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Jack the Ripper – Who Are The Suspects?
Montague John Druitt For many Druitt is the prime suspect, but the actual evidence linking him to the Whitechapel Murders is mainly circumstantial. From a privileged background, Druitt worked parallel jobs at the time of the murders, pursuing a career as a barrister while also working as the assistant master at a boarding school. Late in 1888 he committed suicide, shortly after the Ripper murders came to an end, a link some think is more than a coincidence. Druitt was at the top of the head of Scotland Yard, Melville Macnaghten’s list of subjects. As Macnaghten himself said in his memoirs: “From private information I have little doubt but that his own family suspected this man of being the Whitechapel murderer, it was alleged that he was sexually insane.” Sir William Gull One of the most well known although not necessarily the most likely suspects is Sir William Gull. Gull is implicated in one of the most well known Jack the Ripper movies: From Hell. The idea of his guilt is a particularly tantalising one because he was the physician of Queen Victoria herself. The idea of Gull being guilty perhaps appeals so much because of the web of intrigue it suggests. One elaborate conspiracy theory claims that Victoria’s son Albert Victor was a regular visitor to various East End brothels, some even claiming he was responsible for the pregnancy of Annie Crook. While Crook was sent to an asylum, Gull was supposedly sent to the streets of Whitechapel to kill all who knew of the affair. On the other hand, at the time of the killings Gull was in his seventies, perhaps making it unlikely he was the killer. Some even say that in the summer of 1888 he had suffered a series of strokes, a fact which if true would of course rule him out as the Ripper. Severin Antoniovich Klosowski aka George Chapman Klosowski had qualified as a junior surgeon in his native Poland before moving to London, where he gained work as an assistant hairdresser, the job he held in summer 1888. Unlike many of the other suspects, Klosowski was definitely a murderer, but not necessarily Jack the Ripper. In 1903 he was arrested and found guilty of having poisoned three of his former wives. Suspicions quickly arose in the press that he could have also been responsible for the Whitechapel Murders. Inspector Frederick Abberline, who had worked on the Ripper case, told the press in 1903 he believed Klosowski was the culprit. His reasoning included the fact the series of murders started shortly after Klosowski had arrived in England, while his surgical training was also considered possible proof. (Some say that the way the Ripper’s victims were mutilated could only have been done by a trained surgeon.) On the other hand, Klosowski’s other killings had all been poisonings rather than knife attacks, and his victims had all been women he was married too. Although the murders came to a stop shortly after the suspect moved to the United States, a similar spate of grisly crimes did not start there following his arrival. Francis Tumblety One of the more recently named suspects, it was only revealed in 1996 that Tumblety had been investigated by Scotland Yard. Tumblety was undoubtedly an unsavory character. A notorious quack, he’d made his fortune posing as a herb doctor in the United States and Canada. Perhaps most damningly, he had a reputation as an extreme misogynist with a particular hatred for prostitutes. Shockingly, he had been arrested for complicity in the Lincoln assassination (although he was released without charge.) In a 1913 press interview, Chief Inspector John Littlechild of the Metropolitan Police Service mentioned Tumblety was a suspect in the murders. There had also been rumours previously that the British police tried to extradite him from New York, although this was later denied by the NYPD. Little evidence exists linking him to the crime, while his distinct appearance (he was exceptionally tall with an outrageous mustache), would surely have made him stand out in any witness statements. There is no hard evidence to incriminate any of these four suspects, a pattern common among the more than 100 names linked with the grisly crimes. More than anything, the Jack the Ripper case highlights the limitations of police investigation in the late nineteenth century. A time when it was impossible to capture a serial killer, even one who was handwriting letters to the authorities.]]>
Antiquity. ]]>
The Science of Nature. Traces of raw animal tissue, uncooked starch granules indicating consumption of grasses, pollen grains from a species of pine and insect fragments were among the other microfossils extracted from the hominin molar. All of these were uncharred and showed no evidence of inhalation of microcharcoal, in other words, they displayed none of the characteristics usually associated with having been in close proximity to fire. The teeth investigated by the team come from one of the two oldest sets of hominin remains found in Europe. The piece of jawbone, discovered at Sima del Elefante in 2007, is between 1.1 and 1.2 million years old. The site itself is one of several in the region covering a period between 300,000 and 1.2 million years old. Exactly when early humans first started to use fire is hotly contested, and the new study seems to add to the debate. Some researchers suggest habitual fire use started as far back as 1.8 million years ago, while others argue it happened as recently as 300,000 – 400,000 years ago. Some have argued that hominins mastered fire while still in Africa, but didn’t bring the skills with them when they reached Europe, something the lack of fire evidence at Sima del Elefante would seem to support. The earliest definitive evidence of fire use in Europe is 800,000 years ago at the Spanish site of Cueva Negra, and at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, a short time later. Taken together, a timeline emerges suggesting that the development of fire technology in Europe occurred sometime between 800,000 and 1.2 million years ago. Dr Karen Hardy, lead author and Honorary Research Associate at the University of York and ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, said in a press release: “Obtaining evidence for any aspect of hominin life at this extremely early date is very challenging. Here, we