Why do some humans have extra ribs?

[Mr Rayon]

I heard there was a statistic saying that 1 in 20 individuals have an extra pair of ribs or more. I'm wondering whether anybody knows why different people have different numbers of ribs? Could this be because of mutations (e.g. from exposures to radioactivity, excessive mobile phone use etc) through a changed more modern way of living? Why do some people have extra ribs?

[Mr Skeptic]

Well it won't be because of mobile phone use. The sun is far more dangerous than those, with both higher energy radiation and much much more of it.

[insane_alien]

you'll see varying numbers of ribs in humans long before mobile phones existed(not that mobile phones would cause such a thing). you could probably go as far back as to the point where our ancestors first developed something that could be descripbed as a rib.

 

its just the usual genetic variation in people. the same way some people have extra digits, different colours of hair, skin, eyes and so on.

[tomgwyther]

From Wikipedia

 

A cervical rib is a supernumerary (or extra) rib which arises from the seventh cervical vertebra. It is a congenital abnormality located above the normal first rib. A cervical rib is present in only about 1 in 500 (0.2%) of people;[1] in even rarer cases, an individual may have two cervical ribs.

The presence of a cervical rib can cause a form of thoracic outlet syndrome due to compression of the lower trunk of the brachial plexus or subclavian artery. These structures are entrapped between the cervical rib and scalenus muscle.

 

It appears that the condition is congenital. Also, excess bone growth can occur after repeat trauma.

[sparticle]

People with Rh- blood typically have an extra rib.

[Blahah]

I heard there was a statistic saying that 1 in 20 individuals have an extra pair of ribs or more. I'm wondering whether anybody knows why different people have different numbers of ribs? Could this be because of mutations (e.g. from exposures to radioactivity, excessive mobile phone use etc) through a changed more modern way of living? Why do some people have extra ribs?

 

Despite (misplaced) popular opinion, dozens of large scale studies and meta analyses have concluded that there is no evidence of long term mobile phone use being associated with an increased risk of disease, including brain cancers, or mutations.

[sparticle]

Despite (misplaced) popular opinion, dozens of large scale studies and meta analyses have concluded that there is no evidence of long term mobile phone use being associated with an increased risk of disease, including brain cancers, or mutations.

 

I disagree with that and so does the world health organization:

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/028379_cell_phones_brain_tumors.html

[Blahah]

I disagree with that and so does the world health organization:

 

http://www.naturalne...ain_tumors.html

I'm sorry but that's a link to a 'natural health' website which has nothing to do with science. There is no such report by the WHO. The WHO have sponsored two large-scale studies which both found no link between mobile phone use and cancers or any other health risk apart from increased risk of having a car crash whilst using a mobile phone.

 

Here's the WHO summary, and here's their Q&A on the subject.

 

The Wikipedia article also has a fair coverage and links to a lot of further reading.

 

On what do you base your disagreement?

Edited February 14, 2011 by Blahah

[insane_alien]

probably data from those who claim to suddenly be allergic the electromagnetic waves. despite their complete inability to determine whether an antenna is transmitting or not in double blind studies.

 

also, it seems they only feel the effects when they THINK the antenna is on. not whether it is actually on or not. seems pretty conclusive that it is psychosomatic.

 

but this has no bearing on the appearance of extra ribs.

 

people have extra ribs because their genes tell them to grow some extra ribs. its not an uncommon mutation and pretty much every animal with ribs has members with an unusual rib count.

 

also, extra ribs have been spotted since modern technology was a sharp rock (ie since so long ago that we weren't the species we are today) unless you think we were texting each other back before we had opposable thumbs then its feck all to do with technology.

Edited February 14, 2011 by insane_alien

[Blahah]

People with Rh- blood typically have an extra rib.

Sorry to pull you up twice in the same thread, but what's your source for this information? I could only find a dubious Yahoo! Answers thread about it, and nothing in the scientific literature. I highly doubt this is true, since almost all the negative prejudices about RH- blood group come from David Icke's stupid 'reptilian' paranoid conspiracy (warning, the link points to one of the most misguided communities on the internet).

[Moontanman]

I'm not worried about cancer from mobile phone use but all that blood that rushes out of the opposite ear when I talk on the phone is annoying....

[insane_alien]

I'm not worried about cancer from mobile phone use but all that blood that rushes out of the opposite ear when I talk on the phone is annoying....

 

please do not confuse nail guns with mobile phones. the consequences can be unplesant

[sparticle]

Sorry to pull you up twice in the same thread, but what's your source for this information? I could only find a dubious Yahoo! Answers thread about it, and nothing in the scientific literature. I highly doubt this is true, since almost all the negative prejudices about RH- blood group come from David Icke's stupid 'reptilian' paranoid conspiracy (warning, the link points to one of the most misguided communities on the internet).

