Comments on: The monkey king’s feet and a plea for help

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:04:10 +0000

I’ve climbed the same route shown in the Dan Osman video (Bear’s Reach), except that I took hours, had ropes, safety equipment, partners etc.

Osman, perhaps unsurprisingly, died in a cliff jumping accident.

By: Kragen Javier Sitaker

Kragen Javier Sitaker — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 05:19:36 +0000

About climbing coconut trees for food, I did this once when I was 18. With a climbing loop, it’s easy unless you have serious physical problems. I was never particularly physically fit — I never could continue running for an entire mile in P.E. class, and neither was I very strong — but it was as easy as climbing up a ten-meter ladder. I guess if you were to do it a lot, you’d get a good leg workout, but is that a very common activity? Coconuts will fall by themselves when they’re ripe, and a single climbing of a tree can yield five or six green coconuts. Maybe if you’re selling them to tourists or sending them to market?

With regard to barefoot climbing, I found the old Indian trails in Chaco Canyon much easier to walk on barefoot than in shoes. They’re V-shaped grooves worn into the soft tuff by dozens of generations of feet, before the collapse of the civilization, and they’re quite easy to grasp with toes, and somewhat awkward with shoes; they tend to grab the shoes and not want to let go. I wonder if some of the other barefoot-climbing phenomena you mention are similarly facilitated by surface suitability. Vertical rock walls tend to be devoid of foot hazards common on horizontal surfaces: ringworm, feces with parasitic worms, broken glass, sandburrs, goatheads, and the like.

By: Chaeles Bagli

Chaeles Bagli — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:25:21 +0000

mann i love bird’s nest soup too even IF its made from spit!!! <333

i eat it like once every monthish and used to bought from website hongkong-bird-nest.50webs.com/index_e.htm sometimes, my mom went back to hong kong and bought a full suitcase of it cause its cheaper there XD

By: Four Stone Hearth #74 « Natures/Cultures

Four Stone Hearth #74 « Natures/Cultures — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:02:20 +0000

[...] hominins – better not tell the ranchers here in Wyoming. Greg at Neuroanthropology has an exploration on feet and compensatory adaptation, inspired by this awesome climber in India – he also wants some help tracking down sources, [...]

By: llwynn

llwynn — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:35:43 +0000

Have you done any research on Merkel nerve endings? I think they’re supposed to be found chiefly in finger tips and lips, very sensitive parts of the body, associated with the ability to read Braille, for example. I wonder if anyone has studied whether people who develop extreme foot agility have more merkel cells in their feet than average.

By: Pamthropologist

Pamthropologist — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:55:39 +0000

Have you explored any sources on leprosy? I know that many of the street beggars in Tanzania have a repetoire of compensatory behavior for the loss of digits, limbs, tongues, etc.

By: Kaylene Landon

Kaylene Landon — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:48:24 +0000

http://www.parkour-online.com/jump-london.html

This may or may not be information that you are looking for, but Jump London features some amazing individuals with great physical prowess and agility.

By: Tuck

Tuck — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:36:32 +0000

And I can’t believe I forgot about this woman:

http://iclimblikeagirl.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-climb-like-girl-rock-climbing-hero.html

Tori Allen learned how to climb from a pet monkey in Africa when she was still a toddler. She has unusually long and strong arms and fingers, and her fingers have unusually large knuckles to anchor the muscles she needs to climb. She became the Woman’s World Champion sport climber at 14 in the X-Games. There are several videos at the link, the first is a show from the Discovery Channel called “More Than Human”, which includes a discussion of Tori’s strength and physiological adaptations. Her doctor is quoted, and he claims that her upper-body adaptations are all acquired.

By: Tuck

Tuck — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:34:50 +0000

Apparently it's quite commmon in the Czech Republic for people to climb barefoot. (See this article on The North Face website about it: if you look closely in some of the pictures, you'll see people climbing barefoot (and without ropes, or 'protection' as it's known in the sport). Patagonia also had a famous poster of climber John Verm Sherman climbing in flipflops while drinking a beer. Both Patagonia and The North Face may be good companies to reach out to if you're looking for more stories like Raj's, the climbing community is pretty small, and I'd imagine they'd be well aware of stories like this.