#Biomechanics

[darkenergyslivers]

the space jockey behind the scenes on alien (1979) via retroscifiart on ig

[markscherz]

The dissection begins! I’m joined by Pasha van Bijlert, a PhD student at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. You can follow along on Instagram or Facebook. Nothing in the world could convince me to use Tumblr Live. ;)

[le-tas-d-art]

H.R. Giger, Biomechanoid No. 100, 1969

[nanthegirl]

🪻04.04.2024🪻 the date is so cute

• I studied Biomechanics for about 3 hours. Mainly just the intro to Clinical Gait Analysis. I made really rough notes in my ugly notebook cause I still haven’t decided how to divide the cute one. I didn’t even try to write pretty, I promise I can do better than that😭. I don’t mind rewriting them though cause I took them English cause the textbook is in English, so I’ll take the chance to translate them.

• We had an information seminar about writing a thesis and doing a practice project. I don’t have to think about those for a bit but I felt very motivated afterwards.

• I wrote a very short card for my friend’s birthday tomorrow and crocheted a headband. It’s a bit wonky at the edges and I just realized I could’ve gotten her a puzzle instead cause she loves those. I’m really rethinking gifting it to her but I’ll ultimately decide tomorrow.

All in all, I feel really good about today. I took a walk and had at least one nutritious meal and loads of water. I sat down and studied without doing my stupid ritual of scrolling on my phone and feeling guilty about not studying. My flatmate has people over so I couldn’t keep going but I’m proud of my progress. And I really enjoyed it.

[bishopsbox]

source: bishopsbox

HR Giger, Li II, 1974

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

This may be a dumb question but

Do we know how flexible sauropod necks were? I’ve seen them often depicted as kinda stiff, like a giraffe’s.

But birds with longer necks, like waterfowl, are *incredibly* flexible.

So we’re sauropods similar? Or do we think their size would restrict flexibility in favor of stability?

Thanks!

Flexibility in the neck is all about the number of neck vertebrae

Giraffes, like all mammals, only have 7 neck vertebrae, making their necks very inflexible

Swans, an example of a long necked waterbird, have up to 25 neck vertebrae

Different sauropods have different numbers of neck vertebrae, but some have as many as 19

So not quite as flexible as waterfowl, but certainly more flexible than giraffes!

[sharkchunks]

People with weird organic guns making death proclamations in David Cronenberg movies: Videodrome (1983) and eXistenZ (1998)

[mindblowingscience]

The rotating shoulders and extending elbows that allow humans to reach for a high shelf or toss a ball with friends may have first evolved as a natural braking system for our primate ancestors who simply needed to get out of trees without dying. Dartmouth researchers report that apes and early humans likely evolved free-moving shoulders and flexible elbows to slow their descent from trees as gravity pulled on their heavier bodies. The paper, "Downclimbing and the evolution of ape forelimb morphologies," is published in Royal Society Open Science. When early humans left forests for the grassy savanna, the researchers say, their versatile appendages were essential for gathering food and deploying tools for hunting and defense.

Continue Reading.

[mirkokosmos]

by Mirko Lalit Egger

[bpod-bpod]

Curve Ball

Epithelial cells – those lining cavities such as the gut as well as covering organs – packing into tissue take on a 3D shape dubbed scutoid enabling tissue curvature. Here, by studying sea star embryos, the combined influence of cell density, tissue compaction and cell proliferation on scutoid formation and resulting epithelial architecture is revealed

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Vanessa Barone and colleagues

Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/ Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Development, May 2024

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[filmjunky-99]

h. r. g i g e r biomechanics

[aegis-17]

In the modern age of the Voltuade, Dominus are considered to be a species of legend in most territories outside of the Ridge's edge. Cultural icons used by the leadership of Cacean tribeships, lone gone relics or engineered constructs of the old civilization. Whispered tales tell of different types, variants of the wars of corruption. Of betrayals of allies and ruler, though most Tenebraen Collective historians tend to dismiss these as local legend rather than fact. Within the core of the ridge though. Past pirate and salvage expedition shunt routes, upon artificial worlds and super structures of the old civilization, they are hardly consigned to legend.

[aviruserothanatoguru]

Grimdark cyberpunk. Cthulhu. Skulls. For designing covers, etc.

[ym-graphix]

Biomechanical Kawaii (2021)

[vholecekart]

Finished new drawing: "Clutch", charcoal on black paper.

[harpagornis]

Why do frigatebirds lack wing slots?

Unlike other seabirds like albatrosses, which use dynamic soaring, frigatebirds are thermal soarers, riding on air collumns that form above the sea. Thermal soaring is, however, more often associated with continental flyers like storks, large raptors, ravens and cranes, which makes sense as continental settings tend to produce collumns of hot air.

These flyers also have a thing frigatebirds lack: wing slots.

Wings of the American Black Vulture Coragyps atratus.

The only other marine soarers with wing slots I know off are pelicans, and these tend to just as easily soar in continental settings. So what gives?

I don’t think an actual study has been conducted as to why frigatebirds lack these slots otherwise fundamental for thermal soarers. Closest I’ve found was Liu et all 2021, and that doesn’t explore the aerodynamics of frigatebird wings (even lumping them with dynamic soarers, which is flat out wrong).

My best guess is that, unlike most thermal soarers, frigatebirds are rather acrobatic. They routinely chase after other birds in flight and pursue flying fish; this might mean that a sharper wing shape is more desirable, much as in falcons, skuas and other aerial predators. The sheer size of frigatebird wings – some of the proportionally largest among living birds – might compensate for this, and as you can see in the above picture they do angle them forward, likely further macking up for the lack of slots.

What does this means for pelagornithids?

Pelagornis sandersi silhouette by corvarts. Note wing slots.

Another lineage of sea birds, the massive pelagornithids, were also thermal soarers. Unlike frigatebirds, however, I doubt these were acrobatic flyers, seeing as they were much larger. Thus, I think wing slots might be more appropriate in future depictions of these birds.