So sorry for the very short notice. The following airs here in the UK tonight (Thursday 30th June 2011), Channel 4. I look forward to it.
For the Tet Zoo articles on ING and related issues, see...
- Inside Nature's Giants: a major television event worthy of praise and accolade. Part I!
- Inside Nature's Giants part II: whale guts and hindlimbs ahoy
- Enough mammals for the time being: crocodiles on Inside Nature's Giants (part III)
- Inside Nature's Giants part IV: the incredible anatomy of the giraffe
- Inside Nature's Giants, series 2: does Carcharodon bite?
- Monster pythons of the Everglades: Inside Nature's Giants series 2, part II
- Dissecting lions and tigers: Inside Nature's Giants series 2, part III
- A meeting with Dr Joy Reidenberg
- The ING giant squid special
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Earlier this year (in June), Channel 4 television here in the UK broadcast series 2 of Inside Nature's Giants (ING from hereon... titled Raw Anatomy in the US, you poor, poor people). You may have heard it here first. Hopefully you're familiar with ING series 1 - it looked at the anatomy of…
Subtitle for the first picture:
They tickled and tortured him till he could take no more, but Mr P Bear had the last laugh, as he took with him to his grave the secret of the glacier mints.
Alternate text:
They tickled and tortured him till he could take no more. Then he ate them.
A bit different from the previous programs - there was lots that was good about it, but this one was definitely more 'outside' one of nature's giants than inside.
Once again they had to include Dawkins, and his explanation of the absence of a baculum in humans was definitely a major comedy moment (to be fair he did make clear it was only a suggestion - but given that its Wimbledon fortnight, my only reaction could be "you cannot be serious").
What was his explanation?
Chimp bacula are vestigial aren't they? So there wouldn't seem to have to be any particular expansion but drift for humans' lack thereof.
What was Dawkins theory, and what's Wimbleton fortnight.
Hm!
I see that someone has made the episode available on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBsggj9t7VM
He starts at about 36:10 talking about penis bones (he never says baculum), and then moving on to sexual selection by females, and indicators of male health.
He also qualifies by saying that his idea is rather far-fetched, so don't take it too seriously.
@37:13 -
"What if... the ability to sustain a hard erection without a penis bone is a kind of blood-pressure meter; a kind of indicator of health. You might say: 'Any fool can sustain an erection with a penis bone, but only a really healthy male can do it without'."
I don't make this stuff up; I just report it.
Maybe a baculum would get in the way when males run, considering humans may have evolved as endurance runners.
I suppose we could test this by seeing whether men used to wearing a koteka had lower speed, distance, or endurance than people running against them...
darn, apparently that part about the baculum was cut out in youtube's version of the episode...
i know darren said that some parts of previous episodes had been cut out for the US version of the show; but what i watched was entiteled in its proper original title ''inside nature's giants'' , and not ''raw anatomy'' (the US name) so that's odd...
also, dawkin's other intervention about the isolating fur around the 25min mark was left in...
anybody know if anything else got cut out of what can be seen on youtube and where to watch an uncut version of this episode? i'm french so internet is the only way for me to follow this great program, i've been able to see all the episodes uncut so far and whould really like to see this one in full version as well...
"but this one was definitely more 'outside' one of nature's giants than inside."
Man, I hope this isn't true. The great thing about Inside Nature's Giants is its emphasis on anatomy. If it's about behavior and mostly features footage of live specimens, it's just another nature show.
Hang on - other great apes have decent-sized baculae? I'd thought all primates had missing/vestigial ones.