h a l f b a k e r yI didn't say you were on to something, I said you were on something.
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As far as i know, leeches count as clinical waste after
use and
have to be killed and discarded, presumably to avoid
infection. To me, this seems unfair because they've just
been used as a treatment and helped someone, though
unknown to themselves, and their reward is to be killed.
Same
presumably applies to maggots. So this is quite a
modest idea really: provide some kind of sealed leech-
friendly environment after they've been used for
treatment
and occasionally feed them using blood products, not
necessarily human. They needn't be fed very often. I've
kept them for six months without feeding and they come
to no harm.
For [Calum]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1530509/
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) [Klaatu, Dec 14 2011]
(??) I've got this terrible feeling of déjà vu
Ouroboros_20leech
Ouroboros (ouroboros leech idea) idea [spidermother, Dec 14 2011]
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Curiosity begs: why have you kept leeches for periods of
several months? |
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Utterly bizarre, and yet not entirely lacking in merit. Bun. |
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A thought: I have heard it reported that if you cut the "tail" of a still sucking leech, it will continue to suck endlessly, as it will not become engorged. If this is the case, then it might be possible to take a number of so-cut leeches and stitch them together, human centipede-wise, but going beyond that and creating a sort of perpetually sucking Ouroboros, full to firmness of bulging pulsing blood circulating through leech mouth and "anus" and mouth and "anus" and so on and so forth for, it seems, at least six months. |
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What do you propose doing with your leeches 6 months down the line? Reuse? Release into the wild? |
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[Calum], that's just excellent! Post it! |
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[Loris], i used to keep leeches. I'm not proposing
releasing used leeches, although it seems unlikely
that it'd cause much of a problem. The idea is that
there's a leech reserve in an aquarium or something,
they get fed every few months, possibly by
simulating the surface of a mammal's body onto which
they can latch, and they live out their days in this
environment. |
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//Retirement home for leeches//. Baked. It's called the
Canadian Senate. |
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... and you express surprise that your ideas excite
controversy. |
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Agreed: [calum] should post the Ouroboros leech
idea. It might actually be useful as a training
exercise for microvascular surgeons. |
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If catch and release fishing is just called fishing, what's catch and release leeching? |
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// a sort of perpetually sucking Ouroboros// |
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Maybe the retired leeches could be fed off retired lawyers. That would be neatly circular, beautifully ironic, and a sort of poetic justice. |
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//The idea is that there's a leech reserve in an aquarium or something, they get fed every few months, possibly by simulating the surface of a mammal's body onto which they can latch, and they live out their days in this environment.// |
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Are you planning on sterilising or segregating the leeches - or if not, how will you cope with the potential geometric explosion in leeches?
Do leeches have natural predators which would keep them in check? |
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My parents have a fishpond; waterlevel is maintained by means of a ballcock regulated supply in a small covered tank. Once when I was young, I was helping my Dad with maintainance of it. When we opened the tank there was a living toad inside, absolutely covered in leeches. Quite disturbing. |
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I think leeches will eat little pieces of meat. |
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Re calums tail cut leech, I can imagine a review of something or some edgy political commentary that opens with discussion of leech feeding, and suck endlessly, with the contrived transition to the review subject which like a tail-cut leech also sucks endlessly. |
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Yes they do. I used to feed them on chunks of raw
mutton. |
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I read it yesterday, and I still can't help feeling sorry for [Loris]'s toad. It might be better if you could strike up a conversation with your leech(es), you know, pass the time of day, swap anecdotes, discuss blood viscosity, that kind of thing - but for them to latch-on, without a by-your-leave and just suck to their heart's content seems a bit of a liberty. Yes, it might be useful under certain situations to bend their natural appetites towards something beneficial to the public - and perhaps, as a consequence of being so used, they might deserve more to anticipate in life than the prospect of an unceremonious squish on the back patio, but still, as things stand, I can't say I'm that fond of a leech. Perhaps they could be sent to some far-flung colony wherin they might start new pioneering lives forging a nation of their own making. |
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I too feel sorry for your toad, [Loris]. I am now
wondering about whether there's a way to sterilise
leeches gently, either by adding something to the
water or by microwaving their gonads. However, i
suspect that leech gonads are multiple and
distributed through most of their segments. Thanks
for reawakening my interest in leeches. |
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halfbakery: microwaving leech gonads since 1999. |
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Oh yes. Quality, definitely. |
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Definitely. As it happens, i've just looked into this
by looking it up in an actual physical book about
leeches, and it seems they have several pairs of
laterally situated testes and a single pair of medial
ovaries, so it would be feasible to destroy the latter
with a sort of induction-powered microwaving girdle
or something. Or maybe - hmm, another idea needed
i think. |
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//I have heard it reported that if you cut the "tail" of a still sucking leech, it will continue to suck endlessly// |
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So this is what happened to George Lucas around 1990 or so? |
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Yes, apparently in the industry it's called the 'Spielberg Effect'. |
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Let's see what his new WWI movie has to offer before we
make the final judgement. And as for Lucas, well, the way
I see it, the man has earned the right to tear his own house
down. |
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Blegh. Just like Pearl Harbor. Let's cut the balls off what could be a good war movie by making it a relationship flick / love story / coming of age picture / lassie come home movie with the war just serving as backdrop. Does Spielberg pick his stories by committee? |
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