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back to article Boffin bothers frogs until they spill super power secrets

A springy catapult tendon is what sends frogs flying far beyond what their muscles alone could achieve, a boffin researching frog jumps has discovered. By attaching metal beads to the shin bones, ankles and leg muscles of frogs and filming them jumping with a 3D X-ray video camera, Henry Astley a biomechanics grad student at …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    10 out of 10 sir!

    I doff my cap in respect, sir, for the proper, honest to god, mad scientist side-burns! well played that man!!

    7 0
  2. NightFox

    Letter to The Times, 17th November 1887

    Sir, With my time machine now complete, I shall travel forward to the twenty first century and use technology beyond imagination or compare to experiment with frogs.

    5 0
  3. James Hughes 1

    Awesome

    beard....

    Didn't notice the frog....

    2 0
  4. Z-Eden
    Trollface

    Can I be the first to say...

    ... that is a serious beard!

    1 0
  5. bharq

    a 3D X-ray video camera - could I have one of these? A hell of a lot of interesting possibilities is entering my mind

    1 0

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Chris Seiter
    Boffin

    Frog Experiments

    This reminds me of that old frog experiment joke. Take a frog and blow a whistle to make it jump. A frog with 4 legs jumped 4 feet. Cut of one of the legs and blow the whistle again. A frog with 3 legs jumps 3 feet. Cut off another leg. A frog with 2 legs jumps 2 feet. Cut off another. A 1-legged frog jumps only one foot. Cut off the final leg. A frog with no legs is deaf.

    1 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alternative Caption

    I'm getting out of here before this mad hairy bastard starts cutting my legs up...

    0 0
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awesome

    "Biomechanics grad Henry Astley with a frog: The frog can be explained, the 'burns can't"

    The sideburns can be explained by the phrase "Biomechanics grad"...

    0 0
    1. Mark McNeill
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      "Why, yes, as it happens I am a Linux user. Why do you ask?"

      1 0
  10. adnim
    Joke

    If one conducted the kind of experiment on humans that Galvani conducted on dead frogs legs, I would guess that a human could jump pretty far too

    0 0
  11. Eddy Ito
    Pint

    'burns?

    Those aren't 'burns, it's the anti-ghotee from Row-dye-lan. I wonder if it keeps his ale cold.

    0 0
  12. mhenriday
    Unhappy

    Pity that the way things are going with amphibians these days

    (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/16/amphibians-terrifying-extinction-threat), Mr Astley & Co may soon have no frogs left on which to experiment....

    Henri

    0 0
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