For instance, an illustration on pubic hair takes us from Ancient Egypt, when hairlessness was considered normal; through the 1960s, when women typically had a lot of pubic hair; to early 2000, when hairlessness became more popular again.
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There are still stories of directors and producers pushing for hairlessness in the adult industry.
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People have grown tired of hairlessness, so they're looping around to something new yet very old.
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It's both tender (in the way Claire kisses Jamie) and mildly hilarious (Jamie's reaction to Claire's hairlessness).
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WATCH: The Enduring and Erotic Power of Quicksand Porn Hairlessness was not always the norm in American pornography, of course.
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And, like gas prices and movie tickets, the cost of hairlessness has risen precipitously over the course of the past century.
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I spent the summer hiding in my Brooklyn apartment because I was ashamed of my hunched, post-surgery shuffle, chemotherapy hairlessness, and steroid acne.
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Think of the progressively skimpier fashion trends, or the popularization of hairlessness by mainstream movie stars and fashion icons throughout the late 90s and early aughts.
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That doesn't mean that my partner has stopped finding hairlessness sexy, it's just that I can ignore this fact without fear of turning him off, because he knows what to expect.
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Between the hairlessness, the perpetually horny pizza delivery guys, and the white leather couches (why are they always white?), porn has given us many unrealistic expectations when it comes to what sex really looks like.
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"We don't necessarily have a position on hairlessness — we think all dogs are absolutely wonderful," said Brandi Hunter, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club, which has final say over which breeds can compete at Westminster.
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A virtuoso multidiscipline approach to the consequences of digital technology on sensory experience (and by extension on the lived experience of being human), the lecture touched on hairlessness—the "Glabrous"—the iPhone, Jony Ive, and pedagogy.
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Attraction to Hank might be considered odd, largely in part (outside of the murdering) because of his stereotypically "evil" look—the tattoos, and hairlessness, specifically, but also his slightly tweaked fashion choices, a favoritism towards slides and loafers in particular.
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Giles published his "naked love theory" of human hairlessness in 2010.James Giles (2010). "Naked love: The evolution of human hairlessness". Biological Theory 5: 326–336.
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Another view is proposed by James Giles, who attempts to explain hairlessness as evolved from the relationship between mother and child, and as a consequence of bipedalism. Giles also connects romantic love to hairlessness. Another hypothesis is that humans' use of fire caused or initiated the reduction in human hair.
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There is a second type of hairless guinea pig called the Skinny pig, but its hairlessness is the result of a completely different recessive gene. Breeding a Skinny pig with a Baldwin will result entirely in offspring that are haired yet carry one copy of the gene for Skinny pig hairlessness and one copy of the gene for Baldwin hairlessness. Even though the Baldwin is a relatively new breed among pet owners and cavy fanciers, it is gaining popularity for its unique and handsome appearance.
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A perfect example of the pedigree Peruvian Hairless Dog The gene that causes hairlessness also results in the breed often having fewer teeth than other breeds, mostly lacking molars and premolars. All are born with full sets of puppy teeth, but these are not fully replaced by adult teeth as they naturally fall out, leaving them with varying levels of adult dentition. The hairlessness trait is a dominant double lethal mutation, which means that homozygotic hairlessness does not exist. Homozygous embryos, those with two copies of the gene, do not develop in the womb.
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Some mammals naturally have reduced amounts of fur. Some semiaquatic or aquatic mammals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds and hippopotamuses have evolved hairlessness, presumably to reduce resistance through water. The naked mole-rat has evolved hairlessness, perhaps as an adaptation to their subterranean life-style. Two of the largest extant mammals, the elephant and the rhinoceros, are largely hairless.
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The Donskoy cat, also known as Don Sphynx or Russian Hairless, is a hairless cat breed of Russian origin. It is not related to the better-known mostly hairless breed of cat, the Sphynx cat, also known as the Canadian Hairless, whose characteristic hairlessness is caused by a recessive mutation in the keratin 71 gene, whereas the Donskoy's hairlessness is caused by a dominant mutation.
