{"id":113079,"date":"2024-10-11T22:58:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T15:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=113079"},"modified":"2024-10-11T22:58:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T15:58:48","slug":"ulas-family-that-walks-on-all-fours-shouldnt-exist-say-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=113079","title":{"rendered":"Ulas family that walks on all fours &#8216;shouldn&#8217;t exist&#8217;, say scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>All families have their own quirks and habits, but one group of relatives has such a unique trait that scientists have branded them a total anomaly of the human species.<\/p>\n<p>The Ulas family has been the subject of evolutionary fascination for years after they were discovered in a remote village in Turkey walking on all fours.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published on five of the Ulas siblings and their strange bear crawl-style of movement, with experts divided over the cause of the abnormality.<\/p>\n<p>In the years following the paper\u2019s publication, evolutionary psychologist Professor Nicholas Humphrey, of the London School of Economics (LSE), travelled to Turkey to meet with the extraordinary family.<\/p>\n<p>The Ulas mother and father had a staggering 18 children, however, of these, only six were born with quadrupedalism (walking on all fours), which has never been seen before in modern adult humans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-3x2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"82830\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"cce9d028e7412cbdcb618f95358aeb17\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/www.indy100.com\/media-library\/the-skin-on-the-palms-of-their-u00a0hands-is-as-thick-as-it-is-on-their-feet.png?id=35740266&amp;width=1200&amp;height=800&amp;quality=85&amp;coordinates=0%2C12%2C0%2C0\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" alt=\"\"\/><small class=\"image-media media-caption\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Caption...\">The skin on the palms of their hands is as thick as it is on their feet<\/small><small class=\"image-media media-photo-credit\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Credit...\">60 Minutes Australia<\/small><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never expected that even under the most extraordinary scientific fantasy that modern human beings could return to an animal state,\u201d Humphrey told <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6GlNQzjii1c&amp;ab_channel=60MinutesAustralia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">60 Minutes Australia<\/a><\/em>, which made a documentary about the family back in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe thing which marks us off from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we\u2019re the species which walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, it\u2019s language and all other sorts of things too, but it\u2019s terribly important to our sense of ourselves as being different from others in the animal kingdom. These people cross that boundary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The documentary describes the Ulas as \u201cthe missing link between man and ape\u201d and suggests that they \u201cshouldn\u2019t exist\u201d at all.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, no one has yet figured out the precise cause of the strange walking style.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst some experts have suggested that it\u2019s caused by a genetic problem which has \u201cundone the last three million years of evolution\u201d, others have rejected the idea that there\u2019s a specific \u201cgene\u201d for upright walking and suggested something else is at play.<\/p>\n<p>Humphrey pointed out that the affected siblings \u2013 five of whom are still alive and aged between 22 and 38 \u2013 all suffer from a particular form of brain damage.<\/p>\n<p>In the <em>60 Minutes<\/em> documentary, he showed MRI scans which revealed that they each had a shrunken section of the brain called the cerebellar vermis.<\/p>\n<p>However, the professor also noted that this in itself \u201c[doesn\u2019t] account for their walking on four legs\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>He explained: \u201cOther children who have damaged cerebellum, even children who have no cerebellum, can still walk upright.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also stressed that the Ulas\u2019 form of quadrupedalism differs from that seen in our closest animal relatives \u2013 chimpanzees and gorillas \u2013 in one key way.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst these primates walk on their knuckles, the Turkish children\u2019s use the palms of their hands \u2013 putting their weight on their wrists while lifting their fingers off the ground.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s significant about that is that chimpanzees ruin their fingers walking like that,&#8221; Humphrey told the<em> BBC News<\/em> website back in 2006 when the <em>BBC<\/em> broadcast its own documentary about the family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube\"><span style=\"display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;\" class=\"rm-shortcode\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"b747ab1c6b3dc41d09831fcd07edcd9d\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Family that Walks on All Fours - Full Documentary\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/094qMovHark?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><small class=\"image-media media-caption\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Caption...\">Family that Walks on All Fours &#8211; Full Documentary<\/small><small class=\"image-media media-photo-credit\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Credit...\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=094qMovHark&amp;ab_channel=SterlingDocumentaries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.youtube.com<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These kids have kept their fingers very agile, for example, the girls in the family can do crochet and embroidery,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Humphrey has hypothesised that this could indeed be the way our direct ancestors walked.<\/p>\n<p>By keeping their fingers dextrous, our early predecessors would also have been able to manipulate tools, which was crucial to the evolution of the human body and intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s possible that what we are seeing in this family is something that does correspond to a time when we didn&#8217;t walk like chimpanzees but was an important step between coming down from the trees and becoming fully bipedal,&#8221; Humphrey told the news site.<\/p>\n<p>The LSE researcher also suggested that there are more basic explanations for the Ulas children\u2019s quadrupedalism: they were simply not encouraged to walk on two feet.<\/p>\n<p>In the Turkish village where they grew up, there was no local health service to help the disabled kids make the transition from crawling as babies (on hands and knees) to walking fully upright.<\/p>\n<p>Humphrey told <em>60 Minutes<\/em> that he provided the Ulases with a walking frame and within a few hours \u201cthere was an astonishing transformation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe children who had never taken a step upright on two legs [used] this frame to walk across the room with such delight in their faces and a sense of achievement,\u201d he recalled, adding that it was as if they had \u201csuddenly made a breakthrough into the world they never imagined they could ever enter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-3x2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"a8d93\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"b3db7b285d2f84d0c61d9740e55249a7\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/www.indy100.com\/media-library\/bars-have-been-installed-at-the-ulas-home-to-encourage-the-family-members-to-walk-upright.png?id=35740262&amp;width=1200&amp;height=800&amp;quality=85&amp;coordinates=0%2C40%2C0%2C38\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" alt=\"\"\/><small class=\"image-media media-caption\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Caption...\">Bars have been installed at the Ulas home to encourage the family members to walk upright<\/small><small class=\"image-media media-photo-credit\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Credit...\">60 Minutes Australia<\/small><\/p>\n<p>He said that seeing their enthusiasm to walk upright, with the help of physiotherapists, gave him \u201crenewed respect for the human spirit\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said it helped him see \u201chow human beings in the most disadvantaged circumstances can triumph over their adversity, no matter what they have to do to maintain their pride and the sense of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/newsletters?itm_channel=native&amp;itm_campaign=footer&amp;itm_audience=prospecting&amp;itm_content=newsletters\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up<\/a> for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong style=\"\">Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indy100.com\/science-tech\/ulas-family-walk-on-all-fours-2669381133\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All families have their own quirks and habits, but one group of relatives has such a unique trait that scientists have branded them a total anomaly of the human species. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=113079\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}