One in 13 people have feet like apes: Research
Published: 2013 June 01 13:03:45 (5882 Views)
One in 13 people have flexible ape-like feet, according to a new study.
Scientists studied the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science, and found significant differences in their bone structure.
Apes spend a lot of their time in trees, so their flexible feet are essential to grip branches and allow them to move around quickly.
Scientists say it is unclear why most of us ended up with more rigid feet.
In the study, Jeremy DeSilva from Boston University and a colleague asked museum visitors to walk barefoot and observed how they walked by using a mechanised carpet that was able to analyse several components of the foot.
Most of us have rigid feet, with stiff ligaments holding the bones in the foot together.
But when primates lift their heels off the ground, they have a floppy foot with nothing holding their bones together.
This is known as a midtarsal break, and is similar to what the Boston team identified in some of the participants.
Most of those with the flexibility did not realise they had it and there was no observable difference in the speed of their stride.
The bone structure of a two-million-year-old fossil human relative, Australopithecus sediba, suggests it also had this mobility.
The research was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
- Skynews
Scientists studied the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science, and found significant differences in their bone structure.
Apes spend a lot of their time in trees, so their flexible feet are essential to grip branches and allow them to move around quickly.
Scientists say it is unclear why most of us ended up with more rigid feet.
In the study, Jeremy DeSilva from Boston University and a colleague asked museum visitors to walk barefoot and observed how they walked by using a mechanised carpet that was able to analyse several components of the foot.
Most of us have rigid feet, with stiff ligaments holding the bones in the foot together.
But when primates lift their heels off the ground, they have a floppy foot with nothing holding their bones together.
This is known as a midtarsal break, and is similar to what the Boston team identified in some of the participants.
Most of those with the flexibility did not realise they had it and there was no observable difference in the speed of their stride.
The bone structure of a two-million-year-old fossil human relative, Australopithecus sediba, suggests it also had this mobility.
The research was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
- Skynews
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