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The American Hairless Terrier (AHT) is the only dog breed with a recessive hairless gene. Unlike the hairlessness resulting from dominant genes, the AHT has no dental, skin or other health issues associated with the dominant gene hairless breeds. The only AHT distinguishing characteristics from its coated Rat Terrier foundation stock is its hairlessness. Other distinguishing features, such as colors and size, have been breeder-induced.
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African Hairless Dog at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, England The Chinese Crested Dog's coated variety is called a "Powderpuff" and is a recognized type. A hairless dog is a dog with a genetic disposition for hairlessness and hair loss. There are two known types of genetic hairlessness, a dominant and a recessive type. The dominant type is caused by ectodermal dysplasia as a result of a mutation in the FOXI3 autosomal gene.
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In fact, dog fleas may not even occur in the US. One theory of human hairlessness is that the loss of hair helped humans to reduce their burden of fleas and other ectoparasites.
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Haired skinny carriers remain haired their entire life and look like a normal guinea pig despite carrying the hairless gene. There is a second type of hairless guinea pig called the Baldwin guinea pig, however its hairlessness is the result of a completely different recessive gene. Breeding a skinny pig with a Baldwin guinea pig will result in offspring that all are haired and carry one copy of the gene for skinny pig hairlessness and one copy of the gene for Baldwin hairlessness. Even though the skinny is a relatively new breed among pet owners and cavy fanciers, it is gaining popularity in Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia as well as in the United States where it was introduced into the pet trade in the mid-to-late 1990s.
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Saurauia glabra is a species of plant in the Actinidiaceae family. It is native to Borneo. Elmer Drew Merrill, the American botanist who first formally described the species, named it after it after its hairlessness (glaber in Latin).
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Shaving reverts one's appearance to a more youthful stage and although this may not be an honest signal, men will interpret this as a reflection of increased fertile value. Research supports this, showing hairlessness to considered sexually attractive by men.
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Baldwin guinea pigs should be housed indoors and they are usually kept with nesting materials such as a blanket, fleece bag or small plastic or wooden house for heat conservation. Heating pads or other external heat sources may be needed when the weather is cold. The gene causing hairlessness in Baldwin guinea pigs is a recessive gene, and breeding two Baldwins together will always result in all offspring being Baldwins. Breeding a Baldwin guinea pig to a standard haired guinea pig will result in offspring that all carry one copy of the gene, but none will express hairlessness.
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The effects on the human brain formation during puberty is directly linked to hormones changes. The effects of hormones have been studied and have a border understanding than how the direct actions of the sex chromosome gene. The mismatch timing between biological puberty and age of social maturity in western society has a psychological expectation on children. With puberty, men are generally hairier than women, and Darwin was of the opinion that hairlessness was related to sexual selection; however, several other explanations have been advanced to explain human hairlessness, a leading one is loss of body hair to facilitate sweating.
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He postulated that hairlessness in humans evolved as a result of the pleasure of skin-to-skin contact between mother and child, and thus ultimately as a consequence of bipedalism. According to Giles, naked skin is a precondition for the appearance of romantic love.
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The hairlessness gene permits hair growth on the head, legs and tail. Hair is sparse on the body, but present and typically enhanced by shaving, at least in the Chinese Crested, whose coat type is shaggy (long + wire). Teeth are affected as well, and hairless dogs have incomplete dentition. Hairless and Coated Xoloitzcuintli.
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Proponents of the aquatic ape hypothesis believe that part of human evolution includes some aquatic adaptation, which has been said to explain human hairlessness, bipedalism, increased subcutaneous fat, descended larynx, vernix caseosa, a hooded nose and various other physiological and anatomical changes. The idea is not accepted by most scholars who study human evolution.
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Thus insulation, and the elevated metabolic rate behind evolving them, may have been limited to the theropods, or even just a subset of theropods. Lack of feathers or other sort of insulation does not indicate ectothermy or low metabolisms, as observed in the relative hairlessness of mammalian megafauna, pigs, human children and the hairless bat being compatible with endothermy.
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They have been found in burial sites of both the Maya and the Toltec. These dogs were considered a great delicacy, and were consumed for sacrificial ceremonies–including marriages and funerals. Most likely, these pre-European dogs originated as spontaneous hairless mutations of indigenous American dogs. Hairlessness may have conferred a survival advantage in tropical regions.
