Attributes of Domesticated Animals

The study of domesticated animals since Darwin’s influential work (1868) has culminated in the formation of a set of changes that are claimed to distinguish domestic populations from wild species (for recent outlines of these see Price 1984, 1999; Hemmer 1990; Tchernov and Horwitz 1991; Hall 1993; Teichert 1993; Smith 1995; Zohary, Tchernov, and Horwitz 1998; Clutton-Brock 1999; Trut 1999). Although not uniformly present in all domesticated species, those affecting the skeleton may include ...

 Practice Walking Helps Infants Walk Earlier

In fact, contrary to all of the early anecdotes claiming that practice has no effect on the onset of walking, one carefully controlled study has shown that special exercise can indeed accelerate it. In this study, a group of newborns were given just ten minutes per day of "practice walking." Every day between one and nine weeks of age, the baby would be held upright by a parent, with his feet on a table, and allowed to exercise his stepping reflex. Two additional groups of babies received, re...