WildMaven’s World

Large scale extinctions, like the dinosaurs, account for only 4% of the disappearance of animals from the earth. The rest die off quietly, without meteors or other major events to hurry them along. What causes these silent extinctions has puzzled scientists for generations. Now, there may be an answer. At the end of the chromosomes of every species (except bacteria and algae) are small protective caps called telomeres. When a cell dies, it tries to replicate these caps, but as a species goes on, the caps grow shorter and shorter, resulting in genetic abnormalities, such as cancer and immunodeficiency (think AIDS). This shortening, they theorize, will eventually cause the collapse of the species. More study is necessary at this point, and the new genetic mapping projects will be extremely helpful, but one can’t help but wonder about the future of our own species. Will we be able to genetically alter our destiny in the lab, artificially lengthening the telomeres, or will our species crash and burn, like so many before?

I continued my search, widening it to include hog farmers and such, but nothing shed much light on this mystery. So, I decided to go straight to the source and e-mailed Applebee’s. I asked them to please be specific in their answer, as we are anatomists and very curious.

Applebee’s replied in less than a week:

“Dear Valued Guest,
Thank you for your email. We’re glad you enjoy the riblets. The riblets are
feather bones located beneath the tenderloin between the 14th rib and the chine
bone. Please let us know if we can help you with anything else.”

Okay……so, let’s decipher that. From another internet search, I learned that “feather bones are cut from the spine of the hog. Sometimes they are referred to as riblets. The meat is fairly lean and is of the same texture as the back ribs, but there is higher bone to meat ratio on these cuts when compared to a true rib.” The chine bone is the backbone (thoracic spine). The 14th rib is the bottom rib of the pig’s ribcage.