Bone analysis could reveal why our walk is so unique

They say the method could one day reveal when our skeleton evolved to make us walk differently from our closest living relatives They have used it to show the structural differences between the feet of humans and apes in different colours, which may explain the way we walk from the University of the Witwatersrand developed a new technique to analyse the shape of bones in feet The way we walk is unique when compared to our closest living relatives, the ape. Scientists have developed a new method of analysing long bones, such as the hallucal metatarsal - the shaft of the foot bone that links to the big toe - in order to study differences between the feet of humans and apes. The method shows structural differences in different colours, as shown above An interdisciplinary team led by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has combined visualisation techniques, engineering principles and statistical analysis into a new way of analysing the structure of long bones. This work will be the starting point for future studies, which could investigate how far back in our evolutionary history the modern human pattern of bone structure in the hallucal metatarsal – the shaft of the foot bone that’s connected to the big toe - emerged.