Physics can help a person realize that it’s not always good to be hit by a slowly rolling car, even if the ground appears to be flat. This medical report gives details: “Pedestrian accident analysis with a silicone dummy block,” Youngnae Lee, Sungji Park, Seokhyun Yoon, Youngsu Kong, and Jae-Mo Goh, Forensic Science International, vol. 220, […]
Tag: rolling
Jumping beans (the locomotion of)
The US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Gatech) isn’t just known for undertaking research into lethal weapons systems – far from it – it also investigates, for example, the locomotion and ‘navigation’ abilities of Mexican Jumping Beans. The beans, which are inhabited by the larvae of the moth Laspeyresia saltitans (or sometimes Cydia deshaisiana) have an […]
The beetle that, also, invented the wheel
When the Australian patent office granted a patent in the year 2001 to Mr. John Keogh for inventing the wheel (an action for which they shared an Ig Nobel Prize), little acknowledgment was given to the several animals who regularly reinvent themselves a wheels. One of those animals is celebrated in a new study: “Wind-Powered […]
Study: Domestic cats, when/why they roll
Domestic cats roll. Oh, they roll and roll and roll – not constantly, but often enough that the behaviour eventually caught the attention of scientists. In 1994, Hilary N Feldman of Cambridge University’s Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, did a formal study of the phenomenon. Feldman’s monograph, called Domestic Cats and Passive Submission, appeared in the […]