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Caesar Is Home
We
recently switched to DirecTV for our TV, and we have several movie channels
that just play movies that have recently came out of theaters and are no longer
new releases at movie rental stores. One
of my favorites of these movies is Rise
of the Planet of the Apes, which is about a scientist who creates a virus
that can cause neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells. He tests it on his pet chimpanzee, who is
eventually taken to animal control for beating the hell out of one of the
neighbors. Later, the chimpanzee, named
Caesar, unleashes the virus on all the apes in the facility, and they proceed
to take over the city of Oakland.
Although
this situation probably is impossible within the next few centuries, I still am
very intrigued by the whole idea. I am
amazed by the strength of these apes, and I wish that I had that kind of
strength. I often joke with my friends
that if I had my brain in a chimpanzee’s body, I could easily take over the
world. One of the most obvious
advantages that apes have over humans is their incredible hand and arm
strength. As shown in the movie,
chimpanzees can easily climb up a giant redwood tree, while an extremely fit
human would take somewhere from thirty minutes to an hour to do this. Another clear strength that we humans lack is
their jaw. Humans still have extremely
powerful jaw muscles, which are pound-for-pound the strongest muscles in our
bodies, but apes’ jaws are tens of times stronger, and are valuable tools and
weapons in the wild.
In
fact, one theory of humans’ divergence from apes throughout evolution is that a
mutation in a gene for jaw strength allowed humans’ skulls to grow much bigger
as they were no longer held down by the powerful jaw muscles, and this led to
larger brains and dramatically increased intelligence. I would like to have this, but then have the
gene replaced with that of our ancestors, so that my jaw muscles would be as
powerful as an ape’s. In Planet of the Apes, the chimpanzees’,
orangutans’ and gorillas’ intelligence increased exponentially in a very short
period of time, and this is simply unrealistic.
There is no way that this fast of a neurological change could happen in
any species on Earth. However, I still
am a big fan of the movie.
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