A special case of anencephaly in an early-born baby with an exagerated prognastic face: Further example for human devolution

PubMedID: 18465422A 7-month-old baby was born in a village near Iskenderun (Turkey) where "Unertan Syndrome" with quadrupedality and primitive cognitive abilities was discovered. The clinical diagnosis was anencephaly. However, his head did not show the classical symptoms of anencephaly because it was covered with bony structures. The baby has an ape-like, prognasthic head with low-set ears and flapped ear flaps. The other parts of the body were similar to humans with broad shoulders and a short neck. This may be a further example of human devolution, which was first reported by Tan (2005, 2006a,b,c). A genetic defect affecting the head development including brain may be responsible for the reappearance of the ape-like head in a human being. This human devolution, or evolution in reverse, suggests that the same gene or gene-pool as well as the interactions between genes may be responsible for the transition from our ancestors into human beings with regard to an orthognasthic head, and brain development. Copyright © 2008 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc.Received 22 November 2007. This study is partly supported by the Turkish Academy of Sciences, Ankara, Turkey. Address correspondence to Prof. Dr. Uner Tan, C¸ ukurova University, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Physics Adana 01330, Turkey. E-mail: unertan37@yahoo.co