A new study has found that not all feet are the rigid design that makes it better suited for walking. Previously it was thought that humans have rigid feet and apes have more flexible feet that are better at grasping trees. A flexible foot bends at the ball of the foot and halfway between the ball and the heel. Humans have a joint there but usually ligaments cross the joint and keep it stiff. However, some of us have softer ligaments that allow the mid foot to bend.
This was discovered when Jeremy DeSilva and Simone Gill from Boston University videotaped 400 people walking around barefoot at the Boston University of Science. They found that about 8 percent of people have some midfoot flexiblity. An interesting part of this is that the people who had these feet were not aware of the flexibility and their gait was the same, but when a close up camera was used it was obvious that they had the flexibility.
NOS Themes:
Role of motivation and curiosity: This is an interesting study that many people wouldn't have thought to look for.
Science is tentative: It is not yet known whether flexible feet have always been something humans have had , and if it makes walking more efficient.
Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829194.700-1-in-13-people-have-bendy-chimplike-feet.html
related article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/some-people-are-still-running-around-bendy-chimp-feet
I found an article explaining why some feet are flexible.
ReplyDeletehttp://barefootprof.blogspot.com/2010/10/foot-anatomy-101.html
It's all due to the arches and how they bend and spring back.
This is really interesting! I wonder if there is some sort of test to see how much foot flexibility you have. Here's an article about how to maintain foot flexibility.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aofas.org/footcaremd/how-to/foot-health/Pages/How-to-Keep-Your-Feet-Flexible.aspx
I found a similar article that interested me. It was not only about the similarity between apes and humans, but our ancestors and how their feet and bones were. The scientist mentioned in the article is planning on conducting experiments on how humans walk and their bone structure, so he can compare his results to ancient bones and see how our extinct ancestors walked.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boston.com/news/science/blogs/science-in-mind/2013/05/31/percent-people-found-have-feet-with-chimp-like-flexibility/scHU6fjSqgDPGOegEXM0rK/blog.html
Another NOS theme could be importance of repeatability because they found that only some people had a more flexible foot.
ReplyDeleteIf only some feet have the extra flexibility, would that mean that those people are more related to apes than the rest of us?
ReplyDelete