February 26, 2021
Gretchen Reynolds
THE NEW YORK TIMES/ CNA – We can thank early human evolution that many of us can enjoy running as much as we do.
Watch anyone with a ponytail run, and you can see their hair repeatedly describe a figure-eight in the air, responding to the forces generated by the running.
But their heads stay still, their eyes and gaze level.
If it weren’t for some unique evolutionary advances, our heads would do the same as that ponytail, flopping like a swim noodle when we run, according to a clever new study of how – and why – our upper bodies seem to work the way they do when we run, but not when we walk.