1 In 13 Humans Walk On Bendy Chimp Feet, Study Finds
Funky Feet Antònia Font via Wikimedia Commons Take to the trees! Humans may have moved out of the trees, but some of us are still wandering around with vestiges of our arboreal ancestors: a flexible, chimp-like foot that bends in the middle. As many as 1 in 13 people may be walking around with a midtarsal break in their foot characteristic of non-human primates, according to a study in in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology . While everyone has a joint in the middle of their foot, between the ball and the heel, most people have stiff ligaments that keep the joint from bending. In apes, the extra bend allows the foot to grip tree branches. Humans, by contrast, have been thought to have developed more rigid feet to act as a lever to propel us as we walk. After observing almost 400 adults walking barefoot around the Boston...