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Recreating the musculature of the leg and pelvis, the imagery supports the supposition that this part-time tree-dwelling hominin walked completely erect, like humans, but more than three million years earlier.Starting with human MRI and CT scans to map muscle pathways, Wiseman next focused on virtual reconstructions of Lucy's bones and joints, and then married up cues from muscle "scarring" on the bones.The resulting model shows how Lucy was capable of upright, erect locomotion but also possessed powerful leg muscles that facilitated her species' half-land, half-arboreal lifestyle. Researchers believe the extra muscle power in the legs – 74% of the total...

Neanderthals are often depicted as having straight spines and poor posture. However, these prehistoric humans were more similar to us than many assume. University of Zurich researchers have shown that Neanderthals walked upright just like modern humans - thanks to a virtual reconstruction of the pelvis and spine of a very well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton found in France... Since the 1950s, scientists have known that the image of the Neanderthal as a hunched over caveman is not an accurate one. Their similarities to ourselves - both in evolutionary and behavioral terms - have also long been known, but in recent years...

In a massive leap forward for autonomous robots, Cassie the running robot has completed an entire 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) run in 53 minutes, becoming the first bipedal robot to use machine learning to control an outdoor running gait. Developed by researchers from Oregon State University and Agility Robotics, the robotic pair of legs may open doors to a host of new animal- and human-inspired machines. What makes the feat so impressive is that Cassie learnt to walk by itself, using just machine-learning and a lot of failure to gain the balance and gait required to go for extended runs. Through these...

Early parents didn't stand for weighty kidsApril 23,2008 A volunteer carrying baby mannequin on the hip has her energy consumption measured. Credit: University of Manchester Scientists investigating the reasons why early humans – the so-called hominins – began walking upright say it’s unlikely that the need to carry children was a factor, as has previously been suggested. Carrying babies that could no longer use their feet to cling to their parents in the way that young apes can has long been thought to be at least one explanation as to why humans became bipedal. But University of Manchester researchers investigating...