Looking to get your beach body into shape?
Ready to lose that excess weight?
Well, our new patented diet plan is for you!
Today, we’re going to
get rid of your skeleton.
You don't need your bones, right?
Okay, brace yourself.
We just got the results in,
and we’re sorry to report that
you’ve got a spooky,
scary skeleton inside you.
Your skeletal system is made up of bones,
tendons,
ligaments,
and cartilage.
It produces blood cells,
stores, and releases fat and minerals,
and you know,
supports the structure of your body.
But don’t worry,
we’re going to take that sucker right out.
In fact, we’re taking everyone’s bones out.
You don’t need to thank us,
we’re just trying to do our part.
"Wanna know something?"
"I'm a bad doctor."
So, what would your new boneless life be like?
Well, you wouldn’t be able to move
for starters.
Have you ever wanted to
spend the whole day in bed?
Well, now you can,
everyday.
Don’t worry, it’s perfectly fine.
Just take a breath.
Just take a deep breath.
But not too deeply,
because without a ribcage,
your lungs wouldn’t be able to expand.
Without bones,
you would need to be hooked up
to a ventilator 24/7.
This means you would be subject
to more infections,
because your airways are always open.
This would let all sorts of nasty germs in.
For example, a common cold
would quickly become pneumonia.
But as long as you eat healthily,
you should be okay.
Well, when I said “eat",
I meant we’d give you a feeding tube.
You can’t chew without your jawbones.
On the bright side,
you wouldn’t have any bone-related diseases
like osteoporosis.
Plus, you’d never have to worry
about wearing a cast.
But what if our bones weren’t removed?
What if we never had them in the first place?
If we had evolved without bones,
that might mean that
we would never have left the ocean,
and we lived our lives like human jellyfish
Maybe we would evolve
to have an exoskeleton.
Then we'd need to molt,
and grow bigger exoskeletons as we grew.
Okay, I'll be honest,
that sounds pretty gross.
But the good news is that
you wouldn’t have to deal with it for long.
Yeah, your lifespan
would decrease significantly,
since your skeleton provides
much-needed protection for your organs.
Your brain would be left without its helmet,
making your noggin extremely vulnerable.
Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best idea.
Our bones do more than
we give them credit for.
We already know that our bones grow with us
as we get older.
But did you know that
modern life is actually causing
our bones to change?
For example,
feel the back of your head.
On the back of your skull is a spike-like feature
called the external occipital protuberance.
But it wasn’t always there.
In fact,
it used to be so rare,
that we didn’t start investigating it until 1885.
So where did it come from?
Well get this.
The spike is most common in younger people.
The reason?
Technology.
The constant use of smartphones and tablets
has led to this spike.
Since we're hunched over our devices,
it causes strain on our necks.
This protuberance helps the skull to cope
with the extra stress because
it spreads the weight over a wider area.
So, basically
your skeleton is looking out for you.
Aww, thanks bones.
But you don’t have to worry about it.
Chances are that if you’re watching this video,
you have a skeleton.
But that isn’t necessarily the case.
There is a rare genetic disorder called
that affects one out of every 100,000 babies.
It’s a disorder that causes your bones
to disappear.
Patients with this disorder
lack an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase.
This causes their bones to be extremely fragile,
so they break down easily.
Thankfully, as of today,
doctors are working on
special enzyme treatments.
These allow the bones to slowly grow back,
so patients can move again.
So, to sum it all up,
your bones are extremely important.
Without bones in your body,
you wouldn’t live long at all.
And tibia honest,
you should make an effort
to take care of that skeleton of yours.
Get it, tibia honest?
It’s a bone joke …
like the tibia …
whatever.
But with all this talk about short life spans,
what if that was the norm?
What if you went from being a newborn
to your death bed in a day?
What if you only lived for 24 hours?
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.