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Poetry, the imagination, and the creative life.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over

From the New York Times

Anthropologists studying the human spine have found that women’s lower vertebrae evolved in ways that reduce back pressure during pregnancy, when the mass of the abdomen grows by nearly one-third and the center of mass shifts forward considerably.

. . .

If evolution provided relief for women in pregnancy, one might ask, what about the equally awkward morphology of men with beer guts?


Also see:

Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins in Nature.

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I just have to say that *I* feel safer, knowing scientists are not afraid to tackle the really tough questions.

Also: I just *love* the term fetal load. "How are you today, honey? How is our fetal load?" Use that in a poem.
Posted by Peter at 7:44 AM
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Poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~T. S. Eliot

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Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato

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A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. ~ Salman Rushdie

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Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis

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Poetry is what maintains our capacity for contemplation and difficulty. — Carolyn Forche

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Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. — Denis Diderot

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Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used. — Paul Valéry

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