have been able to demonstrate that these earliest Europeans understood and exploited their forested environment to obtain a balanced diet 1.2 million years ago, by eating a range of different foods and combining starchy plant food with meat.” According to Dr Hardy, the results follow ideas about the development of certain characteristics in humans. “This new timeline has significant implications in helping us to understand this period of human evolution – cooked food provides greater energy, and cooking may be linked to the rapid increases in brain size that occurred from 800,000 years ago onwards.” “It also correlates well with previous research hypothesising that the timing of cooking is linked to the development of salivary amylase, needed to process cooked starchy food. Starchy food was an essential element in facilitating brain development, and contrary to popular belief about the ‘Paleodiet’, the role of starchy food in the Palaeolithic diet was significant.” Image courtesy of Karen Hardy ]]>
The Independent. The problem is that he can’t know for sure just how old these rock carvings are. A major hurdle – one that can’t be easily overcome – is the fact that sanctions are imposed on Iran by the United States, posing difficulties in data access and analysis tools. Despite these disadvantages, Dr. Naserifard has spent more than a decade in his journeys across the length and breadth of Iran, claiming to have found 50,000 ancient engravings and paintings. Despite the lack of help from the United States, archaeologists from other countries around the world have occasionally pitched in to help Dr. Naserifard. Such an instance occurred in 2008 when Dutch researchers accompanied the Iranian on a visit to the area, evaluating a series of drawings that had been made with the use of cups and determining that they could have been made as much as 40,000 years in the past. Meanwhile, one of the most noteworthy finds is that of the engraved figure of an ibex, a type of deer with long, curled horns. The piece is thought to be 4,000 years old and but one of several similar pieces of prehistoric art that adorn the trail. These discoveries are slowly but surely building evidence for a hypothesis that modern humans began to develop common art traditions well before any diaspora from the Middle East, Dr. Naserifard remarked. He described his excitement in finding these ancient works of art as comparable to “finding treasure.” However, US sanctions have deprived Dr. Naerifard and colleagues of access to much-needed technology used in analyzing and dating samples. The archaeologist has high hopes that such technology can be brought into Iran in order to provide better, more accurate data concerning these engravings. With the US ban on fissionable materials being sent to Iran, scientists within the country lack analysis tools that rely on uranium to conduct much of their research. The technology is being used in other regions of the world as an alternative to radiocarbon dating, as it provides accurate estimations as to the date an object was created. Despite the many limitations his research has faced as a result of the ban, the archaeology professor says he has plans to continue his work, involving other archaeological institutions from around the globe in order to help document his many finds. Hopes are that such international attention may provide avenues for a more accurate date analysis of the ancient art. ]]>
HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, led by explorer and Royal Navy officer John Franklin, left Britain to search for the last section of the Northwest Passage. When both ships became icebound, all 129 men were lost, but exactly how and why they perished has been an enduring mystery. In a new study, researchers chemically mapped the fingernail and toenail of one of the dead men and found new evidence regarding Franklin and his crew’s tragic fate. A number of researchers have theorized that lead poisoning – caused by the metal leaching from the food tins or water pipes found on the ships – had caused the men’s death. Lead exposure can bring on symptoms which include neurological problems, that could have easily doomed the explorers. But now, this latest evidence shows one of the few bodies ever found had a zinc deficiency, suggesting that it was this deficiency, not lead poisoning, that led to his death. “There’s increasing evidence that lead was not the issue,” Jennie Christensen with TrichAnalytics in North Saanich, Canada, says in an article published in Nature. Christensen and her team measured the levels of zinc, copper, and lead at different locations along at thumbnail and toenail from John Hartnell, a crew member who, along with two others, died and was buried on Beechey Island where the expedition overwintered in 1845 and 1846. After studying the accumulated growth of Hartnell’s finger and toe nails, the team was able to identify week-by-week changes as they occurred in his body. “You can actually see what the levels of lead were with John Hartnell, over the period of time he was present on the expedition. That is a pretty unique insight,” Keith Millar, with the University of Glasgow, says in Nature. Christensen’s team utilized a synchrotron particle accelerator located in Saskatoon, called the Canadian Light Source, along with other instruments to construct a picture of the metals inside of Hartnell over a period of time. They discovered the crewman suffered from a serious zinc deficiency, which would have affected his immune system, leaving him considerably more vulnerable to pneumonia and tuberculosis – the very diseases that are believed to have killed him. Hartnell had high lead levels only within his last few weeks of life, when his body, dying at this time, would have released the lead stored in his bones into his blood and ultimately his nails. “The lead theory is pretty much dismantled by this point,” Ron Martin, from the Western University in London, Canada, tells Nature. In 2013, Martin analyzed the bone fragments of several crewmembers (including Hartnell) and reached the conclusion that there was no spike of lead exposure during the expedition, but rather, the men had been exposed to lead consistently throughout the course of their lives. No samples from any of the other members of the expedition are available, so the research can’t be applied beyond Hartnell’s death. However, a zinc deficiency may help to explain why other expeditions to the Arctic suffered poor health. The findings have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. ]]>
