this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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So if I understand you correctly, if I remove my lungs, I’m a bee? My aunt had lung cancer, so they’ll probably kill me, anyway. I’ll report back on the results.
No because you’re likely too big (no offense) :(
I think insects have little holes all over their bodies, in which air gets inside by itself through some physics shenanigans. It doesn’t need to be actively sucked in like with lungs, it just happens because they’re so small.
This method doesn’t scale up though since if you’re bigger, you need more air, and having little holes all over your body won’t cut it. Thats when you know you need lungs, and that’s why you don’t see insects the size of a dog these days (thankfully).
There used to be times in the Earth’s history (Carboniferous) where the air’s composition was different though, and since it had more oxygen in it, insects could grow a lot larger.
Fun fact: Cutaneous respiration (aka "Skin breathing") is something we humans do too. But it accounts only for 1% to 2% of our oxygen input.
However, the cornea of our eyes doesn't have its own blood vessels to supply it. Therefore, it relies on direct gas exchange with the environment—in other words, skin respiration.
Our eyes breath like bees.
Is that why bees can't wear contact lenses?
No, it's because they have compound eyes. Even if they could afford all the different lenses they need, they'd never have enough time to put them in and take them out, while still working a full day.
surely they could just make one big lens with facets in it? sure they're gonna be hellishly expensive but at least they're usable
Honestly, I was already out of my depth with the entomology and ophthalmology discussed here. The economics of bee optometry might be a bridge too far for me. Can a bee make enough honey to afford such lenses? If so, does it improve the bee's ability to make honey enough to justify the cost? I have no idea and no clue regarding how to investigate this issue.
perhaps we're coming at this from the wrong direction, does a bee even need lenses? maybe what they actually need is just eye protection, which would make everything much cheaper
Correction or no, it seems something like goggles is the solution. Boggles?
Interesting hypothesis. I guess the best way to test it would be to try to sell bee safety glasses to beekeepers.
You can alway upsell them on bee ears to hold the glasses on
Genius. Genetic modification of bees. What could possibly go wrong?
So what you're saying is I have two eyes in my beeholes?
I like this fact. That's why it's so important to take out certain kinds of contacts at night.
1-2% is more than I'd have imagined!
Adding to this, the holes (spiracles) connect to the tracheae, which connect to air sacs. While respiration is almost entirely passive in smaller species, larger species actually force air through the system to aid the otherwise passive process.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_system_of_insects
Side note: Spiders have book lungs. They're not insects, but like insects, they are arthropods.
So theoretically if we terraformed the Earth we would be free to genetically engineer humans to survive without lungs?
They wouldn't be human. So much of us is built around our lungs, including our ability to speak that anything adapted to survive without them would be as different from a human as a human is from other lung-less animals. Even if they were more intelligent, they would not look or act remotely like a human.
Keyword suggestion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Okay, first of all, how dare you bring evidence and reason into this.
On a more serious note, I agree with the position mentioned in the second paragraph that transhumanism results in a posthuman being, that is, a species that is not human.
Human is such a flaky word, and species isn't much better. I'd bet there could be a situation in which they can successfully interbreed with relatively modern humans and still produce viable offspring, so still the same species. Human doesn't even require homo sapiens though. It can include other species that have the traits of humans.
You're not wrong. One group will displace the other, though. Some of us Homo Sapiens still have genes from Homo Neanderthalensis. Neanderthals aren't around anymore, though. Also, archeological evidence suggests they didn't spend much time together.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it but the movie Mimic had bugs that had grown to the size of a human and taken on a vaguely human form in order to hunt us.
The movie used the reasoning that the bugs had developed basic lungs which enabled them to grow past the limits of their usual breathing apparatus.
No point to make here, I just remember it being cool that they put a small amount of thought into why the bugs could grow to human proportions.
Kafka's Gregor would like a word.
Yeah, and if you pluck a chicken, it will be a human, because it's featherless and stands on two legs.
But what came first, the human or the egg?
I don't have a clever response, so I'll just point out that eggs predate vertebrates by millions of years.
Nah-ah, that makes it a dinosaur!
Wait till you hear about Eric the half a bee
I do love me some Monty Python. I can never pick a favorite sketch. It keeps changing. The Parot sketch is definitely top ten.
Diogenes my goat
Glad you brought this up. I'm doing some work in this rich guy's house and I can't find a single spittoon.
That is almost how it works, but to really become a bee you'll have to turn the lungs into wings. Good luck. I'm looking forward to seeing the result.
[Lung flapping sounds]
Mm moist.
It would definitely change the nature of romance and sex.
If you like reading, maybe a half-way solution could be achieved with book lungs like a spider.
Non-insect arthropods FTW!
Then, when your spouse hugs you, they’ll have beauty in their eye.
Bee holder
WHAT! MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT!