Bbc.com - Being friendly is in dogs' nature and could be key to how they came to share our lives, say US scientists.
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Aug 22, 2016
Birds Sing Special Song To Babies Through Shell
Sky.com - Scientists have discovered something unexpected about the way birds communicate with their unborn chicks.
Jul 1, 2015
Mystery sea creature washes up on Russian beach
News.com.au - USUALLY when a sea creature washes ashore it is a whale or turtle, not a mystery beast with a fur tail and large beak.
The remains of the mystery sea animal were discovered washed up on Sakhalin Island in Russia.
Deputy Head of the forecasting department of the Sakhalin Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography Nikolay Kim suspects the animal is a dolphin.
“Judging by the appearance of the head, this is clearly some big dolphin. According to a characteristic of the skin, it is a rare species,” she told the Siberian Times.
Deputy Head of the forecasting department of the Sakhalin Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography Nikolay Kim suspects the animal is a dolphin.
“Judging by the appearance of the head, this is clearly some big dolphin. According to a characteristic of the skin, it is a rare species,” she told the Siberian Times.
“I doubt that it lived in our waters. Most likely, the animal was brought by the warm current. Here often appear tropical and subtropical species. On cooling, they stay here and then die.
“I can confidently say that this is some kind of a dolphin. However, it has fur. It’s unusual. Dolphins do not have any fur.”
“I can confidently say that this is some kind of a dolphin. However, it has fur. It’s unusual. Dolphins do not have any fur.”
Jun 14, 2015
Mar 3, 2015
Frankenstein-style human head transplant 'could happen in two years'
Telegraph.co.uk - The first human head transplant could take place in just two years, it was reported on Thursday.
Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero, from the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, claims the Frankenstein-style procedure to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body will soon be ready.
The breakthrough surgery is being pioneered to help extend the lives of people who have suffered degeneration of the muscles and nerves or those who have advanced cancer.
The New Scientist reported Dr Canavero plans to announce the project at the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in June.
Mr Canavero published a paper on the technique he would use in the Surgical Neurology International journal this month.
The recipient's head and the donor body would be cooled at the start of the procedure to extend the time that cells can survive without oxygen.
Tissue around the neck would be dissected and major blood vessels would be joined using tiny tubes.
The spinal cords would then be cut and the recipient's head moved on to the donor body. The ends of the spinal cord would be fused together using a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which encourages fat within cell membranes to mesh.
After this, the person would be put into a coma for around four weeks to prevent them moving while they heal.
Mr Canavero said he would expect the patient to be able to move and feel their face when they awoke, they would speak with the same voice and they should be able to walk within a year.
Mr Canavero first proposed the idea of the surgery in 2013, but at the time other experts dismissed the idea
He told the New Scientist: "If society doesn't want it, I won't do it. But if people don't want it, in the US or Europe, that doesn't mean it won't be done somewhere else.
"I'm trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you."
The first successful head transplant - involving moving the head of one monkey on to another - was carried out in 1970 at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US.
The monkey lived for nine days, but its immune system rejected the head.
Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero, from the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, claims the Frankenstein-style procedure to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body will soon be ready.
The breakthrough surgery is being pioneered to help extend the lives of people who have suffered degeneration of the muscles and nerves or those who have advanced cancer.
The New Scientist reported Dr Canavero plans to announce the project at the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in June.
Mr Canavero published a paper on the technique he would use in the Surgical Neurology International journal this month.
The recipient's head and the donor body would be cooled at the start of the procedure to extend the time that cells can survive without oxygen.
Tissue around the neck would be dissected and major blood vessels would be joined using tiny tubes.
The spinal cords would then be cut and the recipient's head moved on to the donor body. The ends of the spinal cord would be fused together using a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which encourages fat within cell membranes to mesh.
After this, the person would be put into a coma for around four weeks to prevent them moving while they heal.
Mr Canavero said he would expect the patient to be able to move and feel their face when they awoke, they would speak with the same voice and they should be able to walk within a year.
Mr Canavero first proposed the idea of the surgery in 2013, but at the time other experts dismissed the idea
He told the New Scientist: "If society doesn't want it, I won't do it. But if people don't want it, in the US or Europe, that doesn't mean it won't be done somewhere else.