D. vorax, with its incredibly powerful bite and sharp, bone-crushing teeth, put a new spin on the theory that marsupials originated in South America, instead suggesting the origin point was both much further north – and about 10 to 20 million years earlier – than previously thought. Gregory Wilson, vertebrate paleontology adjunct curator from Seattle’s Burke Museum and lead researcher on the study, remarked that D. vorax absolutely “crushes the mold” when it comes to what scientists expect from mammals of the time period. With most other mammals from the era about the size of a shrew, D. vorax would have been a “fearsome predator” Wilson stated – one whose prey included some of the smaller dinosaur species. Discovered in the Hell Creek Formation, D. vorax fossil specimens were found in rock dating to between 59 million and 66 million years in the past. This isn’t the first instance of evidence pointing to creatures of this kind in North America though; based on previous finds, which were primarily fragmented teeth or jawbones, scientists have established something close to 60 different species of marsupial-like animals classified as metatherians from the entire Cretaceous. However, these new findings are radically different as they entail a partial snout and upper jawbone, and a nearly complete skull. These D. vorax parts have never been seen before now and have revealed that the creature is the largest metatherian known to have lived during the Cretaceous. While perhaps not large by the standards of the gargantuan dinosaurs roaming the Earth at that point, D. vorax would have weighed anywhere from just over 5 pounds to as much as 11-and-a-half pounds, the scientists have concluded. Even more interesting is the possible bite force the creature had, based on computed tomography (CT) scans of the fossilized remains. After determining where the jaw muscles would have been attached to the creature’s skull, and then comparing these muscles with modern animal analogues whose bite forces are already recorded, the researchers revealed that D. vorax would have had the strongest mammal bite strength ever. Most similar to modern hyenas and felines, the metatherian’s bite was strong enough to bite through bone. D. vorax could have easily bitten through hard shells of marine crustaceans and even small-sized dinosaurs. Wear patterns on the creature’s teeth bear out these hypotheses, scientists remarked. The new research study, published in the journal Nature Communications, can be found online here]]>
Journal of Experimental Biology, explains why human’s walk the way they do Humans are very much set in the way they walk, something which obscures the fact that our stride is actually pretty curious. To Webber it is a particularly pertinent issue. Barefoot runners run in a way that sees them land on the middle or balls of their feet instead of their heels, a stride which would feel unnatural when walking. “Humans are very efficient walkers, and a key component of being an efficient walker in all kinds of mammals is having long legs,” Webber explains in a press release from the University of Arizona. “Cats and dogs are up on the balls of their feet, with their heel elevated up in the air, so they’ve adapted to have a longer leg, but humans have done something different. We’ve dropped our heels down on the ground, which physically makes our legs shorter than they could be if we were up on our toes, and this was a conundrum to us (scientists).” Webber suggests our stride can be explained by limb length. Key to his explanation is the idea that humans move like an inverted swinging pendulum. The body essentially pivots about the point where the foot meets the ground, with the centre of pressure sliding across the length of the foot from heel to toe as we take a step. This means that the true pivot point occurs in the centre of the foot, but at a ‘virtual point’ several centimetres below the ground. Our heel to toe stride then, extends the length of our ‘virtual legs’: the points we pivot around which are longer than our actual legs. “Humans land on their heel and push off on their toes. You land at one point, and then you push off from another point eight to 10 inches away from where you started.” Webber says in the press release. “If you connect those points to make a pivot point, it happens underneath the ground, basically, and you end up with a new kind of limb length that you can understand. Mechanically, it’s like we have a much longer leg than you would expect.” Webber and his team reached their conclusion after monitoring study participants on a tread mill. They compared those who walked normally with those they’d asked to walk toe first. They quickly observed that those who had to walk toe first were slower, and used 10% extra energy in their strides. “The extra ‘virtual limb’ length is longer than if we had just had them stand on their toes, so it seems humans have found a novel way of increasing our limb length and becoming more efficient walkers than just standing on our toes,” Webber said. “It still all comes down to limb length, but there’s more to it than how far our hip is from the ground. Our feet play an important role, and that’s often something that’s been overlooked.” Ancient footprints preserved in volcanic ash in Tanzania show that ancient hominins had a heel to toe stride up to 3.6 millions years ago. Nevertheless, our feet have changed over the years. Early bipeds had longer feet than modern humans – 70 percent of the length of the femur compared to 54 percent in modern humans, which likely helped them become very fast, efficient walkers. Webber suggests that as modern humans evolved the heel first style of walking their feet got proportionally smaller, allowing us to become better runners, possibly as a means to evade predators. “When you’re running, if you have a really long foot and you need to push off really hard way out at the end of your foot, that adds a lot of torque and bending,” Webber said. “So the idea is that as we shifted into running activities, our feet started to shrink because it maybe it wasn’t as important to be super-fast walkers. Maybe it became important to be really good runners.” ]]>