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July
30, 2003:
Interesting Facts About Body Parts
Interview
with Michael Sims, author of Adam's
Navel
Mike
Carruthers:
Ever wonder where the whole idea of kissing started?
Michael
Sims:
Psychologists will say that it might very well have
begun with "mouth to mouth" feeding between a mother
and child.
Michael
Sims, author of the book, Adam's
Navel
The fun
thing for me was discovering that chimpanzees and gorillas and
orangutans and bonobos very often greet each other with a kiss.
They express submission with a kiss. They kiss their offspring
on the top of the head. But no one actually knows when it began.
In his book,
Michael looks at some of the fascinating features of the human
body and behavior. For example the importance of how our lips
move.
Because
we have, like the other higher primates, naked faces. We're
much more aware of all of the movements on the faces of our
fellow creatures than most other species. And so we are attuned
over many, many thousands of years to watching our lips as we
speak. So therefore a film that's dubbed, is even harder for
us to follow. It seems more unnatural than a film that's subtitled.
We're used to watching that mouth move.
And Michael
says eyebrows are interesting…
There's something called the "brow flash" which
is that way that so many primates, and that includes us very
much, greet each other with a sort of jump of the eyebrows.
If you go out at lunch and just sit in a restaurant you can
watch people walking up to a table, and they'll greet each other
with an "eyebrow flash." Isn't it interesting?
Tomorrow
important things about your big toe you never knew. I'm Mike
Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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