My current project, 'Superhuman Lab' for the Discovery Channel, is a brilliant excuse to spend time thinking about amazing abilities and how our amazing biology can explain them.
Amazing abilities like, for example, that smug ice-skating jump that Robbie Williams does in that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7mZ5Y6OuH0
Having read up on tennis and dancing techniques, and seen how this can improve the performance of even top-flight athletes, t seems to me that science could hugely benefit those who want to succeed in sports and art. Understanding, for example, that the practical route to standing still on roller skates relies on the physics of an equal pull of gravity on all parts of the bottom of the boots, is really useful. Developing even spreading of the weight across the boots, and soles parallel to the ground, is much easier when you know this is the overall aim, rather than trial and error-ing what helps you balance.
To find out how science can help you become a freewheeling Hyde Park-ite, check out my film: Wonders of the Rollerskate Park (WT) : <IN FINAL EDIT>. I'm not saying I'm a free-wheeling Hyde Park-ite. In fact I got terribly bruised.
I'm now looking at short films on brainpower and sporting ability, linked to the Wellcome Trust's brilliant forthcoming exhibitions - Brains: Mind as Matter (29th March - 17th June 2012), and Superhumans (19 July-16 October 2012). More short films coming your way soon!
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