 | F.K. in Conway NH has an interesting question for Dr. Knowledge in today’s Boston Globe. He writes, “Humans can’t fall from much more than one body height without risk of serious injury. How come insects, on the other hand – ants, for example, or spiders or earwigs – can drop from the equivalent of skyscraper heights with impunity?” |
Anyway, Dr. Knowlege goes on to explain that the seeming impunity of insects has more to do with the physics of falling objects than exo vs. interno skeletons. Something along the lines of if one creature is twice as big as another in all dimentions its weight (mass) would be 2 X 2 X 2 times as much, and since the force of impact is mass times velocity, basically the bigger you are the harder you fall. The part of his answer that I can’t get out of my mind, however, had nothing to do with insects. Dr. Knowledge writes: “In a long fall, as from a building, air resistence becomes a factor. The air resistence effect really helps cats a lot, and the chance that they survive a fall from a building increases to 95% between seven and nine stories, and then stays constant.” Now, I would like to be introduced to the brilliant scientific brain that carried out THAT study! “Okay Isaac, now take them up to the 12th floor and drop the next ten. Nurse Betty, check that Calico over there for vital signs….” Obviously they couldn’t rely on anecdotal evidence since it would come for such a wide variety of buiding types and landing surfaces, it would be statistically worthess to a major scientist like Dr. Knowlege. An eight-story fall in Oslo is certainly not certifiably the same as in Tegucigalpa. So obviously, in the name of science, some twisted grad students in Dr. Knowlege’s employ have been carrying out these dastardly experiments. Cite your sources, Dr. Knowlege! I suspect that the ASPCA and PETA would be quite interested! | |
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In fact it is based on anecdotal evidence from vet records in New York. Vets in New York deal frequently with cats who have fallen from balcony’s in NYC, and they began keeping records of which story they fell from. These records were collected and tabulated and it was discovered that cats indeed can spread their bodies and take advantage of air resistance to slow their descent and improve their survival rates.
If I remember correctly cats are most likely to be injured in a fall from 2-5 stories. After that their survival rates go up, until like maybe the 20th story at which point they fall to far, reach terminal velocity and go splat!
I once saw a squirrel fall from about four storeys up in a tree onto the middle of the street. The little creature stretched its body right out, and landed flat with a very loud “wham” — sounding like whacking a concrete step hard with a square of carpet.
I thought it must be a goner, but after about two seconds it leapt up and scampered back into the trees.
My cat actually fell 6 stories from a brownstone in New York City. He was ok, with just a broken ankle and a punctured lung, but I was about two grand in the hole (at a time when I was unemployed).
We must have had a defective cat. It couldn’t survive my four-year-olds toss from a second floor window…
Behold – the earwig!
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