What about the genetic code to grow angel wings?

[Bobbyh]

Could we potentially alter human dna to evolve into a speices of winged people ressembling angels in the future? Is heaven in the future? Or did we miss it? Or is it all just whatever we can make it?

[jarofthoughts]

Originally Posted by Bobbyh

Could we potentially alter human dna to evolve into a speices of winged people ressembling angels in the future? Is heaven in the future? Or did we miss it? Or is it all just whatever we can make it?

For that to happen we would have to change the genes controlling our overall body-plan. By that I mean the genes telling the body how many limbs to grow for instance. And that is very very unlikely to happen, at least with any form of favourable result. The body-plan of mammals, in fact, of vertebrates is pretty much set and has been for hundreds of millions of years.

And that's just the first hurdle.

Then we'd need to do some serious changes to skeletal construction, muscle placement and growth and so on, just to become light enough and strong enough to become airborne. Thereafter there is the whole issue of growing feathers...

In fact, it would be more likely, if we were to achieve non-artificial flight, to develop something along the lines of the body-plan of bats. At least they are already mammals who fly.
It is likely that there are other physical restraints that I've not accounted for as well.

So unless we make some MAJOR breakthroughs in genetic research, to the point where we can build ANYTHING, I'd say this is impossible. Sorry.

[Renji]

When I was 12, I can pretty much recall an article or magazine which states that humans have wings before and what remains of it is the scapula (our shoulder blades). The problem is, I can't recall if I have red it in a science mag or a comic book

[Midnight Pete]

Originally Posted by Bobbyh

Could we potentially alter human dna to evolve into a speices of winged people ressembling angels in the future? Is heaven in the future? Or did we miss it? Or is it all just whatever we can make it?

The angel-winged people you see in the comic books, like Archangel from the Marvel Universe ...




... would need hollow bones and a more avian physiology if they are to realistically fly. Also, the drag/lift coefficient represented by the winged figure pictured above is all wrong. People have been strapping wings to themselves and jumping off cliffs (to their deaths) for quite a while before they realized why it would never work.

[Terrywoodenpic]

Bumblebees should not be able to fly either.

[Midnight Pete]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

Bumblebees should not be able to fly either.

I know! Their wings are too small!

And yet they fly. They fly in the face of physics ...

[St Giordano Bruno]

Yes, we call them birds. As for people, that would have to be a masterpiece of genetic engineering, but we would probably have to sacrifice our arms for it because like birds and even bats we are tetrapods.

[Gunfingers]

Also, in the bible most angels don't have wings. The ones that do i wouldn't particularly want to look like.

[Midnight Pete]

Originally Posted by Gunfingers

Also, in the bible most angels don't have wings. The ones that do i wouldn't particularly want to look like.

Only the higher-ranking angels have wings. It's a symbol of their power.

The Angelic Hierarchy

[ninerbuff]

The problem with having wings is the molting period. All them damn feathers all over the place.