"I'm trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you."
The first successful head transplant - involving moving the head of one monkey on to another - was carried out in 1970 at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US.
The monkey lived for nine days, but its immune system rejected the head.
Feb 23, 2015
Could limpet teeth be the strongest natural material known to man?
Cnn.com - Limpet teeth may contain the strongest biological material ever discovered, say researchers in the UK.
The aquatic, dome-shaped creatures that are found clinging to rocky shores have set a new record previously held by spiders.
"Until now we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics," Professor Asa Barber who led the study said in a statement.
"But now we have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher."
The researchers from the University of Portsmouth's School of Engineering said they used atomic force microscopy to pull apart the material, almost 100 times thinner than the diameter of human hair, right down to the atom.
The findings were published in the Royal Society journal Interface. They are not only surprising, but Barber said they are a source of inspiration for engineering, setting the blueprint for structures such as Formula One racing cars, boat hulls and aircrafts.
"All the things we observe around us, such as trees, the shells of sea creatures and the limpet teeth studied in this work, have evolved to be effective at what they do," said Barber.
The key substance in the tiny teeth is a hard mineral known as goethite, which forms in the limpet as it grows and enables them to move over rock surfaces and feed on algae while the tide is in. And the teeth maintain their strength regardless of their size.
"Generally a big structure has lots of flaws and can break more easily than a smaller structure, which has fewer flaws and is stronger. The problem is that most structures have to be fairly big so they're weaker than we would like." said Barber.
" Limpet teeth break this rule as their strength is the same no matter what the size."
The aquatic, dome-shaped creatures that are found clinging to rocky shores have set a new record previously held by spiders.
"Until now we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics," Professor Asa Barber who led the study said in a statement.
"But now we have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher."
The researchers from the University of Portsmouth's School of Engineering said they used atomic force microscopy to pull apart the material, almost 100 times thinner than the diameter of human hair, right down to the atom.
The findings were published in the Royal Society journal Interface. They are not only surprising, but Barber said they are a source of inspiration for engineering, setting the blueprint for structures such as Formula One racing cars, boat hulls and aircrafts.
"All the things we observe around us, such as trees, the shells of sea creatures and the limpet teeth studied in this work, have evolved to be effective at what they do," said Barber.
The key substance in the tiny teeth is a hard mineral known as goethite, which forms in the limpet as it grows and enables them to move over rock surfaces and feed on algae while the tide is in. And the teeth maintain their strength regardless of their size.
"Generally a big structure has lots of flaws and can break more easily than a smaller structure, which has fewer flaws and is stronger. The problem is that most structures have to be fairly big so they're weaker than we would like." said Barber.
" Limpet teeth break this rule as their strength is the same no matter what the size."
Jun 11, 2014
'Mystery monster' devours great white shark
Foxnews.com - What wolfs down a 9-foot great white shark like a steak dinner? That's what plagued researchers who had tagged a great white in Australia and found the tag washed up on a nearby beach four months later, Australia's News Network reports.
Tag data showed a sudden 1,902-foot plunge and a quick increase in temperature, the latter indicating time spent in an animal's digestive system. "I was absolutely blown away," says filmmaker Dave Riggs in a documentary coming from the Smithsonian Institute, Hunt for the Super Predator (see some of it on YouTube).
SPOILER ALERT: Researchers theorized that the 9-footer was eaten by a "colossal cannibal great white shark." Huh? Well according to tracking data, the predator would be roughly 16 feet long and weigh more than 2 tons, reports Geekosystem.
No one knows why the attack occurred, but it may have been a territorial issue or the big shark could have just been hungry, Gizmodo Australia reports.
In the end, the film "settled on a hypothesis that makes the most sense to me," writes Casey Chan at Gizmodo Australia. "Big sharks eat little sharks." (More unusual news from the deep: Scientists have found a remarkable "underwater graveyard.")
