Originally published February 21 2006
Three penguins take part in study of movement
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The goal of studying penguin movement is to help humans with balance and walking problems. The researchers observed that the penguins' side-to-side motion seemed to help their balance.
ChillyWilly, Everest and Brooks aren't your average study participants -- they're short, adept at swimming and waddling, and always dressed for black-tie affairs.
The three penguins are part of a University of Houston study researching the mechanics of penguin movement in an effort to help humans with balance and walking problems.
According to Max Kurz, a biomechanics professor and study leader, human therapy regimens are at least several years away, but researchers hope to have their initial results published within the next year.
Humans, the elderly in particular, have an inherent amount of instability in their side-to-side movement patterns that are controlled through the nervous system, Kurz said.
Kurz started studying the birds last October.
A dozen king penguins waddled down a walkway covered with a pressure-sensor mat to measure their foot patterns.
The researchers are teaching college students to waddle like penguins, Kurz said, hoping to determine whether training people with mobility problems to walk this way might help them stay stable.
"Maybe it could extend to stroke or other pathological patients who have an increased incidence of falls and an inability to control locomotion," Kurz said.
Miriam Morey, a researcher at the VA Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, who specializes in helping older adults maintain mobility, said studying penguins is an interesting approach that perhaps could help prevent her patients from falling.
Now, researchers are gearing up for further bird work in which they'll teach king and gentoo penguins to walk on a treadmill.
Because gentoos can run, researchers will mark and track them with high-speed cameras to capture their movements mid-step.
Other animals like emus or ostriches might also be worth studying, Kurz said, for their own unique movement strategies.
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