• Question: if you could have just one organ which one would it be and why?

    Asked by blaze to Damien, Rachael, Simon, Suzi, Tim on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi @blaze

      The BRAIN of course!! Because it controls all the others so without it there would be no point in having them. Also I think it’s pretty important in making me ME.

      Or my microkorg synthesizer (because it is an organ too 🙂 )

    • Photo: Rachael Ward

      Rachael Ward answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I agree with Suzi – the brain! But then I’m pretty biased as I’m a neuroscientist. The brain is involved in almost everything we do from moving and breathing to thinking, remembering, all our senses… I could go on!

      Having said that, you need your other organs to stay alive so I’d rather not have to choose just the one!

    • Photo: Tim Fosker

      Tim Fosker answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi @blaze

      Wow only one organ?! I agree with Suzi and Rachael it would have to be the brain, but it wouldn’t last long without quite a few other organs.

      The brain is the organ we are farthest away from making an artificial version of, so it would still be best to go with the brain and make artificial versions of the other organs.

    • Photo: Damien Hall

      Damien Hall answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I agree with the others. But I can go further: there’s a story in Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected where a guy gets his brain taken out (along with an eye, connected to it), and the brain and eye survive in a special fluid to feed them, while the rest of his body dies (he has cancer). It’s pretty much fantasy, I understand! But still, it’s a nice idea – as long as you could communicate in some way. As Tim said, you’d need artificial versions of some other organs to make life tolerable really.

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