a lot of their dexterity and obtain strength similar to the measurements we got from snakes, earlier. Yes, that means a mutant with tentacle legs can also easily crush watermelons without a thought. Honestly, I’ll never get these TikTok crazes.

So the next time you see a mutant who has lost something, ask yourself “what have they gained?” I’ll bet you it was a whole lot more than whatever they lost. 

Before you ask, no, I’m not going to make a video of myself crushing a watermelon between my thighs.

Dr. Jessica Park

AskMsJessica@gmail.com