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A greyhound with bald thigh syndrome, a form of pattern baldness seen in this breed In some breeds hair follicles in certain parts of the body become progressively miniaturized, analogous to what occurs in male pattern baldness in humans. It is most commonly seen in Dachshunds, Miniature Pinschers, and Chihuahuas. Affected areas become progressively more alopecic. The pattern of hairlessness that results is somewhat breed-dependent and sex dependent.
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Populations in higher latitudes potentially developed lighter skin to prevent vitamin D deficiency. A 500–300 ka H. erectus specimen from Turkey was diagnosed with the earliest known case of tuberculous meningitis, which is typically exacerbated in dark-skinned people living in higher latitudes due to vitamin D deficiency. Hairlessness is generally thought to have facilitated sweating, but reduction of parasite load and sexual selection have also been proposed.
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Frank, Peter "Liner notes" Friends Suffering from a debilitating hairlessness disease, atrichia with papular lesions, Steinberg was classified 4F in both world wars. In the late 1930s, he and his mother started visiting Columbia daily to sell chocolate bars. Signed with his distinctive cursive signature, "Sam S.," Steinberg spontaneously began showing and selling original paintings in 1967. He purchased illustration boards and paints from local stationery stores; eventually shifting to permanent magic marker pens.
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Their hairlessness evokes conflicting connotations; they could be the first humans or the last – cave people, or the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Thus, the work continues the artist's concern with conflicting themes of impermanence and immortality. A year after beginning 'The New Barbarians' they made another version of the work, 'Masters of the Universe', 1998–2000. This uses the same sculptural model as the earlier work but is covered with hair.
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APO200 is a therapeutic recombinant protein that is developed from the ectodysplasin A-1 (EDA1) gene. This product is used to treat a rare human genetic disease linked with mutations in the EDA1 gene. The disease reduces a patient's ability to sweat and increases hypersensitivity to heat, aberrant dentition, hairlessness, and dry skin. Completed pre-clinical development has shown the potential of APO200 in animal models of X-Linked Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia (XLHED).
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Both had diagnosed their varieties on the basis of their hairlessness. Maiden described a taxon totally devoid of hair, while Bailey described his as nearly glabrous (hairless). As Bailey's description more closely matched Dixon's findings (that these variants were only partly and not completely hairless), Dixon retained Bailey's name and reclassified it as Ficus rubiginosa forma glabrescens in 2001 as it differed only in the lack of hairs on new growth from the nominate form.
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This may explain the more extensive hairlessness of female humans compared to males. Nakedness also effects sexual relationships as well, the duration of human intercourse being many times the duration of any other primates. With the loss of fur, darker, high-melanin skin evolved as a protection from ultraviolet radiation damage. As humans migrated outside of the tropics, varying degrees of depigmentation evolved in order to permit UVB- induced synthesis of previtamin D3.
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Mother Sphynx cat with kittens The Sphynx cat is a breed of cat known for its lack of coat (fur). Hairlessness in cats is a naturally occurring genetic mutation; however, the Sphynx cat, as a breed, was developed through selective breeding, starting in the 1960s. The skin should have the texture of chamois leather, as it has fine hairs, or the cat may be completely hairless. Whiskers may be present, either whole or broken, or may be totally absent.
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The Sphynx's hairlessness is produced by a mutation in the same gene that produces the short curly coat of the Devon Rex. Moreover, it was found that the curly coat of Selkirk Rex cats is also associated with this gene. The gene encodes keratin 71 (KRT71) and is responsible for the keratinization of the hair follicle. The Sphynx's mutation leads to a complete loss of function where the structure of the hair is damaged so that i.e.
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The American Hairless Terrier is unrelated to the other hairless breeds and displays a different hairlessness gene. Unlike the other hairless breeds, the AHT is born fully coated, and loses its hair within a few months. The AHT gene, serum/glucocorticoid regulated kinase family member 3 gene (SGK3), is recessive and does not result in missing teeth. Because the breed is new and rare, outcrossing to the parent breed (the Rat Terrier) is permitted to increase genetic diversity.
