June 28, 2009: Mermaid

Hey look, a mermaid...
not one of those ugly Sea Cows drunken sailors fell for, or an animated Disney character, but a living, breathing, mermaid.
Would I lie to you, my oldest and dearest friends?


[SIZE="1"]if it didn't involve sex or money, anyway. [/SIZE]

Nadya Vessey's legs were amputated below the knee when she was a child due to illness. At one point, reports Stuff, a child asked her what happened to her legs and she told him she was a mermaid. The idea stuck with her, so she wrote to Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, two years ago asking for a mermaid tail. To her surprise, they said they'd do it.

Weta, is a special effects company. Think Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and Chronicles of Narnia.

Nadya Vessey's prosthetic tail is mostly constructed from wetsuit fabric and plastic molds, and covered in a digitally printed sock.

If you want to eat this IOtD, you'll have to peel it first. ;)

link

its a Dolphen !!!!

SHE's a "Dolphen". :p

Eat it? Wouldn't that be like having a peel and eat shrimp and opening it up only to find the meat missing? No thanks.

Exactly what "childhood disease" results in leg amputation?

I wonder how well she can swim in that.

SPUCK;578304 wrote:

Exactly what "childhood disease" results in leg amputation?

it doesn't say "childhood disease", solet's go with cancer, infection, menengitis?......


I bet she can swim really well -think about how fast butterfly kick is, and here she doesn't have to work to keep her legs together.

xoxoxoBruce;578288 wrote:

SHE's a "Dolphen". :p

No, a Sherk.

Frenger;578305 wrote:

I wonder how well she can swim in that.

Here's a video:

http://video.libero.it/app/play?id=d21a5da69b10c0402bbd9b1a5fa5c8a8

That's one way of making lemonade! Good for her.

Brianna;578362 wrote:

That's one way of making lemonade! Good for her.

I now have an image stuck in my head of her lining up lemons on the edge of the pool and smashing them with her tail...

its June!

delete this after you fix the title

Doesn't seem all that fluid ....

I wonder it it's a rigid construct. It seems like they should have gone with a stiff plastic/rubber compound so it has some spring to it.

I bet they could sell them

lumberjim;578399 wrote:

its June!

delete this after you fix the title

"Let's do the Time Warp again!" :D

lumberjim;578399 wrote:

its June!

delete this after you fix the title

Um... I was just checking to see if you were paying attention... yeah, that's it.
Congratulations, you passed. :band:

Apparently she had a condition that meant her lower legs did not develop and so had her right leg amputated at 7 years of age and the other one 'to match' when she was 15.

Ah! OK thanks smee.

Brianna;578362 wrote:

That's one way of making lemonade! Good for her.

I was wondering how she would go to the toilet if she was wearing that...

It reminds me of this article I saw some time ago.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dolphin-inspired-man-made-fin

Lunocet users have already hit about eight miles (13 kilometers) per hour, nearly twice as fast as Olympic Gold Medal swimmer Michael Phelps at his speediest.

Using the Lunocet, some swimmers are close to being able to breach completely out of the water, like whales. Ciamillo envisions a new high-speed, free-diving community of swimmers united around "hydrotouring": long-distance swimming expeditions using Lunocets to cover dozens of miles a day, with participants carrying streamlined, waterproof packs containing only a global positioning system (GPS), satellite phone, and enough food and water for a few nights on shore.

http://www.lunocet.com/

And even cooler in my fight to stick to the man over copyright laws and freedom of knowledge is this attitude held by the inventor.

Ciamillo ... notes that he won't be patenting the Lunocet's design. "If you're taking ideas from nature," he says, "how can you then go to the patent office and say these are mine?"

From the link "says Frank Fish, a marine biologist at West Chester University of Pennsylvania."
Something sounds fishy here.:D

The trade made by the Little Mermaid was that she lost her voice and every step she walked on land was like knives piercing her.

I suspect we live in more altruistic times now.
Otherwise we might have read about this case in a somewhat different manner.

It would be interesting if she wanted to compete in swimming competitions. Wasn't there an amputee runner with special spring loaded lower legs who was not allowed to run in the olympics or someother race event? And what about the guy in the Masters golf tournaments who had trouble walking and they didn't want him to ride in his golf cart.

chrisinhouston;578753 wrote:

It would be interesting if she wanted to compete in swimming competitions. Wasn't there an amputee runner with special spring loaded lower legs who was not allowed to run in the olympics or someother race event? And what about the guy in the Masters golf tournaments who had trouble walking and they didn't want him to ride in his golf cart.

The sprinter finally got the OK from the judges but just wasn't fast enough to make the cut. He still hopes to meet the 2012 Olympics though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/18/olympicgames2008.athletics2

That is so fake looking. I bet they did it cheep.

Fake? As opposed to a REAL mermaid? :rolleyes:
They weren't building a movie prop, it's a prosthesis.

xoxoxoBruce;599960 wrote:

Fake? As opposed to a REAL mermaid? :rolleyes:
They weren't building a movie prop, it's a prosthesis.

yes i know but it still looks fake:headshake

Looks fake as compared to WHAT? :rolleyes: