Cats have an innate ability to orient themselves as they fall so that they land on their feet. This ability, called the cat righting reflex, is thanks to their unusually flexible backbone and lack of a functional collarbone. While it is theoretically possible for us humans to change our body poses in mid air, the researchers say that joint limits and muscle strength constraints prevent us from doing so in practice.
Robots, on the other hand, could in the future be constructed to mimic a cat’s righting ability and this is just what Karen Liu, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing (IC) at Georgia Tech, and her team are looking to facilitate by studying the physics of not only falling cats, but also the mid-air orientation of divers and astronauts.
via Gizmag
