From: kutchsciencefoundation@...



Dear Friends of Science History

British scientist hopes for 'yeti hair' breakthrough AFP - 1 hour 24 minutes ago


LONDON (AFP) - A British scientist said Monday he was anxiously awaiting the
results of DNA tests on hair claimed to be from a yeti after initial
examinations showed it had human and ape-like characteristics.
Ian Redmond, a biologist and expert in ape conservation, said the hairs found
in the Indian jungle resembled samples collected by the conqueror of Everest,
Sir Edmund Hillary, in the 1950s.'Under the microscope, they look slightly
human, slightly like an orang utang and slightly like the hairs brought back by
Edmund Hillary,' Redmond told AFP.'These hairs remain an enigma. They could be a
new species, but the DNA tests will hopefully tell us more.'The hairs were
brought back from India this year by a BBC journalist, Alastair Lawson, who
contacted Redmond and was put in touch with a team at Oxford Brookes University
in south central England.Lawson was given the hairs by yeti believer Dipu Marak,
who retrieved them them in dense jungle in the Meghalaya state of India after a
forester allegedly spotted the creature on three consecutive days in 2003.Marak
believes the hairs come from an ape-like Indian version of the fabled yeti, or
abominable snowman, called mande barung, which he believes stands about three
metres (10 feet) tall.Redmond and scientists from Oxford Brookes examined the
hairs on Thursday under powerful microscopes, comparing them with samples taken
from an Asiatic black bear, yaks, orang utangs and gorillas at Oxford's Natural
History Museum and even a hair from Redmond's beard.'The hairs are complete with
the cuticle, and between 3.3 centimetres (1.3 inches) and 4.4 centimetres long
and thick and wiry and curved,' Redmond said.'At one point we thought they
looked like they came from a wild boar. That was quite a tense moment, but when
we got a sample from the museum it turned out they were quite different.'Redmond
also contacted the English laboratory that analysed the hairs brought back by
Hillary in the 1950s from his Everest expedition and found they were similar in
appearance.While the microscope tests were inconclusive, the hairs are now
undergoing DNA tests in separate laboratories in Oxford and Cardiff.Redmond
admitted his excitement at a potential scientific breakthrough was tinged with
fear.'My concern is that if we do find something unusual, it will be from a very
small population of animals and I would want to talk to the state government and
Indian government so they are not inundated with people trying to catch one for
a museum FORWARDED By yours Dr.BHUDIA-Science Group Of INDIA
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