June 26, 2013 — Little leaguers and professional baseball players alike have our extinct ancestors to thank for their success on the mound, shows a study by George Washington University researcher Neil Roach, which is featured on the cover of the June 27 edition of the journal Nature.
Of course, the ability to throw fast and accurately did not evolve so our ancestors could play ball. Instead, Dr. Roach's study proposes that this ability first evolved nearly 2 million years ago to aid in hunting. Humans are unique in their throwing ability, even when compared to our chimpanzee cousins.
"Chimpanzees are incredibly strong and athletic, yet adult male chimps can only throw about 20 miles per hour -- one-third the speed of a 12-year-old little league pitcher," said Dr. Roach, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scientist in GW's Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Roach and colleagues from Harvard University set out to discover how humans throw so well, and when and why this ability evolved.
Using a 3-D camera system, like those used to make video games and animated movies, they recorded the throwing motions of collegiate baseball players, finding that the human shoulder acts much like a slingshot during a throw, storing and releasing large amounts of energy.
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