Tag data showed a sudden 1,902-foot plunge and a quick increase in temperature, the latter indicating time spent in an animal's digestive system. "I was absolutely blown away," says filmmaker Dave Riggs in a documentary coming from the Smithsonian Institute, Hunt for the Super Predator (see some of it on YouTube).
SPOILER ALERT: Researchers theorized that the 9-footer was eaten by a "colossal cannibal great white shark." Huh? Well according to tracking data, the predator would be roughly 16 feet long and weigh more than 2 tons, reports Geekosystem.
No one knows why the attack occurred, but it may have been a territorial issue or the big shark could have just been hungry, Gizmodo Australia reports.
In the end, the film "settled on a hypothesis that makes the most sense to me," writes Casey Chan at Gizmodo Australia. "Big sharks eat little sharks." (More unusual news from the deep: Scientists have found a remarkable "underwater graveyard.")
Mar 14, 2014
Great white shark tracked across Atlantic for first time, researchers say
Foxnews.com - A great white shark named "Lydia" is now the first known shark to swim from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other.
Fox affiliate KCPQ, citing researchers with Ocearch.org, reported that the 14-foot, 2,000-pound Lydia has covered more than 19,400 miles to date.
The giant shark was tagged with a GPS-tracking device off Jacksonville, Fla., as part of an Ocearch scientific project, which is being led by Gregory Skomal, senior fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries, according to Ocearch.org. Lydia, who was tagged in Jacksonville one year ago, is now headed toward either Ireland or Britain, Ocearch.org. announced on its Facebook page.
Lydia reportedly crossed the mid-Atlantic Ridge — the rough boundary between east and west — Sunday morning.
"Truly a momentous occasion, Lydia has etched her place in the history of Atlantic white shark research and showed the power and value of spot tagging. She is single-handedly raising awareness around the world,” John Chisholm, fisheries biologist at the Massachusetts Shark Research Program, said in a posting on the Ocearch Facebook page.
"Lydia’s remarkable transocean journey reminds us that no one locality, state or nation owns these remarkable migrators of the sea. If we are to save the sharks, we have an obligation not only to protect them in our waters, but also to work with other countries towards global conservation of sharks," added Bob Hueter, of Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.
Fox affiliate KCPQ, citing researchers with Ocearch.org, reported that the 14-foot, 2,000-pound Lydia has covered more than 19,400 miles to date.
The giant shark was tagged with a GPS-tracking device off Jacksonville, Fla., as part of an Ocearch scientific project, which is being led by Gregory Skomal, senior fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries, according to Ocearch.org. Lydia, who was tagged in Jacksonville one year ago, is now headed toward either Ireland or Britain, Ocearch.org. announced on its Facebook page.
Lydia reportedly crossed the mid-Atlantic Ridge — the rough boundary between east and west — Sunday morning.
"Truly a momentous occasion, Lydia has etched her place in the history of Atlantic white shark research and showed the power and value of spot tagging. She is single-handedly raising awareness around the world,” John Chisholm, fisheries biologist at the Massachusetts Shark Research Program, said in a posting on the Ocearch Facebook page.
"Lydia’s remarkable transocean journey reminds us that no one locality, state or nation owns these remarkable migrators of the sea. If we are to save the sharks, we have an obligation not only to protect them in our waters, but also to work with other countries towards global conservation of sharks," added Bob Hueter, of Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.
Mar 1, 2014
Name a Martian crater for just $5 bucks
Foxnews.com - Naming landmarks on Mars isn't just for scientists and rover drivers anymore.
Starting Wednesday, anybody with an Internet connection and a few dollars to spare can give a moniker to one of the Red Planet's 500,000 or so unnamed craters, as part of a mapping project run by the space-funding company Uwingu.
"This is the first people's map of Mars, where anybody can play," said Uwingu CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief who also heads the space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto. "It's a very social thing."
Putting your stamp on Mars isn't free. Naming the smallest craters will set you back $5, with prices going up as crater size increases. Uwingu will use the money raised by the project — which could be more than $10 million, if people name every available Martian crater — to fund grants in space exploration, research and education, which is the company's stated chief purpose.
"We're developing this grant fund — the Uwingu fund — for people who've been hit by sequestration," Stern told Space.com. "There's nothing like it right now. They have no place to go; it's either NASA, NSF [the National Science Foundation] or you're out of luck."