 

Look I"m not a scientiest, I just read a lot. I'm fully aware that a great deal of that may be total BS. The reason I even came across that info on the extra rib, over and over actually and from some of my FB friends, is that I was looking up some of my own issues. I have really low blood pressure and low body temp, I came across the link with Rh- people and I am. Then I read some of the other common traits and I had others. I don't' have an extra rib that I know of and my hands were too cold to count, but I do have extra roots in all my teeth. So I thought it was interesting and passed it along. It's just for fun. I slink away to happier forums.

[Blahah]

OK, well I certainly have no intention of driving you away from the forums or dissuading you from learning about things. It's just that, this being a science forum, it's reasonable to expect to have to support your statements with evidence. I would encourage anyone to use the same standards in their own search for knowledge: don't take rumour or unsubstantiated claims at face value, only trust verifiable sources of information. If you have some information and it's not from a reliable source, you shouldn't state it as fact. Please don't feel that you have to leave for that reason, it would be much more beneficial to you and others if you stayed and made rigorous contributions.

[CRAZY GRANDMA]

I don't think that cell phones or exposure to radioactivity has anything to do with extra ribs; I believe that it has to do with genetics. The reason I say that is my mother was not expose to radiation from cell phone or anything else like that, I was told a few years ago that I have two sets of extra ribs. Cell phones came to the state where I was born many years after my birth.

 

 

 

I heard there was a statistic saying that 1 in 20 individuals have an extra pair of ribs or more. I'm wondering whether anybody knows why different people have different numbers of ribs? Could this be because of mutations (e.g. from exposures to radioactivity, excessive mobile phone use etc) through a changed more modern way of living? Why do some people have extra ribs?

Edited April 17, 2012 by CRAZY GRANDMA

[z9999GhZbRaiNzZ89]

it is possable that people are evolving to have more protection of their organs and so in like 1000000 yrs that statistic maybe 1 in 2 people

Edited April 19, 2012 by z9999GhZbRaiNzZ89

[doG]

I heard there was a statistic saying that 1 in 20 individuals have an extra pair of ribs or more.

Cuz that's where women come from. Ain't you read your bible?

[John Cuthber]

On a related note, can anyone explain how come most of us have the right number of ribs?

[Girlatthewindow]

I have an extra rib and would like to know whether other people with extra ribs share the same traits:

My blood type is Rh-; I have low blood sugar, low blood pressure, low iron count, weakness in my hands, right hand (the side of the extra rib) is redder and bigger than the left hand, I suffer with asthma, my kidneys seem intolerant, get painful symptoms in right shoulder when I pick up heavy objects, cant do work above my head, am allergic to pollen and dust, have brown eyes, brown hair, am artistic and creative. Other than than that I'm normal

I have a theory that if we all share the same traits, maybe we share some sort of gene?

[sks_bc]

I was born in 1962, long before we were using cell phones and I have not only 1 extra set of ribs (cervical), found during a recent Xray, but I also have a set of small 'nub' ribs as well, 4 in all. I also have RH Neg blood. My mother, who also had RH Neg blood, also had 1 extra set of ribs (cervical).

[Area54]

On 19/04/2012 at 9:31 PM, John Cuthber said:

On a related note, can anyone explain how come most of us have the right number of ribs?

If someone claims it's because that's how God made Adam, it's a hoax. If someone claims it's to do with gentics, it's a hox.

[Itoero]

Perhaps it's an evolutionary trait that allows the number of ribs to change fast. The number of ribs is causal related to bodysize and bodysize evolved pretty fast, this allowed people to live in many different habitats. 

Another way of saying it: The fact that the first people started to spread out of Africa caused the number of ribs to evolve fast because we encountered new habitats.

I can imagine many animals can evolve their number of ribs pretty fast.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Itoero

[Bender]

Isn't it just a matter of how easy an addition would be combined with the effect on fitness?

There is eg a wide variety in the number of legs in centipedes, sometimes even between individuals of the same species. This can be explained because the mechanism repeating the body sections could easily skip one or add another, without much effect on fitness. For a mamal, however, an extra limb has no straightforward attaching point and is almost exclusively ballast.

An extra rib on the other hand has obvious positions to occur, and hardly any effect, so the genes linger on with little reason to increase or decrease in spread. 

[James Swan]

I had a physical at the military base and was told that I had an extra rib......I hear it is not out of norm to have an extra rib.