FacebookTwitter
Hatrack River Forum   
my profile login | search | faq | forum home

  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » Cyclops kitten

   
Author Topic: Cyclops kitten
camus
Member
Member # 8052

 - posted      Profile for camus   Email camus         Edit/Delete Post 
"Holoprosencephaly" causes facial deformities, according to the US National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

In the worst cases, a single eye is located where the nose should be, according to the institute's Web site.

Traci Allen says the kitten she named Cy, short for Cyclops, was born on December 28 with the single eye and no nose."

Sydney Morning Herald


Hmmm...well, my initial reaction, like many others, was that it must be a hoax. Apparently "extensive steps" have been taken to confirm that it is not a hoax. Either way, I think it looks pretty freaky.

Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Tstorm
Member
Member # 1871

 - posted      Profile for Tstorm   Email Tstorm         Edit/Delete Post 
That's...disturbing.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
mr_porteiro_head
Member
Member # 4644

 - posted      Profile for mr_porteiro_head   Email mr_porteiro_head         Edit/Delete Post 
Yeah. I couldn't look at it for long.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
BGgurl
Member
Member # 8541

 - posted      Profile for BGgurl   Email BGgurl         Edit/Delete Post 
Wow...very weird.
Posts: 106 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Theaca
Member
Member # 8325

 - posted      Profile for Theaca   Email Theaca         Edit/Delete Post 
That makes me feel bad. [Frown]
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
mackillian
Member
Member # 586

 - posted      Profile for mackillian   Email mackillian         Edit/Delete Post 
Me too. [Frown]
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ReikoDemosthenes
Member
Member # 6218

 - posted      Profile for ReikoDemosthenes   Email ReikoDemosthenes         Edit/Delete Post 
I'm reminded of Frankenstein's Daemon...
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Noemon
Member
Member # 1115

 - posted      Profile for Noemon   Email Noemon         Edit/Delete Post 
How interesting--I'd never heard of this condition before. Are there internal defects as severe as the external ones?

::checks::

So it would seem.

Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Carrie
Member
Member # 394

 - posted      Profile for Carrie   Email Carrie         Edit/Delete Post 
I've seen that before.

[boring story]

I did a presentation last semester on modern visual representations of the monsters in Hesiod's Theogony, and naturally I decided to touch on Cerberus. I was directed by a fellow student to an anthropology paper on how that which is deformed is more disturbing - more monstrous - to human senses than that which is just big, dark and scary. This fit well with my take on Cerberus, as well as the Chimaera and Typhoeus. Umm... right. So I was looking online for modern pictures of Cerberus and found the "freaky animal webpage," where there was a picture of a kitten looking almost exactly like this one. It was a good day when I could really gross out some of my friends in the department [Smile]

[/boring story]

Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Dead_Horse
Member
Member # 3027

 - posted      Profile for Dead_Horse   Email Dead_Horse         Edit/Delete Post 
It sounds like the kitten only lived about 2 days at most. Doesn't it take about a week for kitten eyes to open after they are born?
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ClaudiaTherese
Member
Member # 923

 - posted      Profile for ClaudiaTherese           Edit/Delete Post 
Similar congenital anomalies also occur in humans. Plus there are infants born who appear to be covered in scales, or have flippers, or any variety of unusual presentations. (I'm not going to link to online images here because it would feel like mockery. You can search them out if it is a specific interest.) This is why I very strongly hesitate to apply the "looks like it's human" test in discussions of voluntary abortion.

"Looks like" actually means much less when you know how varied it can be in a given species.

This kitten may not have had a functioning eyelid, and that may have been why the eye was open. But, as Noemon linked, there were multiple internal anomalies as well, and this is probably what kept him from surviving. But that needn't necessarily have been the case. Children with holoprosencephaly have survived. From what I recall, there is often a penis-shaped protrusion above the single eye (there is a special name for it, but I can't remember it). Usually, though, the more unusual the external anomalies are, the more unusual the internal ones are, too. Not always, though.

Edited to add: And how those who care for childrens (and kittens [Smile] ) with very unusual features relate to them is a measure of how familiarity can change what seems to be an intrinsic, automatic "squick" response in to something else.

Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ketchupqueen
Member
Member # 6877

 - posted      Profile for ketchupqueen   Email ketchupqueen         Edit/Delete Post 
Why would people automatically think it was a hoax? From what I have read in the past, it's a documented abnormality that's got quite an established history.

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body is a really fascinating (and, despite the first word of the title, compassionate and kind) look at genetic mutations and the defects they cause-- and what these aberrations teach us about the way humans develop. I highly recommend it to those with an interest in the subject.

Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ketchupqueen
Member
Member # 6877

 - posted      Profile for ketchupqueen   Email ketchupqueen         Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
And how those who care for childrens (and kittens ) with very unusual features relate to them is a measure of how familiarity can change what seems to be an intrinsic, automatic "squick" response in to something else.
...which is why I encourage people to familiarize themselves with more common "abnormal features" so they can react in a loving way to babies with conditions like cleft lips and palates, who really can be beautiful, but many of whose parents never get told that. [Smile]
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Primal Curve
Member
Member # 3587

 - posted      Profile for Primal Curve           Edit/Delete Post 
Is it weird that I found it more fascinating than horrifying?
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Theaca
Member
Member # 8325

 - posted      Profile for Theaca   Email Theaca         Edit/Delete Post 
proboscis, CT.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
KarlEd
Member
Member # 571

 - posted      Profile for KarlEd   Email KarlEd         Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Originally posted by Primal Curve:
Is it weird that I found it more fascinating than horrifying?

My first reaction was "Oh Wow", then "It's actually kind of cute." I was sad to read that it didn't live.

While I wouldn't wish suffering on the poor thing, if it had simply been born that way and lived relatively normally, I wouldn't have been sqicked in the least. I think it would be great to have a cyclops cat. (again, and I have to stress this, I don't mean one with internal deformities that would never be able to have an enjoyable life.)

Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Noemon
Member
Member # 1115

 - posted      Profile for Noemon   Email Noemon         Edit/Delete Post 
That was exactly my reaction, Karl. In fact, I said almost exactly what you just said, word for word, in an email message about this kitten earlier today.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
camus
Member
Member # 8052

 - posted      Profile for camus   Email camus         Edit/Delete Post 
My initial reaction was more of a "Hmmm, that's interesting. I wonder if it will survive." It never really creeped me out until I thought about it a while. I don't really know why that is, so that makes me somewhat curious about what Carrie's anthropology paper has to say about this.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
camus
Member
Member # 8052

 - posted      Profile for camus   Email camus         Edit/Delete Post 
I also wonder if, once we gain more genetic knowledge, people would want to "design" a creature like this. If so, what ethical limitations would there be in regards to tampering with genetics in animals?
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
littlemissattitude
Member
Member # 4514

 - posted      Profile for littlemissattitude   Email littlemissattitude         Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body is a really fascinating (and, despite the first word of the title, compassionate and kind) look at genetic mutations and the defects they cause-- and what these aberrations teach us about the way humans develop. I highly recommend it to those with an interest in the subject.

I second KQ's recommendation of this book. It is really very good.

I guess I've been a little bit morbidly curious about these kinds of things ever since I was in the third grade and went to a school for a little while where there was a boy who had six fingers on each hand. I hated the way the other kids would crowd around him and make fun of him, but it still left me with a curiosity about people with such abnormalities.

Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ketchupqueen
Member
Member # 6877

 - posted      Profile for ketchupqueen   Email ketchupqueen         Edit/Delete Post 
My neice was born with six fingers on each hand. No biggie. They tied them off and they died and then they just took scissors and snipped. Like a hangnail, really.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
aspectre
Member
Member # 2222

 - posted      Profile for aspectre           Edit/Delete Post 
If man wasn't meant to have six fingers, there wouldn't be six strings on a guitar.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
quidscribis
Member
Member # 5124

 - posted      Profile for quidscribis   Email quidscribis         Edit/Delete Post 
Is there any reason, other than cosmetics, to remove the extra fingers?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ketchupqueen
Member
Member # 6877

 - posted      Profile for ketchupqueen   Email ketchupqueen         Edit/Delete Post 
Well, they get in the way a bit. And, like, wearing gloves. But, yeah, I think it's just cosmetic, other than that.

Well, that and, you know, kids are mean. It's a quality of life issue when they get older.

Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
quidscribis
Member
Member # 5124

 - posted      Profile for quidscribis   Email quidscribis         Edit/Delete Post 
True. And I hadn't thought of gloves - what can I say, haven't worn 'em in a while. [Smile]

I guess a part of me wonders if we, as humans, would be more accepting of mutations if they weren't so quickly altered to become more aesthetically normal? Or hidden.

For example, in India, people are very open about hermaphrodites (which is what they're called there, although they're called something else more polite in North America and I don't recall that terminology at the moment. Sexual differentiation?) Those with the condition are accepted quite readily for who they are and have a fair amount of freedom to be both male and female in appearance and dress, if that makes sense.

I dunno. It makes me wonder.

Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
ketchupqueen
Member
Member # 6877

 - posted      Profile for ketchupqueen   Email ketchupqueen         Edit/Delete Post 
Have you heard of the "huevodoces"? In the Dominican Republic, an intersex condition where babies appear female but then, after puberty, become male in appearance (and function, they can have kids and all) is fairly common. Because it's so common, there's no stigma real attatched to it. Of course, the doctors and nurses and midwives have gotten better at telling which babies will have the condition. But if a baby is treated as a girl and then "turns male" at puberty, it's no big deal; they just switch to a masculine name and clothing and treat him as a boy from then on.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
quidscribis
Member
Member # 5124

 - posted      Profile for quidscribis   Email quidscribis         Edit/Delete Post 
I hadn't. I Googled it and came up with not very much at all. So it's faulty testosterone converting enzyme. Interesting.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
   

   Close Topic   Feature Topic   Move Topic   Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
 - Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:


Contact Us | Hatrack River Home Page

Copyright © 2008 Hatrack River Enterprises Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.


Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classic™ 6.7.2