It takes backbone to solve an enigma like the “falling cat” problem. By Taylor Mitchell Brown In 1894, the French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey tried to resolve a particularly vexing question in ...

When cats fall, they usually land on their feet. This uncanny ability to right themselves before hitting the ground has long puzzled scientists. Now, a team from Yamaguchi University in Japan has the ...

For more than a century, scientists have been trying to figure out how a falling cat lands on its feet with such astonishing regularity. A famous scientific exploration of the subject was published in ...

When falling cats turn themselves the right way up before they hit the ground, they have a secret trick: a region of their spine that is exceptional at twisting. “We compared the flexibility of the ...

Falling cats in the study also seemed to show a marked preference for turning to the right.

In 1894, French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey tried to resolve a particularly vexing question in science: How do cats always seem to land on their feet when they fall? Using the era’s rudimentary ...