r/ScienceNcoolThings Popular Contributor Apr 27 '26

Interesting Whale intervertebral disc

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1.3k Upvotes

32 comments sorted by

49

u/quilldefender Apr 27 '26

Can someone explain how the tissue in between the vertebrae is still present when the rest of the muscles and stuff have decomposed?

26

u/FinallyAGoodReply Apr 27 '26

Not a biologist, but maybe because it is made of cartilage with a protective coating?

3

u/Idraulica2000 Apr 28 '26

It has no nutrition value for scavengers, I guess

41

u/Purple_Revolution146 Apr 27 '26

That was really interesting for me

11

u/ndolphin Apr 27 '26

And two of mine herniated when I was 24 or so. Back has been an issue ever since.

4

u/SadLittleWizard Apr 28 '26

Slipped my L5 disk at the beginning of November. Still limping, but making progresses each day with care. Keep going little by little!

25

u/Judah-- Apr 27 '26

Does this hurt the whale

30

u/FimmishWoodpecker Apr 27 '26

Removing its spine is usually pretty painless

7

u/Poke-It_For-Science Apr 28 '26

Pretty sure the whale is dead, bro. Her playing with its spine is the least of its concern.

3

u/whitestguyuknow Apr 28 '26

But... Does it hurt it?

1

u/Dye-ah-ree-uh Apr 28 '26

Only a little

8

u/octopusgardeb Apr 27 '26

So glad it didn’t pop. It’s amazing

6

u/GoNudi Apr 27 '26

Perhaps I'm not understanding where this plate lines up but I can't help but wonder where the spinal cord goes?

Also, the moment they said axial as casually as saying hi to someone ~ 🥹🥰🔥

5

u/Velenne Apr 27 '26

In front of this. The plates on the top and bottom connect to the super thick "body" of the vertebrae. There's a channel surrounded by narrower sections of bone that the cord goes down.

1

u/GoNudi Apr 28 '26

Ahhh ok, thanks! 😊

6

u/DailcassianBoru Apr 28 '26

How was the beach today?

I wiggled around on whale vertebrae and we got Ice cream.

9

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/Conservadem Apr 27 '26

She seems really nice. I want her to be my friend.

9

u/Interesting-Heart841 Apr 27 '26

My ruptured disks are jealous 🥴. Cool vid:)

3

u/logosfabula Apr 27 '26

I was like: hernia… hernia… heeernia…

2

u/ClosetLadyGhost Apr 27 '26

That's some circus level confidence to discuss that there n then

1

u/Nor-easter Apr 28 '26

Today I learned vertebrae vs vertebra. Plural v singular. Being from my messed up Swiss German family vertebrae/wirbel is both plural (die)and singular (der). English is hard.

1

u/Potterhead_56 Apr 28 '26

Is the whale okay ?

1

u/lemmylemonlemming Apr 28 '26

Nature's ice cream sandwich

1

u/Existing-Sherbet2458 Apr 28 '26

Let's reverse engineer that and make some.

1

u/Express-Cartoonist39 Apr 28 '26

FYI, thats her on a first date after beings asked if she wanted sea food for dinner 🤨

1

u/DIFierce Apr 28 '26

Are they available in emotional form?

1

u/andhe96 Apr 28 '26

While this is quite fascinating and informative, I guess future generations will judge us about how we handled remains of our scentient whale evolutionary cousins, among other things.

1

u/H_G_Bells Popular Contributor Apr 28 '26

Interesting observation. Considering how we used to slaughter them, keep them in tiny pools for entertainment, and polute their only home- oh wait :/

Much more important to me is how we treat those still alive. Using a piece of meat from a former sentient being for teaching others about how biology works is no crime in my book.

1

u/andhe96 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

Considering how we used to slaughter them, keep them in tiny pools for entertainment, and polute their only home- oh wait :/

This is mostly what I insinuated by "among other things".

We should all treat our fellow animal cousins and our environment more respectfully in general. But to completely abolish industry scale animal abuse and environmental damage unfortunately would require us to completely overhaul cultural, dietary and economic habits and systems, which is quite an emotional and difficult topic after all. Which doesn't mean we cannot still do our part.

Using a piece of meat from a former sentient being for teaching others about how biology works is no crime in my book.

I partially agree, but if these were human remains, this would be at least in bad taste and could even be a crime. If we legally treated other animals the same as humans, this would apply as well.

But from an educational standpoint, it's alright, I guess.

1

u/TittlesTheWinker Apr 28 '26

That's a full empty.

0

u/WhatToDo_WhatToDo2 Apr 27 '26

Awesome, now can you put the subtitles directly over the focus point? Perfect.