She Spent 10 Days In An Insane Asylum. Here’s What Happened
The Riveting Story Of Nellie Bly
By Dorraine Fisher
Roosevelt Island, New York, is two miles long and situated on the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Even though it’s considered to be part of Manhattan, it provides a beautiful contrast to the concrete city with its lush picnicking areas and natural atmosphere.
But it has a very dark and harrowing past. Once known as Blackwell Island, it was once the resting place of an infamous insane asylum known as the Blackwell’s Women’s Asylum. And when this madhouse was still intact, it had a lot of stories to tell. But the most significant one was the story of Nellie Bly.
Why We’re Naked
and Why Mermaids Could Possibly Exist
Exploring The
Rejected “Aquatic Ape Theory”
By TCC Team Member Dorraine
Fisher
Even though the
Discovery Channel’s recent special about mermaids was a dramatization, the
theory behind it, the aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH), is sound and credible
whether science wants to believe it or not. It presents a pretty sensible
solution to the question of why humans are the only naked ape. But to this day,
it’s still rejected by scientists in the mainstream.
First
introduced by marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960, the aquatic ape
hypothesis was brought to the attention of the public by a probing press, but
it was first explained in better detail by Welsh writer Elaine Morgan. I
first became familiar with her work years ago when I read her best-selling
book, The Descent Of Woman that had first been published back in 1970.
Aquatic
theory, in a nutshell, attempts to explain why we humans evolved differently in
many key ways from other apes. Why are we the only naked ape? Why are we the
only apes that cry? Why do we have webbed fingers? Why do we take to the water
so well unlike other apes, and why are our offspring born knowing how to swim?
Why does our heart rate slow when we dive into the water unlike other apes? Why
are we more streamlined than other apes? And why do we retain more body fat
than they do? Morgan,
who wasn’t a paleontologist or anthropologist, but an articulate writer who had
written for many scientific journals and knew her subject well, explained it
all to the public in layman’s terms, causing many people to embrace the
hypothesis. Many except the scientific community that has, over 40 years later,
not given a satisfactory explanation of why they reject it so strongly.
AAH gives a more pertinent viewpoint about everything
that’s different about humans. Morgan
explained that in some very early history of the evolutionary story, humans
entered the water at some point for the purpose of survival. There are many
reasons this could have happened. Food sources there would have been easy to
acquire and plentiful. Many of the most dangerous predators in Africa didn’t
necessarily like the water, so it would have been a safe haven for our
ancestors at that time who were much smaller, easier targets. Especially the
females who may have been on their own part of the time, often carrying an
infant, making them twice as vulnerable to danger. Interestingly, human babies
are born knowing how to “swim” in a way. And they automatically hold their breath in the water. Why is
this? No other primate babies have that skill.
Why are we the only naked ape? AAH says that most animals that have become
aquatic at some point have lost most of their hair. Whales, manatees, and
hippos to name a few. Scientists recently discovered an ancestor of the
rhinoceros that was believed to have spent most of its time in the water,
explaining its hair loss. And many believe the same thing happened to
elephants, who are to this day, excellent swimmers and love the water.
Why do we have webbed toes and fingers? If you look at a chimps hands, you’ll
find no trace of any such webbing. And the interesting thing about this
phenomena is that in looking at modern water retrievers, you’ll notice they
have webbed toes. And this is something that has developed within a very short
time in history; perhaps a couple hundred years. So our human ancestors
wouldn’t necessarily have had to remain aquatic for very long in order for
these kinds of changes to take place.
Why do we retain body fat in a way no other apes on earth do? Maybe it’s
because other animals that have become aquatic and lost their hair, have at the
same time, developed a layer of subcutaneous fat for warmth and the protection
of vital organs and tissue. Manatees, whales, hippos and others all evolved
more body fat to adapt to life in the water.
And
why do we seem to be so streamlined and designed for the water. We need only to
watch Olympic divers to see how well humans have adapted to life in the water.
No other ape has that streamlined, almost fish-shaped body so well suited to
moving through the water with ease. And our heart rate actually slows when we
dive into the water? Why is that? Perhaps to conserve the much needed oxygen
while we’re holding our breath underwater. This wouldn’t be necessary had we
not been spending a lot of time in the water at some time in history.
And
the list goes on. All our quirkiest traits can be explained by this hypothesis. So
if we choose to aspire to the theory, is it much of a stretch to think that
mermaids of a sort could exist? Perhaps not the type we recognize from familiar
folklore, but something different than we may imagine. Maybe small groups of
these aquatic apes returned to land after a time, and maybe other groups simply
stayed in the water and developed more fine-tuned adaptations in order to
remain there. Like hands with better webbing, stronger lungs, transformation of
legs to a tail fin, etc. If we think of it this way, it’s not completely beyond
the realm of possibility.
We
know from chasing Bigfoot around the forests, that just because we’ve never
actually seen a creature, doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t exist. And this
idea is no different. *********
DF
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