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Other research indicates that women, irrespective of their own age, are attracted to men who are the same age or older. For the Romans especially, "beardlessness" and "smooth young bodies" were considered beautiful to both men and women. For Greek and Roman men, the most desirable traits of boys were their "youth" and "hairlessness". Pubescent boys were considered a socially appropriate object of male desire, while post-pubescent boys were considered to be "ἔξωροι" or "past the prime".
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Reconstruction of an H. e. georgicus woman with light skin and sparse body hair by Élisabeth Daynès It is largely unclear when human ancestors lost most of their body hair. Genetic analysis suggests that high activity in the melanocortin 1 receptor, which would produce dark skin, dates back to 1.2 Mya. This could indicate the evolution of hairlessness around this time, as a lack of body hair would have left the skin exposed to harmful UV radiation.
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While there are in each culture many different ideas about what beauty is, some prominent ideals in Japanese culture include hairlessness, slimness, and having full breasts. In Japan, there are very specific, quantifiable standards for male and female beauty. Japanese salons and other forms of Japanese media promote the idea that every minute part of the body should conform to extremely specific proportions. The beauty industry also segments customers' bodies and targets specific areas as the focus of beauty treatments.
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Some breeds of dog do not grow hair on parts of their bodies and may be referred to as "hairless". Examples of "hairless" dogs are the Xoloitzcuintli (Mexican Hairless Dog), the Peruvian Inca Orchid (Peruvian Hairless Dog) and the Chinese Crested. Research suggests that hairlessness is caused by a dominant allele of the forkhead box transcription factor (FOXI3) gene, which is homozygous lethal. There are coated homozygous dogs in all hairless breeds, because this type of inheritance prevents the coat type from breeding true.
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Not all cat registries recognize the Donskoy, and there are some concerns about the genetic health of the breed. The dominant genetic mutation causing hairlessness in Peterbalds and Donskoys could cause feline ectodermal dysplasia in its homozygous form, causing problems including poor dentition and compromised ability to lactate or sweat. Similar dominant mutations (such as in FOXI3) cause the condition in hairless dogs, and the symptoms in dominant-type hairless cats and dogs mirror those of human ectodermal dysplasia (which also results in sparse or absent hair).
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"Werewolf" is a slang term for skinny pigs with more hair than usual, extending up over the face and onto the neck and shoulders. Extremely hairy werewolf skinny pigs will have hair all the way down to their rump. Werewolves typically gain and lose fur based on hormone levels, especially hormones related to pregnancy. A pair of skinny pigs The gene causing hairlessness in skinny pigs is a recessive gene, and breeding two skinny pigs together will always result in all offspring being skinny pigs.
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Mutations in the winged-helix transcription factor gene at the nude locus in mice and rats produce the pleiotropic phenotype of hairlessness and athymia, resulting in a severely compromised immune system. This gene is orthologous to the mouse and rat genes and encodes a similar DNA- binding transcription factor that is thought to regulate keratin gene expression. A mutation in this gene has been correlated with T-cell immunodeficiency, the skin disorder congenital alopecia, and nail dystrophy. Alternative splicing in the 5' UTR of this gene has been observed.
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The Ukrainian Levkoy is recent man-made breed (2000–2011), originally developed by Elena Biriukova in Ukraine. Created by crossing or by outbreeding hairless Donskoy females with Scottish Fold metis males, the Ukrainian Levkoy has a distinct and unique appearance. Two spontaneous mutations of dominant FD genes of cats with folded ears (that appeared in a simple domestic cat in Scotland) were used, as well as a spontaneous natural dominant mutation of hairlessness or baldness of the domestic cat gene BD in Russia. Both had appeared in the last century in Scotland and in Russia.
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The coated variety is called "Powderpuff", and is a recognized type This breed is considered small; . At first look, the Hairless and Powderpuff varieties of Chinese Crested Dogs appear to be two different breeds, but hairlessness is an incomplete dominant trait within a single breed. The Hairless has soft, humanlike skin, as well as tufts of fur on its paws ("socks") and tail ("plume") and long, flowing hair on its head ("crest"). In addition to being an incomplete dominant gene, the "hairless" gene has a prenatal lethal effect when homozygous.
