The origin of the anus

September 18, 2008 2:46 PM

Getting to the bottom of evolution:Genetic study investigates the origin of the anus.
posted by homunculus (52 comments total)

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by psmealey at 2:49 PM on September 18, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

Well, it's about time.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:53 PM on September 18, 2008

Fundamental research.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:56 PM on September 18, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

From the second link, "the anus could migrate to the far end of animal."

Didn't David Kronenberg do several films about this?

Also, this theory would explain rush hour in New York.
posted by zippy at 3:00 PM on September 18, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

*
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:01 PM on September 18, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Wait...anuses (ani?) migrate?
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:02 PM on September 18, 2008

The data's clearly tainted.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:04 PM on September 18, 2008 [10 favorites has favorites]

Is there an explanation of the ability of some to speak from their anus?
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:05 PM on September 18, 2008

I knew there was something interesting about this, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
posted by Mcable at 3:05 PM on September 18, 2008

Worms and other lower on the evolutionary scale organisms mix food and wastes. Thats why they will never rule the earth. Bees on the other hand can totally take over.
posted by hal_c_on at 3:08 PM on September 18, 2008

>>Wait...anuses (ani?) migrate?

A bunch of them just left Minneapolis-St. Paul.
posted by SaintCynr at 3:13 PM on September 18, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

I knew there was something interesting about this, but I just couldn't put my finger on in it.

Fixed that for you.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:15 PM on September 18, 2008

It's really quite alimentary.
posted by sapere aude at 3:16 PM on September 18, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

how is butthole formed?
posted by emelenjr at 3:17 PM on September 18, 2008

Through study of the origin of species, we have discovered the origin of feces.
posted by Demogorgon at 3:19 PM on September 18, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Gotta love Nature magazine. Three reader comments under the first link story, and not an iota of snark.
posted by sapere aude at 3:20 PM on September 18, 2008

damnit, where's Faint of Butt when you need 'em?
posted by heeeraldo at 3:23 PM on September 18, 2008

The Origin of the Feces.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:23 PM on September 18, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Greatest study in the anals of science.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:25 PM on September 18, 2008

Is there an explanation of the ability of some to speak from their anus?

Well, the anus first formed to separate the eating/waste functions. Now that it is there, the speaking function often divides itself equally between mouth and anus. In some inviduals, evolution has taken over and eating takes place with the mouth, and all waste, including verbal output, is expelled from the anus.

Really, it's more efficient that way.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:25 PM on September 18, 2008

damnit, where's Faint of Butt when you need 'em?

Also, If I had An Anus. Whatever happened to him? He'd be glad to know that he could evolve one.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:26 PM on September 18, 2008

Lower on the evolutionary scale? If you think there is an evolutionary scale with higher and lower rungs, then you don't understand evolution. If you believe in that scale and still think evolution is true, you are doing it out of faith. Metafilterians rarely fail to disappoint in hard science posts, specially biology/evolution.
posted by dirty lies at 3:26 PM on September 18, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

“The issue remains open.”

Detlev Arendt
EMBL

Obviously they don't pay Detlev enough.
posted by netbros at 3:27 PM on September 18, 2008

butts lol
posted by Demogorgon at 3:28 PM on September 18, 2008

If Assholes Could Fly, This Place Would Be An Airport!
posted by porn in the woods at 3:29 PM on September 18, 2008

Once again, I am prostate before the altar of science.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:32 PM on September 18, 2008

Frankly, this research stinks.
posted by maxwelton at 3:32 PM on September 18, 2008

Metafilter: the origin of the anus.

_{What? It wrote itself.}
posted by illiad at 3:37 PM on September 18, 2008

This would be the perfect occasion to crack open my pun thesaurus, if only I had one.
posted by stavrogin at 3:39 PM on September 18, 2008

I'd love to hear these researchers getting stressed out though:

"I'm up to my neck in anus!"

On the other hand, it would be pretty interesting working in an office where email forwards of goatse.cx are actually done for legitimate research purposes.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:42 PM on September 18, 2008

>>This would be the perfect occasion to crack open my pun thesaurus
>>perfect occasion to crack
>>crack

Done and done!
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:43 PM on September 18, 2008

Now that it is there, the speaking function often divides itself equally between mouth and anus. In some inviduals, evolution has taken over and eating takes place with the mouth, and all waste, including verbal output, is expelled from the anus.

Sometimes the anus learns to eat too, and then it doesn't need the mouth anymore.
posted by homunculus at 3:48 PM on September 18, 2008

>Metafilterians rarely fail to disappoint in hard science posts, specially biology/evolution.

