This video is an advert for dog food, but nevertheless shows how dogs manage to leap to catch food. The neuronal processing is in fact remarkably complex: pattern recognition (it’s a treat), measurement of velocity and parabolic trajectory, computation of appropriate power needed, and its distribution, to get body to right place at the right time, opening of mouth, closing of mouth, landing with appropriate weight distribution. That’s just a description of the processes that must be taking place. How EXACTLY do they do it? No one knows…
2 Comments
05/03/2010 at 15:02
goddidit? It must be in the bible somewhere. There are an infinite ways to interpret the fairy tales, so the fundagelicals will figure something out.
Or maybe millions of years of natural selection that slowly increased the fitness of the species.
05/03/2010 at 17:38
This reminded me of some similarly amazing slow-mo video of bird flight.
Check it out:
http://www.showstudio.com/project/perroquet#
I particularly love the way you can see how the primary feathers rotate like window blinds, allowing air to pass through on the upswing then closing a bit more on the down stroke.