http://erectlocution.disqus.com/enSat, 05 Mar 2011 23:30:15 -0000http://erectlocution.com/2009/07/20/tailbone-connected-funny-bone/#comment-161159679In addition to the "bad design" examples given in the link, one that I find mind-boggling is the laryngeal nerve. Sometime early on in the evolutionary tree, this nerve happened to go from the brain to the aorta around which it looped before ending in the larynx. Now, as the neck of animals enlarged, the "detour" required to loop the aorta got longer and longer. This reaches comical proportions in the giraffe (they had a BBC show on which they dissected a giraffe and saw that the laryngeal nerve takes a detour of more than 10 feet, going all the way down the animals neck, circling its aorta, and coming all the way back up to end in the larynx!).<br><br>BTW, I highly recommend watching all those dissections, carried out on large dead animals. The program was available on youtube some months ago. They are tough to stomach, but compulsively watchable.PolarisSat, 05 Mar 2011 23:30:15 -0000