It’s a staple gag for any slapstick movie. Trying for a wider shot, a photographer walks backwards (without looking) and trips over something. Amusing perhaps, but on occasions dangerous too. Odd then, that in the academic literature on safety and ergonomics, there a very few scholarly studies of this ubiquitous syndrome. In fact, there may […]
Tag: fall
Lizards That Fell to Earth [podcast 60]
Lizards — lizards that fall from the sky, more or less — find their way into this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams —with dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg — tells about: Lizards that fall from above (1) — “Arboreal Sprint Failure: Lizardfall in a California Oak Woodland,” William H. Schlesinger, Johannes […]
Behavior that leads to treadmill injuries
Here are some legal looks at behavior that leads to treadmill injuries: “Treadmill injuries: An analysis of case law,” JoAnn M.Eickhoff-Shemek [pictured here], ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal 14, no. 1 (2010): 39-41. Here are some visual looks at behavior that leads to treadmill injuries:
Tap dancing and the Osgood-Schlatter syndrome
Following on from a recent Improbable note which highlit research into Lower Extremity Kinetics in Tap Dancers, we can suggest to readers that just about any* kind of occupation or professional activity has the potential to cause discomfort and/or injury of some kind – and tap dancing is no exception. Despite its long history, however, it […]
Danger in the Fall: Confirmation Bullet
Investigator Don Weinshank writes: Tragically, the predictions by Incorvaia, Poulos, Jones and Tschirhart, Synergy Medical Alliance, East Lansing, Michigan (in their 2007 study “Can a Falling Bullet be Lethal at Terminal Velocity?”, reported in AIR, July/August 2012, p.11), were confirmed locally this July 4 when a woman was struck in the head by a bullet […]
Much ado about falling cats
The folks at Smarter Every Day produced this video about falling cats—and how those cats manage to land on their feet: (Thanks to investigator Arne Tomlinson for bringing this to our attention) BONUS: The apocryphal, published study “Does a Cat Always Land on Its Feet?” from the special Animal Behavior issue (vol. 4, no. 4, […]
Remove a Nail, and the Painting Falls Off the Wall
An all-star team of computer scientists has come up with better ways to remove paintings from museum (or any other) walls). The team includes Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) member Erik Demaine [pictured here] and RSA Security co-founder Ron Rivest. Their study is: “Picture-Hanging Puzzles,” Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Yair N. […]
The vicar’s fall from grace (onto a potato)
The British edition of The Metro reports (in an article derived from reporting by The Sun: Vicar hospitalised with potato up his bum A vicar claims a potato got stuck up his bottom after he fell on to the vegetable while hanging curtains in the nude. The clergyman, in his 50s, told medical staff at […]
If you choose to fall off a mountain [video]
Question: What does it look like when you fall off a mountain? Answer: If you’re lucky, something like this: (Thanks to investigator Wenhua Qifor bringing this to our attention.) BONUS: “Revisiting the fall of the Old Man of the Mountain“