All This Is That: A strange experiment with cadavers to prove we are still cavemen (the pugilism hypothesis).

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

A strange experiment with cadavers to prove we are still cavemen (the pugilism hypothesis).

A research article recently appeared in The Journal of Experimental Biology — "In vitro strain in human metacarpal bones during striking: testing the pugilism hypothesis of hominin hand evolution."

What they were studying in plain English: University of Utah researchers made a "pendulum-like apparatus" in which they placed cadaver arms, and proceeded to make the arms punch a padded dumbbell with clenched or unclenched fist. The experiment was to test the theory that the human hand evolved its shape so that men could "fistfight over females" (the "pugilism hypothesis"). [Link: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/20/3215]

---o0o---

No comments:

Post a Comment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).