13 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Walking is Good for the Brain
Have you ever wondered why one of the most difficult things to teach a robot to do is to walk on two legs?
It turns out there's a reason. Apparently, the simple act of walking turns out not to be so simple after all.
Professor Florentin Worgotter of the University of Gottingen in Germany explains why teaching a robot to walk on bumpy terrains like cobblestones is so challenging: "Releasing the spring-like movement at the right moment in time—calculated in milliseconds—and to get the d...Walking rapidly on uneven surfaces exercise all areas of the brain and may explain why humans experienced such rapid brain growth once we became bipedal.