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Hybrid: A Change of Heart

A Change of Heart

BBC Radio 4 - Hybrid, A Change of Heart

Simon Watt wonders if we could upgrade the human body, with help from the animal kingdom.

Evolutionary biologist and comedian Simon Watt wonders if we could upgrade our wonky human body, with a little help from the animal kingdom.

Evolutionary biologist, comedian, and aspiring Dr Frankenstein Simon Watt is on a quest to improve the human body, with a little help from our animal cousins. In each episode he turns his imaginary scalpel on a different human organ and wonders if we wouldn’t be better off with something slightly different – the eyes of a chameleon for example, or the guts of a vulture!

Our heart is our life force, beating out the rhythm to our days 40-100 times every minute, for as long as we live. But it's also fragile; cardiovascular disease has been the number one killer of humans since the middle of the 20th century. And it's all the fault of FAT. Thea Bechshoft from Polar Bears International introduces us to the fluffy white giants of the arctic, who eat nothing but fat, all summer long, and suffer none of our heart-ache from doing so. The secret is all in their genes.

If you reach old age without your coronary arteries clogging up with fat, you might suffer instead from cardiac fibrosis, a kind of hardening of the muscle of the heart. Holly Shiels from the University of Manchester takes us a mile and a half beneath the surface of the North Sea, to meet an ancient titan who simply doesn't get age-related fibrosis. It's the Greenland Shark. They live to extraordinary ages too - up to 500 years old.

For our final stop on the cardiac carousel, Colleen Farmer from the University of Utah takes us deep inside the four-chambered heart of the Crocodile. It's very similar to our own, except for one small and fascinating valve. It allows the humble croc to control where its blood goes, bi-passing the lungs if necessary. Simon wonders what uses we might fund for a crocodilian 'cardiac shunt' of our own.

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Evolutionary biologist, comedian, and aspiring Dr Frankenstein Simon Watt is on a quest to improve the human body, with a little help from our animal cousins.

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