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Similar in appearance to a Pharaoh Hound, with a sleek body, almond-shaped eyes, large bat-like ears, and a long neck, the Xolo is notable for its dominant trait of hairlessness. The dominant hairless trait originated in this breed as a spontaneous mutation thousands of years ago. The recessive expression of the trait will produce a coated variety, which is genetically inseparable from the hairless, as the homozygous appearance of the hairless mutation is fatal to the unborn pup. Most litters contain both hairless and coated puppies.
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In 2010, DNA analysis confirmed that Sphynx hairlessness was produced by a different allele of the same gene that produces the short curly hair of the Devon Rex (termed the "re" allele), with the Sphynx's allele being incompletely dominant over the Devon allele and both being recessive to the wild type. The Sphynx's allele is termed "hr", for hairless. The only allowable outcross breeds in the CFA are now the American Shorthair and Domestic Shorthair. Other associations may vary, and the Russian Blue is a permitted outcross in the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF).
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However, when two copies of the trait are present, by breeding two rexes together, the coat is affected differently—causing hairlessness, and earning the colloquial name "double-rex". One subset of semi-hairless rats, patchwork rats, constantly lose their hair and regrow it in different "patches" several times throughout their life. It is usually not advised to keep hairless rats outside of laboratories when they are required for research, as they are subject to a plethora of health problems such as kidney and liver failure, as well as many skin conditions and a dramatically shortened life span.
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The coated variety, covered with a short, flat dense coat represents the original form of the dog, prior to the occurrence of the spontaneous hairless mutation. The hairless variety is completely hairless on the body, with many dogs exhibiting a few short hairs on the top of the head, the toes, and the tip of the tail. Most hairless dogs are black or bluish-gray in color. The allele responsible for the Xolo's hairlessness also affects the dog's dentition: Hairless Xolos typically have an incomplete set of teeth while the dogs of the coated variety have complete dentition.
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Sexual selection may also account for the remaining human hair in the pubic area and armpits, which are sites for pheromones, while hair on the head continued to provide protection from the sun. A divergent explanation of humans' relative hairlessness holds that ecroparasites (such as ticks) residing in fur became problematic as humans became hunters living in larger groups with a "home base". Nakedness would also make the lack of parasites apparent to prospective mates. However, this theory is inconsistent with the abundance of parasites that continue to exist in the remaining patches of human hair.
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The last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees was only partially bipedal, often using their front legs for locomotion. Other primate mothers do not need to carry their young because there is fur for them to cling to, but the loss of fur encouraged full bipedalism, allowing the mothers to carry their babies with one or both hands.The combination of hairlessness and upright posture may also explain the enlargement of the female breasts as a sexual signal. Another theory is that the loss of fur also promoted mother-child attachment based upon the pleasure of skin-to-skin contact.
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The Bawas and the Tenhoves were the first individuals able to determine the autosomal recessive nature of the Sphynx gene for hairlessness while also being successful in transforming this knowledge into a successful breeding program with kittens which were eventually capable of reproducing. The Tenhoves were initially able to get the new breed provisional showing status through the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) but ultimately had the status revoked in 1971, when it was felt by the CFA Board that the breed had concerns over fertility. The first breeders had rather vague ideas about Sphynx genetics and faced a number of problems. The genetic pool was very limited and many kittens died.
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The general hairlessness of humans in comparison to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) in the human lineage about 240,000 years ago. On an individual basis, mutations in the gene HR can lead to complete hair loss, though this is not typical in humans. Humans may also lose their hair as a result of hormonal imbalance due to drugs or pregnancy. In order to comprehend why humans are essentially hairless, it is essential to understand that mammalian body hair is not merely an aesthetic characteristic; it protects the skin from wounds, bites, heat, cold, and UV radiation.
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In 1942 the German pathologist Max Westenhöfer (1871–1957) discussed various human characteristics (hairlessness, subcutaneous fat, the regression of the olfactory organ, webbed fingers, direction of the body hair etc.) that could have derived from an aquatic past, quoting several other authors who had made similar speculations. As he did not believe human beings were apes, he believed this might have been during the Cretaceous, contrary to what is possible given the geologic and evolutionary biology evidence available at the time. He stated: "The postulation of an aquatic mode of life during an early stage of human evolution is a tenable hypothesis, for which further inquiry may produce additional supporting evidence." He later abandoned the concept.
