• Most people tend to walk with their elbows slightly bent. • Most people tend to run with their elbows acutely bent. • No-one knows why. There is however, a(n) hypothesis. It’s the ‘Mechanical Tradeoff Hypothesis.’ which was descibed by Andrew K. Yegian, Yanish Tucker, Stephen Gillinov and Daniel E. Lieberman in their 2019 paper […]
Tag: energy
Optimising one’s arm-swing whilst walking – a cost/benefit analysis [new study]
“Humans tend to swing their arms when they walk, a curious behaviour since the arms play no obvious role in bipedal gait. It might be costly to use muscles to swing the arms, and it is unclear whether potential benefits elsewhere in the body would justify such costs.” If you’re a living thing, energy is […]
The Choo Lab’s Humming Generator
Many research groups across the world are in the process of developing so-called ‘Energy Harvesting’ (EH) techniques to extract electrical energy from human actions. (see for example, Implementing a knee-energy harvester). The Choo Lab at Caltech specializes in such things, and researchers there have recently developed a system which is designed to power portable electronic […]
How much energy is there in all the excess human fat in the USA?
This paper, about the amount of energy contained in fat people in the USA, can fuel a new level of contentiousness in the nation’s ongoing, highly opinionated debates about energy policy, and perhaps about other things: “How much energy is locked in the USA? Alternative metrics for characterising the magnitude of overweight and obesity derived […]
Human energy expenditure, in bread-slice units
Human energy expenditure can be measured in meaningful units, is one possible message of this May 1938 article in Popular Science: Meter Gauges Work in Bread-Slice Units How rapidly exercise uses up the energy in the food you eat is graphically demonstrated by a device called the “bread-o-meter” at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pa. […]
Profiling Professor Persinger – part 3
Can ‘Reality’ be ‘Bifurcated’? If so, what would be the energy required to do so? Could a human brain bifurcate reality? And, if one brain had managed to achieve the critical threshold energy to do so, would other observers existing within the same space-time frame also perceive related phenomena? All these questions are examined by […]
Further Info for Skyscraper Stairway Climbers
Upper floor residents of skyscrapers, at least those upper floor residents who habitually climb stairs rather than ride elevators to their homes, can find useful information in this new study: “The Energy Expenditure of Stair Climbing One Step and Two Steps at a Time: Estimations from Measures of Heart,” Lewis G. Halsey, David A. R. […]
Implementing a knee-energy harvester
“The modern drive towards mobility and wireless devices is motivating intensive research in energy harvesting technologies.” say two research fellows at Cranfield University in the UK, who are currently examining the question – ‘Why not harvest energy from people’s knees?’ Building on their previous research into plucked piezoelectric bimorphs for energy harvesting applications, Dr. Michele […]
Go-go biking across Japan: Toilet power
“‘Poop As You Go’ Biogas Bike To Go On 600 Mile Tour Of Japan” reads the headline on Treehugger’s report about exactly that. Treehugger gives details: Japan’s biggest toilet maker, TOTO, takes the toilet on the road with its launch of the Toilet Bike Neo, a bike that’s powered entirely by human waste. The bike runs […]
Knight on a treadmill (a tale of energy spent)
ScienceNOW reports on a new study (published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B) about knights of old: Heavy Armor Gave Knights a Workout Knights in shining armor paid a heavy price for the protection their suits provided them from swords, arrows, and Frenchmen catapulting cows. Researchers have found that the steel plate-mail armor worn during […]