Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Circumstances under which I’d never wear any clothes

September 24th, 2012 by PZ Myers

Wouldn’t it be cool to have transparent skin?

Posted in Organisms | 28 comments

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28 comments on this post.

  1. davidnangle:

    September 24th, 2012 at 7:50 am

    “Hey, I thought you said the kids ate the last of the Oreos?!”

    Busted yet again!

  2. crocodoc:

    September 24th, 2012 at 7:51 am

    We do have transparent skin we just cannot see the right wavelengths

  3. llewelly:

    September 24th, 2012 at 8:11 am

    … if said transparent skin were appropriately opaque to dangerous frequencies, such as UV , that would be wonderful.

  4. birgerjohansson:

    September 24th, 2012 at 8:17 am

    You would get early warning about Alien parasites establishing themselves in your thorax.

  5. blf:

    September 24th, 2012 at 9:01 am

    Is that picture of poopyhead I or poopyhead II? I’m having problems keeping my poopyheads straight…

  6. Marcus Ranum:

    September 24th, 2012 at 9:28 am

    Upside: “Hey, what’s that black lump growing on your liver?”
    Downside: “I sunburned my kidneys again…”

  7. chigau (違わない):

    September 24th, 2012 at 9:47 am

    I’m having problems keeping my poopyheads straight…

    The mental pictures…

  8. carbonbasedlifeform:

    September 24th, 2012 at 10:03 am

    It certainly would make anatomy study much easier.

  9. Glen Davidson:

    September 24th, 2012 at 10:06 am

    I’m for keeping the colon opaque.

    Glen Davidson

  10. Randomfactor:

    September 24th, 2012 at 10:17 am

    I’m for keeping the colon opaque.

    No shit.

  11. scottlesch:

    September 24th, 2012 at 10:54 am

    Not too good for “Sally Impossible” from The Venture Brothers.

  12. woodsong:

    September 24th, 2012 at 11:32 am

    What a gorgeous little frog! I’d love a chance to see one (or several) of those someday.

    The internal iridescence is amazing and beautiful.

  13. mjmiller:

    September 24th, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    Randomfactor For the Win!

    -Here’s your shiny new internet.

  14. Sili:

    September 24th, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    No. I’m selfconscious enough about my outsides as it is. I hate having to go to school with a spot on my nose. Having to go with a spot on my liver would just kill me.

  15. A. R:

    September 24th, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    Want.

  16. carpenterman:

    September 24th, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    No way. I like women’s skin just the way it is.

  17. Ace of Sevens:

    September 24th, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    Are those eggs?

  18. Owlmirror:

    September 24th, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    Yes, those are eggs.

    ObTetZoo:

      http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/11/09/green-boned-glass-frogs/

    I left a comment on that thread linking to the original of the above image, which is from National Geographic Visions of Earth. The caption for this image was:

    Photograph by Heidi and Hans-Jürgen Koch
    April 2008
    Germany—The see-through skin of an inch-long glass frog reveals her eggs. Native to Venezuela, the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams. Tadpoles hatch, then tumble into the current to be swept away.

  19. Tom J:

    September 24th, 2012 at 5:01 pm

    No thanks! I’d hate to get a sunburn on my liver and all my insides.

  20. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical:

    September 24th, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    On the bright side, it would make part of biology class much less traumatic. “No, professor. I will not dissect the frog. Instead, I will just point and say.”

  21. Menyambal --- Sambal's Little Helper:

    September 24th, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    Somehow, looking at that picture, it seems stunningly obvious that a frog evolved from a squishy, wet, semi-transparent, single-celled organism with protozoan pseudopods and all.

  22. Vasha:

    September 24th, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    The article is good too. Great that the reporter asked the scientist how he’d test his hypotheses.

  23. Dhorvath, OM:

    September 24th, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    I would so sit and watch my dinner.

  24. strange gods before me ॐ:

    September 24th, 2012 at 8:27 pm

    more: http://google.com/images?q=glass+frog

  25. culch:

    September 25th, 2012 at 7:00 am

    Owlmirror,
    Thanks for the links. Pretty pictures are nice, but then I want to know some details of what I’m looking at.

  26. pipenta:

    September 25th, 2012 at 8:04 am

    Wouldn’t that make pregnancy even more interesting than it already is!

    I’d have a real problem getting used to people’s faces if we had transparent skin. I guess we’d all eventually get used to it, but in the meantime YUCK. It would be like living in one of those creepy old EC horror comic books.

  27. didgen:

    September 25th, 2012 at 5:53 pm

    Could someone identify the white area that looks a little like styrofoam? Thanks, I read the article very informative thanks Owlmirror.

  28. ivarhusa:

    September 26th, 2012 at 9:22 am

    Ironically, perhaps, I would not have the ‘guts’ to go out in public… (Though provably otherwise.)