Right down the middle, explained
It’s easy to marvel at the athleticism and power behind a 90 mph fastball, but when Neil Roach watches a baseball game, he sees something else at work: evolution. That ability — to throw an object with great speed and accuracy — is a uniquely human adaptation, one that Roach believes was crucial in our evolutionary past. How, when, and why humans evolved the ability to throw so well is the subject of a study published today in the journal Nature. Roach, who received his Ph.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in June, led the study, working with Madhusudhan Venkadesan of the National Centre for Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Michael Rainbow of the Spaulding National Running Center, and Daniel Lieberman, the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences at Harvard. The group found that changes to shoulders and arms allowed early humans...