Here are two neat biomechanics stories I cam across recently.
The first wasn't intended as research, but the use of stop motion photography with a live model walking across America gives a couple neat biomechanics lessons.
First, if you watch the "behind the scenes" video they describe how they had to use actual walking kinematics to make it look good... and what happened when they just approximated.
Second, the final product, complete with soundtrack by "Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros", is really cool, but there's something not quite right about the walking. This is a good illustration of the dynamic property of walking. The video is effectively quasi-static walking and it's not quite natural to the eye.
http://www.youtube.com/user/walkUSA
Second, a team at Georgia Tech did a study on the mechanics of wet dogs shaking themselves dry. They used high speed photography and x-ray to track the animal's skin and skeleton and determined the speed necessary for animals of different sized to dry themselves.
In addition to their scientific results, they produced some fun videos of wet-dogs, and a nice example of a multimedia presentation. I think Gizmodo added the soundtrack.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3279v1
via
http://gizmodo.com/5668777/the-secret-o ... discovered
I must start adding more music to my science....
-Edith