It's all in the toes....

Brian Switek is a well-known science blogger & twitterer who writes on all matters evolutionary, and has recently posted a nice review of BANDIT Biren Patel's recent paper in AJPA: Speed effects on forelimb kinematics in cercopithecine monkeys and implications for digitigrade postures in primates

It's a two-fer!

Just noticed that Kris Carlson strikes again in the June AJPA with Gait Dynamics of Cebus apella During Quadrupedalism on Different Substrates, co-authored with Brigette Demes.

BANDIT members in June AJPA

Southern Illinois University PhD candidate Matt Nowak, Kris Carlson of Indiana University and the University of Witwatersrand (and Australopithecus sediba fame!), and Biren Patel of Stony Brook University have published Apparent Density of the Primate Calcaneo-Cuboid Joint and Its Association with Locomotor Mode, Foot Posture, and the "Midtarsal Break" , a neat analysis of mechanical joint loading in the foot in a range of quadrupedal and arboreal primates, as well as humans. Also, there are some very cool figures in this paper - Figure 1 is a super drawing of the feet of three different primates, all in lateral view. I can see this figure being used in a ton of class lectures. Nice!

Waddling and Toddling: Dr. Libby Cowgill wins the prize for my favorite article title

Dr. Libby Cowgill of University of Central Florida (second year on the tenure track) has two new articles this year, both in AJPA. One is an empirical survey of the postcranial skeletal robusticity in Neandertals and modern humans, which was the focus of Libby's dissertation work (Washington University, 2008) and the other is a collaborative study (with Anna Warrener, Herman Pontzer, and Cara Ocobock) of the biomechanics of young children who, you know, waddle and toddle.

The Ontogeny of Holocene and Late Pleistocene Human Postcranial Strength

Waddling and Toddling: The Biomechanical Effects of an Immature Gait