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The hairless bat is mostly hairless but does have short bristly hairs around its neck, on its front toes, and around the throat sac, along with fine hairs on the head and tail membrane. Most hairless animals cannot go in the sun for long periods of time, or stay in the cold for too long. Humans are the only primate species that have undergone significant hair loss. The hairlessness of humans compared to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) Although the researchers dated the mutation to 240 000 ya, both the Altai Neandertal and Denisovan have the loss- of-function mutation, indicating it is much older.
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The relative hairlessness of homo sapiens requires a biological explanation, given that fur evolved to protect other primates from UV radiation, injury, sores and insect bites. Many explanations include advantages to cooling when early humans moved from shady forest to open savanna, accompanied by a change in diet from primarily vegetarian to hunting game, which meant running long distances after prey. However, the explanation that may stand up to modern scientific scrutiny is that fur harbors ecroparasites such as ticks, which would have become more of a problem as humans became hunters living in larger groups with a "home base". Jablonski and Chaplin assert that early hominids, like modern chimpanzees, had light skin covered with dark fur.
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Breeding a skinny pig to a standard haired guinea pig will result in offspring that all carry one copy of the gene, but none will express hairlessness. These offspring are generally called skinny carriers. Breeding two skinny carriers together will result in averages of 25% of offspring being skinny pigs, 50% of offspring being skinny carriers and 25% of offspring being regular haired guinea pigs that do not carry the gene. Since the chance of getting a skinny pig is low, and because it is not possible to visually tell the difference between a haired guinea pig that does carry the gene and one that does not, this method of breeding is not recommended.
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She is a female Indian wolf, member of the Seeonee pack, who while suckling her own cubs decides also to adopt a human "cub" that her mate Rama has found wandering in the jungle, naming him "Mowgli" (which means "frog" in the Speech of the Jungle) because of his hairlessness. Defying the tiger Shere Khan, who is determined to eat the man- cub, she reveals that her name is Raksha ("protection/nurture") because of her ferocity as a fighter, and she will fight to the death for any of her cubs, natural or adopted. Raksha does not play a large role in the Mowgli stories, but occasionally offers her adopted son moral support.
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Alternatively, human ancestors acquired pubic lice from gorillas about 3 Mya, and speciation of human from gorilla pubic lice was potentially only possible because human ancestors had lost most of their body hair by this early date. It is possible that exposed skin only became maladaptive in the Pleistocene, because the increasing tilt of the Earth (which also caused the ice ages) would have increased solar radiation bombardment. This would mean australopithecines first evolved hairlessness. However, australopithecines seem to have lived at much higher, much colder elevations—typically where the nighttime temperature can drop to —so they may have required hair to stay warm, unlike early Homo which inhabited lower, hotter elevations.
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Like other "codes", such as the bear code, the twink code is a set of symbols using letters, numerals, and other characters commonly found on modern, Western computer keyboards, and used for the describing and rating of twinks. These codes are used in email, Usenet, and Internet forum postings to identify the physical type and preferences of the poster, but have mostly fallen out of usage. The code includes: physical traits, such as "c" for color of hair (from blond to black); "l" for length of hair (from bald/clean-shaven to very long); "h" for degree of hairlessness; "y" for youthful appearance; and "e" for endowment; as well as personality traits, such as "q" for "queeniness"; and sexual preferences, such as "k" for "the kinky factor".
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Early humans evolved to have dark skin color around 1.2 million years ago, as an adaptation to a loss of body hair that increased the effects of UV radiation. Before the development of hairlessness, early humans had reasonably light skin underneath their fur, similar to that found in other primates. The most recent scientific evidence indicates that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years, and then populated the rest of the world through one migration between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, in some areas interbreeding with certain archaic human species (Neanderthals, Denisovans, and possibly others). It seems likely that the first modern humans had relatively large numbers of eumelanin-producing melanocytes, producing darker skin similar to the indigenous people of Africa today.
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A popular theory was that the Panama Creature was a sloth (perhaps an albino) that had somehow became hairless; proponents of the hypothesis cited the hooked claw visible in one of the photographs. Science author Darren Naish, writing for ScienceBlogs, supported the sloth hypothesis, but had a "difficult time" explaining the creature's hairlessness. The sloth theory was generally considered most credible; in 1996, similar photographs were taken of a creature found on the coast between Panama and Costa Rica that was later confirmed to be a sloth that had started to decay. Further Internet speculation led to some proposing that it was in fact a dolphin or a pit bull terrier, an example of a species previously unknown to science, or some sort of genetic mutation.
