Posted on 06/02/2010 1:52:43 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
The patient needed just a nip and a tuck — nothing three experienced plastic surgeons couldn't handle. But the patient in this case was a 12-foot Pacific giant squid, and already dead.
On Friday, surgeons hunched over a gelatinous carcass, laid out like a wet dress on a stainless steel table outside the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. Their mission: Stitch up its battle wounds and reattach its head.
OIMB's director, Craig Young, said the goal was to make the creature a presentable attraction at the future Charleston Marine Life Center.
Plans call for a 6,000-square-foot, two-story public museum and aquarium. The squid will be preserved and displayed in a tank of formalin.
Young recruited only the best for the operation: Dr. Ernie Manders, a renowned professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and his colleagues Drs. Christine Fisher and Galen Wachtman. The team sewed up the squid's jelly-like tissue with surgical precision, literally.
Manders, a 1963 Marshfield High School graduate, established a relationship with OIMB while researching the unique regenerative properties of certain marine animals. Sea stars, for example, can regrow severed limbs.
This type of creature may hold the key to new medical advancements, such as instant conductivity of nerves in transplant surgeries.
"All the basic nerve physiology they enjoy, we enjoy," Manders said.
...The outdoor operation drew a crowd, as the doctors worked diligently on their tentacled patient. Even in the open air, the animal gave off a fishy funk...
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Liberal Logic at it’s finest.
Fried calamari for everyone on FR!
oh, gads! Laughed RIGHT OUT LOUD! you are so right. I never thought of that before.
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