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NE W S
Science’s pseudo plagiarism of nature: The quest
to eradicate concussions
CITLALLY MACIEL
News Editor
It is not unusual to find instances where science has turned to nature for inspiration. The
invention of airplanes, for example, is probably
the most quintessential illustration of this phenomenon. Humans, envious of birds’ ability to fly,
would study them relentlessly trying to discover
the secret of these tiny creatures. If you look at
pictures of the flying machines that existed before
the Wright Brothers’ era, you will see a bunch of
weird apparatuses whose structures reveal the
heavy reliance on birds’ anatomy in developing the
invention. Mind you, the machines look more like
ugly bats than like birds, but that is just a matter
of aesthetics.
In fact, this form of human pseudo plagiarism of nature’s frameworks has now become
a science in itself, called biomimicry (from the
Greek bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning
to imitate). This new science has created really
interesting things through observation and imitation of nature, and it has expanded into different
branches one of which is biomimetic architecture. A pretty cool example of what this branch
of science has developed is the Eastgate Centre
in Zimbabwe: a so-called green building whose
structure resembles that of the mounds of termites. The result is that the building uses only
10% of the energy that a building of similar size
partly because it no longer needs air conditioner
to be cooled down.
In view of all this piracy, it should not be surprising to hear that scientists have now turned to
woodpeckers to better understand concussions
and how to prevent them. Yet, hearing about this
for the first time causes some trepidation as to the
kind of insight this study might offer. However, a
quick Internet search reveals that this is not an
unusual idea, nor is it novel. Scientific studies
on the ability of woodpeckers to withstand head
impact date back to 1964, when biological scientist Walter Bock, from Columbia University, conducted a study on the cranial kinesis of birds.
The interest of scientist on woodpeckers,
of course, originates from the observation that
these little birds can tap trees eternally without
sustaining any injuries, while far fainter hits can
cause serious injuries in humans. As the blog
Science-Based Life explains, “a woodpecker’s head
experiences decelerations of 1200g as it drums on
a tree at up to 22 times per second” while humans
“are often left concussed if they experience 80
to 100g.” Just to give you a better idea of what
a deceleration of 1200g feels like, the blog says
that such force would be equivalent to coming to
a complete stop from 26,000 miles per hour over
one second.
The topic of concussions among players of
contact sports has increased in relevance in recent
years. Last year, a class action lawsuit on behalf of
a group of retired players was filed against the
NFL. In 1994, the league funded a committee to
study the issue of head injuries among its players.
The plaintiffs allege that the NFL, through this
committee, knew about the effects of concussions
and chose not reveal this information. They claim
that the NFL engaged in fraudulent and negligent conduct by creating bogus research supporting their claim that there was no conclusive
evidence linking brain injuries and degenerative
brain disease.
I first learned about these studies from an
interview of Dr. Gregory Myer from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre.
According to Dr. Myer, the solution to avoiding
concussions is not so much in developing better
protective technology. In his opinion, “the key to
beating the concussion crisis lies in dealing with
what’s happenin