Cats Sacrificed in Bizarre Experiment

Posted on September 4, 2003 by glasscastle









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?”



First of all, what the hell is an earwig? I’ve been pulling hairs out of my ears for years now and have no desire for additional hair in this area. Perhaps it is a wig which ATTACHES to the ears, so it won’t fall off.


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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