Today I Learned (TIL)

6522 readers

9 users here now

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?

/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.

Share your knowledge and experience!

Rules

Information must be true
Follow site rules
No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
Posts must be about something you learned

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL that in 1961, the only doctor at a Soviet research station in Antarctica got appendicitis, and had to performed surgery on himself to remove his appendix. Two weeks later he resumed regular duties (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bonus: Nowadays Australian doctors staying over the winter must remove their appendix preemptively, in order to avoid similar situations.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eyesight will get worse over time now, but people can see better than ever... it's a bizarre contradiction.

Until you consider medicine and technology to be part of the aggregate evolutionary progress. In which case, we're racing ahead!

I don't think we see a return to traditional evolutionary pressure unless we get truly isolated populations again, coupled with a major global disaster. That, or people living in space.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Until you consider medicine and technology to be part of the aggregate evolutionary progress

No, that stuff is memetic instead of genetic.

You can say it's human society evolving, but it's not humans evolving.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think there is a strong argument that we have been post human since we developed writing and that a 'person' encompasses more than just their meat sack. I was first introduced to this idea by the book Natural Born Cyborgs. You are taking a narrower view of the word evolution, but I'm not totally sure it's justified.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I can see the argument that it's part of the evolutionary advantage conferred by bigger brains, vocal chords, and opposable thumbs.