>butts lol

heh.
posted by xbonesgt at 3:57 PM on September 18, 2008

After reading the article, I have to say it would almost be worth the $5 just to create a gimmick account named "slit-like blastopore".
posted by mosk at 4:01 PM on September 18, 2008

In some inviduals, evolution has taken over and eating takes place with the mouth, and all waste, including verbal output, is expelled from the anus.

The end justifies the mean.
posted by hal9k at 4:01 PM on September 18, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

That article was full of shit.
posted by LondonYank at 4:06 PM on September 18, 2008

i haven't read it. is it about bush?
posted by kitchenrat at 4:29 PM on September 18, 2008

Scientist: "I've got a new job in research!"

Wife: "Is the pay good?"

Scientist: "The pay is crap!"

Wife: "What will you be studying?"

Scientist: "Some stupid shit."

Wife: "But, honey..."

Scientist: "Okay, you guessed it! Butt honey! And anuses!"
posted by jamstigator at 4:32 PM on September 18, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

No, if you want to read about bush you should visit the manscaping thread here
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:33 PM on September 18, 2008

About time somebody cracked the code.
posted by jonmc at 5:54 PM on September 18, 2008

This is a study I can get behind.
posted by nightchrome at 6:19 PM on September 18, 2008

A proctologist tries to write a prescription for a patient.

Dr: Nurse! My pen won't write!

Nurse (looking at the "pen": Dr, that is not a pen. Its a rectal thermometer.

Dr (surprised): My god, you're right! What asshole took my pen?
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:25 PM on September 18, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

This will end badly.
posted by binturong at 8:08 PM on September 18, 2008

Lower on the evolutionary scale? If you think there is an evolutionary scale with higher and lower rungs, then you don't understand evolution. If you believe in that scale and still think evolution is true, you are doing it out of faith. Metafilterians rarely fail to disappoint in hard science posts, specially biology/evolution.

I think this is disingenuous. Do you not agree that some organisms are more complex than others, and humans specifically are more complex than worms, in terms of the number of processes required to maintain the organism in question? I think that's obviously the metric the rungs are based on in hal_c_on's comment.
posted by invitapriore at 8:48 PM on September 18, 2008

I tried reading the paper, but couldn't find the appendix.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:27 PM on September 18, 2008

This paper has really inspired me to get my hands dirty expanding this potentially wide open new field of study.

-- Dr. Goetse, MD
posted by empath at 9:44 PM on September 18, 2008

Come on. God created the anus on the sixth day at 8:46 a.m., right after his second cup of coffee while reading the Times.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:06 PM on September 18, 2008

The anus, it migrates?
posted by zippy at 10:56 PM on September 18, 2008

Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig, farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard.

After a while the ass start talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time.

Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in-curving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights.

It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. Nobody loved it and it wanted to be kissed same as any other mouth.

Finally it talked all the time day and night, you could hear him for blocks screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it, but nothing did any good and the asshole said to him:

‘It’s you who will shut up in the end not me. Because we don’t need you around here any more. I can talk and eat and shit.’

After that he began waking up in the morning with a transparent jelly like a tadpole’s tail all over his mouth. This jelly was what the scientists call UDT — un-differentiated tissue, which can grow into any kind of flesh on the human body.

He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands like burning gasoline jelly and grow there, grow anywhere on him a glob of it fell.

So finally his mouth sealed over, and the whole head would have amputated spontaneous — except for the eyes, you dig? That’s one thing the asshole couldn’t do was see. It needed the eyes. But nerve connections were blocked and infiltrated and atrophied so the brain couldn’t give orders any more. It was trapped in the skull, sealed off.

For a while you could see the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes, then finally the brain must have died, because the eyes went out, and there was no more feeling in them than a crab’s eyes on the end of a stalk.
- Burroughs
posted by benzenedream at 12:04 AM on September 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Summary: A big mouth made an ass of itself.

No, it has nothing to do with a cable news host.
posted by chillmost at 12:29 AM on September 19, 2008

...both are located to take advantage of our planet's gravitational force. Thus clearly we were designed for this planet and also may have evolved to an extent on this planet. Dr. Upinder Fotadar

Comment #3 from the first link, read: Ass-assist as proof we are not aliens.
I couldn't help but read this as subtle snark.

And good thing we didn't evolve in that wacky Uranus gravity!
posted by shunshine at 1:57 AM on September 19, 2008

I think this is disingenuous. Do you not agree that some organisms are more complex than others, and humans specifically are more complex than worms, in terms of the number of processes required to maintain the organism in question? I think that's obviously the metric the rungs are based on in hal_c_on's comment.

I don't think it's disingenuous. The metric is not complexity, it's fitness. Which is cool, because if you find an organism that demonstrates fitness for reasons you don't understand, you've got an opportunity to learn something.
posted by sneebler at 6:58 AM on September 19, 2008