Stern hopes the effort will succeed in naming all of Mars' cataloged craters by the end of 2014, helping to fill in a lot of gaps in Red Planet cartography. (The company aims to solicit names for other Red Planet features, such as canyons and mountains, in the future.)
The project could also provide a sort of cultural snapshot, revealing what people are thinking about and what's important to them at this moment, he added.
"It's like taking a picture of ourselves," Stern said. "What will people put? Will there be a lot of craters named for politicians? For artists, for relatives, for places on Earth? Sports teams?"
The crater-naming project is not a contest, working instead on a first-come, first-served basis. Names will be accepted immediately and will remain approved unless Uwingu officials later determine them to be profane or otherwise offensive.
Stern stressed that Uwingu (whose name means "sky" in Swahili) is not trying to supplant other Mars maps, such as the one generated by the United States Geological Survey. The 15,000 Red Planet features whose names have already been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be grandfathered into Uwingu's base map, officials said.
The Uwingu project also will not seek approval from the IAU, which has traditionally authorized "official" names for celestial bodies and their features. Rather, the crater monikers will be informal or popular names, Stern said. (Unofficial names can still come into wide usage: "The Milky Way," for example, is not IAU-sanctioned.)
This is not Uwingu's first foray into celestial-object naming. The company has also raised funds by asking the public to choose monikers for the thousands of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates being discovered around the galaxy, including Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest alien world to Earth.
IAU officials expressed disapproval of these previous projects, asserting last year that the exoplanet-naming efforts misled people into thinking they were helping select officially recognized names. But Stern fought back hard against this claim at the time, saying that Uwingu has always made clear that the projects sought only to choose "people's choice" monikers.
To learn more about the Mars map project, and to buy a crater name of your own, click here.
"This is the first people's map of Mars, where anybody can play," said Uwingu CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief who also heads the space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto. "It's a very social thing."
Putting your stamp on Mars isn't free. Naming the smallest craters will set you back $5, with prices going up as crater size increases. Uwingu will use the money raised by the project — which could be more than $10 million, if people name every available Martian crater — to fund grants in space exploration, research and education, which is the company's stated chief purpose.
"We're developing this grant fund — the Uwingu fund — for people who've been hit by sequestration," Stern told Space.com. "There's nothing like it right now. They have no place to go; it's either NASA, NSF [the National Science Foundation] or you're out of luck."
Stern hopes the effort will succeed in naming all of Mars' cataloged craters by the end of 2014, helping to fill in a lot of gaps in Red Planet cartography. (The company aims to solicit names for other Red Planet features, such as canyons and mountains, in the future.)
The project could also provide a sort of cultural snapshot, revealing what people are thinking about and what's important to them at this moment, he added.
"It's like taking a picture of ourselves," Stern said. "What will people put? Will there be a lot of craters named for politicians? For artists, for relatives, for places on Earth? Sports teams?"
The crater-naming project is not a contest, working instead on a first-come, first-served basis. Names will be accepted immediately and will remain approved unless Uwingu officials later determine them to be profane or otherwise offensive.
Stern stressed that Uwingu (whose name means "sky" in Swahili) is not trying to supplant other Mars maps, such as the one generated by the United States Geological Survey. The 15,000 Red Planet features whose names have already been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be grandfathered into Uwingu's base map, officials said.
The Uwingu project also will not seek approval from the IAU, which has traditionally authorized "official" names for celestial bodies and their features. Rather, the crater monikers will be informal or popular names, Stern said. (Unofficial names can still come into wide usage: "The Milky Way," for example, is not IAU-sanctioned.)
This is not Uwingu's first foray into celestial-object naming. The company has also raised funds by asking the public to choose monikers for the thousands of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates being discovered around the galaxy, including Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest alien world to Earth.
IAU officials expressed disapproval of these previous projects, asserting last year that the exoplanet-naming efforts misled people into thinking they were helping select officially recognized names. But Stern fought back hard against this claim at the time, saying that Uwingu has always made clear that the projects sought only to choose "people's choice" monikers.
