Nov 8, 2014

Leftish Physiology

Frank Gorshin
One of my least favorite episodes of Star Trek was "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". I'm not sure which I disliked more, Frank Gorshin or Gene Coon's trash-bin-worthy story. I was appalled by the biological implausibility of the half-body pigmentation that was depicted for the people of Cheron.

On the other hand...
Recently I've been discovering some of the unusual physiology of the Prelands. For example, the Preland respiratory tract was redesigned for a reproductive function. Without lungs, how do Prelands obtain oxygen and eliminate waste carbon dioxide?

click image to enlarge
(source: DWS)
Over most of the Preland body surface the hair follicles are replaced by respiratory tubules. The right half of the Preland body surface is specialized for absorption of oxygen and the left side has large numbers of proteins in the respiratory tubules that support the facilitated transport of CO2 out of the body.

Alien pilot of the U-723
Prelands were designed so that the right side of the heart sends oxygenated blood arriving from the skin to the critical organs like the brain as well as the Preland "pouch", assuring a high concentration of oxygen for any newborn who is being carried in the pouch.

image source
I've been creating illustrations for The Sessily Trilogy, a linked set of three science fiction mysteries. The basic premiss for these three stories is that there have long been Preland visitors on Earth. I've been imagining that Prelands have an elfish appearance. Although Prelands are hermaphrodites, humans tend to view them as female.

I made the image for "A few Good Aliens" using a few public domain photographs from NASA.

Who knew? Terminator Salvation
I've never seen a Terminator movie. "Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost two hours."                                                                                  -Roger Ebert

source
From the Left Side of the Universe
Novelas - Exodemic Universe (Book Guide) by Source Wikia

Several years ago I was amused when "Books LLC" aggregated some stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. All the stories are freely available on the internet, mostly at the Novelas wiki

Now a "google document" is being used to market this "book" which I've seen for sale at prices from about $20.00 to $50.00 on various websites.

Related reading: Volume of Praise 

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