concussion
oracknows | August 18, 2016I’ve been debating whether to write about this for a while now, given that the first article that I noticed about it was first published a week and a half ago. Part of the reason for my reluctance is that it would be too easy for politics to be dragged into this more than I generally like. Of course, I don’t make a secret of my political leanings, but I usually don’t go out of my way to be an explicitly political blogger. I do, however, frequently write about areas where science and medicine intersect, and when I do I always come down on the side of science and rationality.
This brings us to…
dr. dolittle | February 25, 2016 By Hector Bottai (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I just read an interesting blog entry from I Spy Physiology describing how woodpeckers avoid getting concussions even though they routinely bang their heads. By routinely, I mean an impressive 12,000 times a day approximately. I was amazed to learn that each time a woodpecker taps a tree, the impact is about 10 times that of an average hit in football. Turns out woodpeckers have an anatomical advantage. To find out what that advantage is, visit the blog!