To learn more about the Mars map project, and to buy a crater name of your own, click here.
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 2, 2013
'Humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig': Extraordinary claim made by American geneticist
Dailymail.co.uk - The human species began as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, a leading geneticist has suggested.
The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, of the University of Georgia, who is also one of the worlds leading authorities on hybridisation in animals.
He points out that while humans have many features in common with chimps, we also have a large number of distinguishing characteristics not found in any other primates.
Dr McCarthy says these divergent characteristics are most likely the result of a hybrid origin at some point far back in human evolutionary history.
What's more, he suggests, there is one animal that has all of the traits which distinguish humans from our primate cousins in the animal kingdom.
'What is this other animal that has all these traits?' he asks rhetorically. 'The answer is Sus scrofa, the ordinary pig.'
Dr McCarthy elaborates his astonishing hypothesis in an article on Macroevolution.net, a website he curates. He is at pains to point out that that it is merely a hypothesis, but he presents compelling evidence to support it.
cientists currently suppose that chimpanzees are humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, a theory amply backed by genetic evidence.
However, as Dr McCarthy points out, despite this genetic similarity, there are a massive number of divergent anatomical characteristics distinguishing the two species.
These distinguishing characteristics, including hairless skin, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, light-coloured eyes, protruding noses and heavy eyelashes, to name but a few, are unmistakeably porcine, he suggests.
There are also a number of less obvious but equally inexplicable similarities between humans and pigs in the structure of the skin and organs.
Indeed, pig skin tissues and heart valves can be used in medicine because of their similarity and compatibility with the human body.
Dr McCarthy says that the original pig-chimp hook up was probably followed by several generations of 'backcrossing', where the offspring of that pairing lived among chimps and mated with them - becoming more like chimps and less like pigs with every new generation.
This also helps to explain the problem of relative infertility in hybrids. Dr McCarthy points out that the belief that all hybrids are sterile is in fact false, and in many cases hybrid animals are able to breed with mates of the same species of either parent.
After several generations the hybrid strain would have become fertile enough to breed amongst themselves, Dr McCarthy says.
Unsurprisingly, Dr McCarthy's hypothesis has come in for substantial criticism from orthodox evolutionary biologists and their Creationist opponents alike.
One important criticism, which dubs his theory the 'Monkey-F******-A-Pig hypothesis', is that there is little chance that pigs and chimps could be interfertile. The two orders of creatures, according to evolutionary theory, diverged roughly 80million years ago, a ScienceBlogs post points out.
'[J]ust the gradual accumulation of molecular differences in sperm and egg recognition proteins would mean that pig sperm wouldn’t recognize a chimpanzee egg as a reasonable target for fusion,' PZ Myers writes.
Furthermore, the blogger explains, while chimps have 48 chromosomes, pigs have just 38.
He adds: 'Hybridizing a pig and a chimp is like taking half the dancers from a performance of Swan Lake and the other half from a performance of Giselle and throwing them together on stage to assemble something. It’s going to be a catastrophe.'
Finally, he suggests rather impudently that Dr McCarthy do the experimental work himself and try mating with a pig to see how far he gets.
But Dr McCarthy believes that, in the case of humans and other creatures, his hybrid modification to evolutionary theory can account for a range of phenomena that Darwinian evolution alone has difficulty explaining.
Despite the opinions of some peer reviewers that Dr McCarthy's work presents a potentially paradigm-shifting new take on conventional views of the origins of new life forms, he has had difficulty finding a publisher, so he has chosen to publish a book-length manuscript outlining his ideas on his website.
In its conclusion he writes: 'I must admit that I initially felt a certain amount of repugnance at the idea of being a hybrid. The image of a pig mating with an ape is not a pretty one, nor is that of a horde of monstrous half-humans breeding in a hybrid swarm.
'But the way we came to be is not so important as the fact that we now exist. As every Machiavellian knows, good things can emerge from ugly processes, and I think the human race is a very good thing. Moreover, there is something to be said for the idea of having the pig as a relative.
