What’s in a reputation?
An historical mammal that some researchers dubbed “ManBearPig” had lengthy pregnancies and gave delivery to extremely developed younger that grew up a lot quicker than anticipated. Such a lifestyle may assist clarify how some mammals took over the world after dinosaurs’ demise, Maria Temming reported in “‘ManBearPig’ lived fast, died young” (SN: 10/8/22 & 10/22/22, p. 12).
Several readers remarked that the creature’s nickname bears a resemblance to that of the ManBearPig character from the animated tv sequence South Park. Was the present the inspiration for the title?
“In short, yes,” says paleontologist Gregory Funston of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Funston puzzled learn how to describe the looks of Pantolambda bathmodon to Temming. “After some deliberation and comparison to bears (they share a short face), pigs (a rounded torso) and humans (five-fingered hands and feet), I joked that … it was a kind of ManBearPig,” he says.
Of course, in actuality, P. bathmodon would have seemed fairly completely different from the South Park character, Funston says.
In the present, the fictional ManBearPig is a demon — a grotesque chimera of human, bear and pig options. It has beady yellow eyes, a pig’s snout, gnarly bear fangs, one contorted human hand and one bear paw with razor-sharp claws. Its higher physique is half fur, half human pores and skin. And its decrease physique is a weird amalgamation of human thighs and pig ft.
P. bathmodon, then again, seemed extra like “a large red panda or binturong, although it isn’t closely related to either of these animals,” Funston says. “The group of mammals that it does belong to [has] no living descendants. And like many other groups of mammals from this time, [P. bathmodon’s group] would have appeared somewhat generalized to our eyes, combining familiar aspects of many mammals but without any of the distinct features that we use to separate major mammal groups today.”
Celebrating variations
Biological anthropologist Tina Lasisi, one in all our SN 10: Scientists to Watch, research the evolution of curly hair in people, Aina Abell reported in “Curly hair starts conversations about human variation” (SN: 10/8/22 & 10/22/22, p. 28).
Reader Gillian Ingram discovered Lasisi’s analysis on human variation fascinating.
“As a civilian watching science, I find the diversity within us amazing.… [Lasisi’s work has] opened a great sea of possibilities,” Ingram wrote. “It is good to remember we are all very closely related, but our diversity should be explored and celebrated too.”
In the household
Researchers have linked variants of a hair shaft gene referred to as PADI3 to most instances of uncombable hair syndrome, which presents in individuals as silvery, spangly, spun glass hair that stands on finish, Meghan Rosen reported in “Why some hair can’t be tamed” (SN: 10/8/22 & 10/22/22, p. 5).
Reader Diane F. Klein shared a household reference to uncombable hair syndrome.
“My first cousin, born about 1960, had whitish hair when she was a little girl that stood out from her head like a fluff. It was shocking to see. My aunt could not control it,” Klein wrote. “My brother, born in 1957, also probably had it. His hair was blondish white, and when he was a toddler, it stood out from his head like a wheat field, softly wafting in the wind.”