Cars have been among us for more than a hundred years, and although human beings haven't changed much in that time, the story is very different for these vehicles. The evolutionary leap of cars has been impressive, but something similar can be said about the number of accidents. With that in mind, what kind of biological path should our bodies take if they want to gain immunity (or at least, greater resistance) to crashes? The answer is Graham, a project that combines the efforts of a surgeon, a crash expert, and an artist.
The Long Road of Evolution
Anyone who looks into the origin of life (from a scientific point of view, of course) will find multiple references placing the so-called universal ancestor about 4 billion years in the past. By comparison, the “modern anatomical human” (the technical term is “homo sapiens sapiens”) emerged around 200,000 years ago, meaning we are just one of the most recent chapters in Earth’s long history.
There is no doubt that evolution prefers “the long road”. Different species continue to appear and go extinct (in fact, the so-called “Holocene mass extinction” is happening right now), but it definitely takes its time, and what “works” doesn’t undergo major changes.
Now, a game: Let’s imagine the human species evolving at the same speed as its creations, in this case, a car. In little more than a century we went from glorified carts to autonomous vehicles, and there is much on the way... but cars also brought accidents, crashes, and loss of life. If the human body had the ability to adapt to survive, resist, and why not be immune to that threat... what would it actually be like?
Meet Graham
We present Graham, the newest member of the “Toward Zero” safety campaign organized by the Transport Accident Commission of Melbourne. A surgeon, a collision expert, and an artist joined forces to shape the “crash-proof human”, and honestly there is much to highlight.
First, his skull is larger and thicker, with the goal of protecting his brain. The face, now concave and covered in fat, allows him to avoid greater damage to eyes and nose. The neck, which is always one of the weakest points in an impact, essentially disappears, reducing the possibility of paralysis and other kinds of trauma to the spinal column and back. The skin is thick and resistant to cuts, and his ribs have an equivalent to “air bags”, so to speak.
However, the story doesn’t end there: Graham has also been “optimized” to survive crashes “outside” a car, with an extra joint at ankle height and additional flexibility in the knees. As for the “construction” of Graham, we find fiberglass, silicone, different resins, and lots of human hair. Graham will remain on display at the State Library of Victoria until August 8, and then go on tour across Australia.