'My opinion of this animal has much improved during the course of my research. Where once I thought of filth and greed, I now think of intelligence, affection, loyalty, and adaptability, with an added touch of joyous sensuality — qualities without which humans would not be human.'
The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, of the University of Georgia, who is also one of the worlds leading authorities on hybridisation in animals.
He points out that while humans have many features in common with chimps, we also have a large number of distinguishing characteristics not found in any other primates.
Dr McCarthy says these divergent characteristics are most likely the result of a hybrid origin at some point far back in human evolutionary history.
What's more, he suggests, there is one animal that has all of the traits which distinguish humans from our primate cousins in the animal kingdom.
'What is this other animal that has all these traits?' he asks rhetorically. 'The answer is Sus scrofa, the ordinary pig.'
Dr McCarthy elaborates his astonishing hypothesis in an article on Macroevolution.net, a website he curates. He is at pains to point out that that it is merely a hypothesis, but he presents compelling evidence to support it.
cientists currently suppose that chimpanzees are humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, a theory amply backed by genetic evidence.
However, as Dr McCarthy points out, despite this genetic similarity, there are a massive number of divergent anatomical characteristics distinguishing the two species.
These distinguishing characteristics, including hairless skin, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, light-coloured eyes, protruding noses and heavy eyelashes, to name but a few, are unmistakeably porcine, he suggests.
There are also a number of less obvious but equally inexplicable similarities between humans and pigs in the structure of the skin and organs.
Indeed, pig skin tissues and heart valves can be used in medicine because of their similarity and compatibility with the human body.
Dr McCarthy says that the original pig-chimp hook up was probably followed by several generations of 'backcrossing', where the offspring of that pairing lived among chimps and mated with them - becoming more like chimps and less like pigs with every new generation.
This also helps to explain the problem of relative infertility in hybrids. Dr McCarthy points out that the belief that all hybrids are sterile is in fact false, and in many cases hybrid animals are able to breed with mates of the same species of either parent.
After several generations the hybrid strain would have become fertile enough to breed amongst themselves, Dr McCarthy says.
Unsurprisingly, Dr McCarthy's hypothesis has come in for substantial criticism from orthodox evolutionary biologists and their Creationist opponents alike.
One important criticism, which dubs his theory the 'Monkey-F******-A-Pig hypothesis', is that there is little chance that pigs and chimps could be interfertile. The two orders of creatures, according to evolutionary theory, diverged roughly 80million years ago, a ScienceBlogs post points out.
'[J]ust the gradual accumulation of molecular differences in sperm and egg recognition proteins would mean that pig sperm wouldn’t recognize a chimpanzee egg as a reasonable target for fusion,' PZ Myers writes.
Furthermore, the blogger explains, while chimps have 48 chromosomes, pigs have just 38.
He adds: 'Hybridizing a pig and a chimp is like taking half the dancers from a performance of Swan Lake and the other half from a performance of Giselle and throwing them together on stage to assemble something. It’s going to be a catastrophe.'
Finally, he suggests rather impudently that Dr McCarthy do the experimental work himself and try mating with a pig to see how far he gets.
But Dr McCarthy believes that, in the case of humans and other creatures, his hybrid modification to evolutionary theory can account for a range of phenomena that Darwinian evolution alone has difficulty explaining.
Despite the opinions of some peer reviewers that Dr McCarthy's work presents a potentially paradigm-shifting new take on conventional views of the origins of new life forms, he has had difficulty finding a publisher, so he has chosen to publish a book-length manuscript outlining his ideas on his website.
In its conclusion he writes: 'I must admit that I initially felt a certain amount of repugnance at the idea of being a hybrid. The image of a pig mating with an ape is not a pretty one, nor is that of a horde of monstrous half-humans breeding in a hybrid swarm.
'But the way we came to be is not so important as the fact that we now exist. As every Machiavellian knows, good things can emerge from ugly processes, and I think the human race is a very good thing. Moreover, there is something to be said for the idea of having the pig as a relative.
'My opinion of this animal has much improved during the course of my research. Where once I thought of filth and greed, I now think of intelligence, affection, loyalty, and adaptability, with an added touch of joyous sensuality — qualities without which humans would not be human.'
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