Unlike any other mammal, we walk about all day long on our hind legs, writes Desmond Morris in The Human Animal. However, monkeys and apes can scamper on the ground much faster than a human can run. Becoming bipedal must have slowed us down greatly. One theory, proposed by marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy, is that early humans in Africa were driven to an aquatic life to escape predators, and became "tropical penguins" - with bodies that were clumsy on land but efficient swimming machines. "Even today, 7 per cent of the world's population of humans still have webbed toes."
As reported in The Globe & Mail
Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.
Richard L. Evans
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when that's the only one you have got.
Alain (Emile Auguste Chartier, 1868-1951)
Recent U.S. notes:
Baffled by the ability of the seven castaways on Gilligan's Island (1964-67) to avoid anarchy despite the absence of a lawyer in their midst, Robert Jarvis of Nova Southeastern University has researched the TV series exhaustively. The law professor found numerous legal references in the show, including the ill-fated ship, the SS Minnow - which, he says, is named after Newton Minnow, lawyer and broadcast regulator, who declared television to be a vast wasteland. "You can't go anywhere without a lawyer," Mr. Jarvis contends.
As reported in the Globe & Mail
(Mr. Jarvis has apparently far too much time on his hands!)