Orangutan Fan

Part 1 For the Thanksgiving holiday weekend I spent a few days up in Mammoth with some friends. On the morning of our first full day someone asked what we wanted to do so I took the opportunity to try out the first experiment, which I had already discussed with everyone during the drive up the previous day. Naturally I wanted to go on a mountain bike ride so I started to pretend like I was riding a bike through the condo. I was running around the living room and kitchen, making ringing sounds like a bell attached to the handlebars, 'riding' up on the couch and then jumping off while kicking my legs out slightly trying to mimic going off a small jump. Anything I could do to make it seem like I was riding a bike, which I thought I was doing a good job at. That is until my friends started to try and guess what I was suggesting. The entire time they were guessing activities that weren't even close such as snowboarding, taking dance lessons, or one friend even suggested that...

In 1912, an amateur archaeologist by the name of Charles Dawson was digging in a gravel pit in the small town of Piltdown located in Essex, England. He claimed to of found a piece of a human skull which was over 1 mya old and was believed the be missing link between apes and humans. Scientists at first marveled at the findings as it would of provided some insight into human ancestry and help to explain how we as a species evolved. In the 1920's however other fossils were being discovered which began to raise questions regarding the discovery at piltdown. These new fossils were from other human ancestors who lived hundreds of thousands of years after piltdown man. However due to the piltdown man fossils being heavily guarded and no way at the time to accurately date the remains. In 1949 a flourine test was finally performed on the remains which showed the remains were somewhere around 100,000 years old rather than the million years that was originally claimed. In 1953 a full scale a...

Homologous vs Analogous traits. Homologous Orangutans are one of the largest primates with males reaching heights of up to 5' feet and a weight of nearly 200lbs. Their arms are 1.5 times the length of their legs and have feet that more closely resemble their hands, providing them with 4 limbs which they use to walk, climb, eat, and manipulate objects. Humans are the only living species of homo sapiens. Humans have an average height somewhere between 5'6" to 5'8" and an average weight of around 200lbs for males. Humans and Orangutans share many physical traits with each other including teeth. Both humans and orangutans have 32 teeth which include incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. That is where the similarities end however has the shape of the jaw and the teeth themselves differ between the two species. Orangutans have a larger rectangular shaped jaw when compared to a human, along with generally larger teeth, especially the canines. This is due to the...