1 in 13 people possess "ape-feet" ... do you?

[thestrangequark]

^No, humans are apes.

As was already posted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

 

[Amaris]

I'd say we're Great Apes, but all in all, we're just pretty good.
Now Grape Ape, there was a Great Ape.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm having a hard time telling if I fit the description. I certainly can do more things with my feet than I'd be willing to discuss.

Yeah, I found the article to be less than clear on this point. Really, it needed clear examples to be understandable. At a minimum, pictures of feet that fit the description is necessary, but pictures of beach footprints to show what to look for would have been good too.

 

[Davros]

I don't have all my toes on one foot.



I have five on each.

 

[Mary Ann]

My feet aren't flexible at all. They're flat as pancakes; I literally have NO arches in my feet. They're less like ape feet and more like flippers.

I have very flat feet as well, but I can still pick up things with my toes. My toes are very long, which probably had a lot to do with my picking-up abilities. In fact, one of my brothers has used to call me "potato toes". Come to think of it, a lot of what I pick up I wedge between my big toe and the one next to it. How that's for a freak show talent?

 

[Owain Taggart]

My feet aren't flexible at all. They're flat as pancakes; I literally have NO arches in my feet. They're less like ape feet and more like flippers.

I have very flat feet as well...

Same here. Flat feet unite! I have such a hard time shopping for shoes, because if there's even a hint of an arch in a shoe, it's uncomfortable, and I hate that because it limits my choices quite a bit. That doesn't count the fact that I'd often trip over my own feet when I was younger.

 

[thestrangequark]

My feet aren't flexible at all. They're flat as pancakes; I literally have NO arches in my feet. They're less like ape feet and more like flippers.

I have very flat feet as well, but I can still pick up things with my toes. My toes are very long, which probably had a lot to do with my picking-up abilities. In fact, one of my brothers has used to call me "potato toes". Come to think of it, a lot of what I pick up I wedge between my big toe and the one next to it. How that's for a freak show talent?

That's how I get stuff with my toes...that's unusual?

I know that the stiffer human foot is better for walking than other apes' feet, but it would be so much more fun if they were more hand-like. So much could be done! I mean, right now they're just sitting there, all stuffed away in my shoes and tucked up under my butt doing nothing when they could be making me a sandwich or playing a foot violin or something.

 

[Chensams]

I have flat feet.

 

[Amaris]

Yep, flat feet here as well.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I can't bend my big toes.

 

[publiusr]

I have flat feet.

Same here. That and Color blindness, high blood pressure.

The Service didn't want me.

 

[scotpens]

Flat feet here, too.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFVeJ4wHWdQ[/yt]

 

[Orac]

I have always envied apes and simians with thumbs on their feet. Seems to be a superior design to what homo sapiens got. I often find myself thinking how easier life would be with a second pair of hands.

 

[scotpens]

^^ It's an evolutionary compromise. Great apes support the weight of their upper bodies by walking on their knuckles. We humans have our feet and hind limbs optimized for upright posture and bipedal locomotion, which frees our forelimbs for grasping and using tools. The price we pay, of course, is the plethora of spinal problems that plague us as we get older. You never see a gorilla with a bad back.

 

[Finn]

^Yes, they do. All great apes can have issues with their backs, especially Chimpanzees.

I'll have to check my texts if you want me to cite a source. I'll check a couple, but it was a topic for a science course a few years back.

 

[Gary7]

Some years back when I had returned to skiing after a couple years break, I had a mishap. I didn't get my bindings re-adjusted for slightly lower body weight, so when I happened to fall, one of my skis didn't pop off. I partially tore a ligament in one of my legs. It was painful and debilitating, but thankfully not a full tear.

When I'd seen a doctor about this injury, he informed me that I was one of those unusual Caucasian people who has an extra ligament in my calf, smaller than the primary ligament. This extra ligament was the one that took the brunt of the force and partially tore, which was a good thing.

Where did it come from? A little inheritance, courtesy of African ancestors.

So, it's kind of interesting... our bodies contain all kinds of inherited DNA material, and who knows what "on switch" lottery can turn up when we're formed. But DNA from apes? That's pretty wild. Some people have been known to have a tail... the coccis bone doesn't end as it normally would, instead allowing for a vestigial tail.

Some hold with the theory that the development of an embryo shows the stages of evolution. In other words, what first develops is fishlike, and then like a small mammal, and then like a lemur or ape, and then something we would recognize as human. Very early embryos have what look like little gill slits in the beginning of their development. At about four weeks, embryos have a little tail. At around six to twelve weeks, the white blood cells dissolve the tail, and the fetus develops into an average, tail-less baby… most of the time, at least. Every now and again, we get a little extra bit of baby, in the form of a vestigial tail.

 

[scotpens]

. . . You never see a gorilla with a bad back.

Yes, they do. All great apes can have issues with their backs, especially Chimpanzees.

I'll have to check my texts if you want me to cite a source. I'll check a couple, but it was a topic for a science course a few years back.

I stoop corrected.

... our bodies contain all kinds of inherited DNA material, and who knows what "on switch" lottery can turn up when we're formed. But DNA from apes? That's pretty wild.

Wild in what way? We humans have 96 percent of our genetic material in common with chimps.

. . . Very early embryos have what look like little gill slits in the beginning of their development. At about four weeks, embryos have a little tail. At around six to twelve weeks, the white blood cells dissolve the tail, and the fetus develops into an average, tail-less baby… most of the time, at least. Every now and again, we get a little extra bit of baby, in the form of a vestigial tail.

And occasionally we get Frog Boy.

 

[thestrangequark]

... our bodies contain all kinds of inherited DNA material, and who knows what "on switch" lottery can turn up when we're formed. But DNA from apes? That's pretty wild.

Wild in what way? We humans have 96 percent of our genetic material in common with chimps.

I thought it was a bit more than that? I know we're 96.4% orangutan (I have that on a tee shirt, so it must be true) and I thought we were even more genetically similar to chimps and bonobos, while morphologically similar to orangutans.

More fun is that we are about 55% banana.

And, again...technically all our DNA is ape!

 

[Gary7]

Wild in what way? We humans have 96 percent of our genetic material in common with chimps.

Wild in how ape/chimp prominent features can be activated within the human genome. From what I'd gathered, there's some very sophisticated "programming" going on that normally prevents such aberrations.

 

[thestrangequark]

Wild in what way? We humans have 96 percent of our genetic material in common with chimps.

Wild in how ape/chimp prominent features can be activated within the human genome. From what I'd gathered, there's some very sophisticated "programming" going on that normally prevents such aberrations.

OH! Yeah, that is interesting! Of course, it doesn't usually happen without causing a host of other problems. If you haven't already read about it, I'd recommend looking up the chicken that were engineered to have teeth by removing the genes that evolved to block to growth of teeth as chickens evolved from dinos. Unfortunately, the dinochickens all died in the egg, but it's cool science.