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In 1998, Paul Richard McSorley began the development of the Minskin cat breed in Boston, Massachusetts. Just as the Siamese has color restricted to the points/extremities, Paul McSorley envisioned a cat with short legs and denser fur restricted to the points (fur-points) on the mask, ears, legs and tail, with a noticeably more sparsely coated torso, neck and belly. To accomplish his goal, he crossed his already established Munchkin (show) cats with short legs (short legs are a naturally occurring physical anomaly, a healthy dominant gene) with a full coat of fur. He then introduced and combined 'fuzzy' Sphynx for the hairless characteristic (hairlessness is a cosmetic anomaly which is a naturally occurring, healthy recessive gene) but with denser fur restricted to the extremities, making for a healthier immune system.
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Specimens from Corsica, Sardinia and the Ionian isles were all shown to be diploids with ten chromosomes (2n=10), mostly have nine leaflets in the lower leaves, which often have rather hairy undersides with soft curved golden brown hairs of about 1½ mm (0.06 in) long on the carpels, although hairlessness also occurs. The sampled populations from Sicily and Euboea however are all tetraploids (4n=20), mostly with ten to twenty leaflets in the basal leaves, not or sparsely hairy, while the light yellow hairs on the carpels are straight and rather bristly (or hispid) and about long. The peonies of Corsica, Sardinia, the Ionian isles and the adjoining mainland coast are therefore considered conspecific, and should be named P. corsica, while the Sicilian, Calabrian and some of the Greek populations belong to P. mascula.
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The aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH), also referred to as aquatic ape theory (AAT) is the idea that ancestors of modern humans were more aquatic than those of other great apes. The hypothesis was initially proposed by the marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960, who argued that a branch of apes was forced by competition over terrestrial habitats to hunt for food such as shellfish on the sea shore and sea bed leading to adaptations that explained distinctive characteristics of modern humans such as functional hairlessness and bipedalism. Elaine Morgan's 1990 book on the hypothesis, Scars of Evolution, received some favorable reviews but was subject to criticism from the anthropologist John Langdon in 1997, who characterized it as an "umbrella hypothesis" with inconsistencies that were unresolved and a claim to parsimony that was false. The hypothesis has been deprecated as pseudoscience.
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The observation that large primates, including especially the great apes, that predominantly move quadrupedally on dry land, tend to switch to bipedal locomotion in waist deep water, has led to the idea that the origin of human bipedalism may have been influenced by waterside environments. This idea, labelled "the wading hypothesis", was originally suggested by the Oxford marine biologist Alister Hardy who said: "It seems to me likely that Man learnt to stand erect first in water and then, as his balance improved, he found he became better equipped for standing up on the shore when he came out, and indeed also for running." It was then promoted by Elaine Morgan, as part of the aquatic ape hypothesis, who cited bipedalism among a cluster of other human traits unique among primates, including voluntary control of breathing, hairlessness and subcutaneous fat. The "aquatic ape hypothesis", as originally formulated, has not been accepted or considered a serious theory within the anthropological scholarly community.
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Charles Darwin described sexual selection as depending on "the advantage which certain individuals have over others of the same sex and species, solely in respect of reproduction". Darwin noted that sexual selection is of two kinds and concluded that both kinds had operated on humans: "The sexual struggle is of two kinds; in the one it is between the individuals of the same sex, generally the male sex, in order to drive away or kill their rivals, the females remaining passive; whilst in the other, the struggle is likewise between the individuals of the same sex, in order to excite or charm those of the opposite sex, generally the females, which no longer remain passive, but select the more agreeable partners." Charles Darwin conjectured that the male beard, as well as the hairlessness of humans compared to nearly all other mammals, were results of sexual selection. He reasoned that since the bodies of females are more nearly hairless, the loss of fur was due to sexual selection of females at a remote prehistoric time when males had overwhelming selective power, and that it nonetheless affected males due to genetic correlation between the sexes.
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