Word: apish
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Even on its tiptoes, the little creature stood hardly more than 4½ ft. tall. Its brain was no larger than a chimpanzee's. But unlike its apish kin, it had a clearly human characteristic. It could walk upright, probably as well as modern man. Its arms gathered food, warded off foes and perhaps even made primitive tools. Yet the most remarkable thing about this tiny ape-man is its age. It lived some 4 million years ago, in what is now a forbidding corner of Africa called the Afar Triangle. If its discoverers are right, this ancient biped...
...sophisticated a creature acquire such an unwarranted reputation? For one thing, the first Neanderthal bones were dug just about the time that Darwin astonished the world with his announcement that man and ape were descended from a common ancestor. Neanderthal's apish image was further enforced by the writings early in this century of the respected French paleontologist Pierre Marcellin Boule. His portrait of Neanderthal as a stunted, beetle-browed creature who walked with bent knees and arms dangling in front of him served as the model for several generations of artists and cartoonists. While certain coarse features...
Higher on Darwin's family tree And join in man's society. Then some gifted gibbon may Be able in his apish way To peer at Cape Canaveral And write a new Decline and Fall...
...from the "septal region" (part of the midbrain. in front of the hypothalamus) of bovine brains. One test: Heath & Co. shot taraxein into two monkeys, noted behavior changes which reminded them of schizophrenia, then gave a shot of the beef-brain extract. The monkeys promptly returned to normal, apish antics...
Today the Baboon Boy is about 50. He still has no clear idea of time, cannot write, retains some of his apish facial and bodily mannerisms. He has to be reminded to start any task. But once started, he works steadily until the job is done...