Humanity evolved to cope with 30°C+ heat, says prof

cruelly hot ?

"cruelly hot, generally above 30°C and sometimes above 35°C, for the whole time humanity has existed."

cruelly hot..... Bah thats a ormal summer us LOL

Are most other posters politely ignoring the fact

that on a web site self-described as "The Register is the one of the world's biggest online tech publications" (sic), this report concerning the lifestyle of our utterly techless, exclusively African ancestors is nothing but Lewis Page's Climate Change Controversion-o-the-Day?

(And has anyone yet performed textanal to investigate whether Lewis actually is Andrew Orlowski with a toupee to disguise his identity and deficit of above-the-neck body hair, and another expense account? We've heard [Ed Reardon's Week] on Radio 4, we know the tricks. I'm imagining Lewis with a rather shaky Scottish Islander accent...)

As for a mutation to lose hair - what could be easier? It is keeping the damn stuff that's difficult. Most of us have hair all over before we're born that disappears, called "lanugo" (some of us are born early still wearing it), which must have helped to give Haeckel the idea that Nature was making a chimpanzee and at the last moment changed its mind. And our controversial not-quite-gills. I've written software on the same design principle, assemble everything you could want and then output the material that you actually require. The Google Street View cars monitoring computer home networks evidently work that way, too.

RE:Endurance predators

African hunting dogs aren't endurance predators, not really they may chase for a while but if outdistanced they will give up, compare it to the San people in the Kalahari and they will literally chase an antelope down over the course of two our three days keepiing up the pace to the point where the antelpe literally collapses from exhaustion.

Peccaries aren't predators, keep out of intense heat and stay near shade and water sources because of this, I would also guess that the hair might have the effect of warding of sunburn since they are pig family and a lot of pigs are sensitive to this.

Hot or not?

Where I live during most of the year (because my wife can't cope with British winter, and although I can cope I like it no more than she does) temperatures of 30 degrees plus at 3pm are quite common in midwinter. Sure, on the airport (which is where the official temperatuires figueres are measured and reported) and in other places right down by the sea temperatures are maybe a few degrees lower but a lot of people (including me) live a bit further up the hills where it's rather hotter. I've often sat in my front garden in temperatures above 40 degrees (there's usually a breeze, and humidity is usually low, so that's not unpleasantly hot). Coping with the heat is just a matter of drinking enough water and wearing the right clothes (and enough sunscreen until you buil enough tan to protect you, if you are going to be away from shade for a lot of time) - it isn't any big issue.

A few years back I spent a couple of weeks in Southern Egypt. Afternoon temperatures typically 40 (or more) in the shade, but RH very low indeed so the heat wasn't a problem.

Why does anyone think that people are not evolved to cope with temperatures above those of a miserable British spring? If a northener like me can cope with reasonable temperatures why can't people from the deep south of Britain (places like Manchester and Leeds) cope too? Is it just those from the effete south east who think 30 degrees is ridiculously hot?