The undiscovered power in snakes!

This creatures have a lot of muscles. The human body contains about 700 and 800 muscles. Snakes have between 10,000 and 15,000 muscles regardless of the size. Some people believe that all the muscles connect together, building up energy for the strike before springing in one elastic movement, like a rubber band. But one particular aspect of snake attacks is even more surprising. Because they attack in such a short space of time, snakes have to withstand extraordinary forces on their bodies: forces that would completely incapacitate virtually any other animal. Scientist has discovered that snakes experience forces of up to 30G – 30 times the force of gravity – when rising towards their prey. In contrast, even the most highly-trained fighter pilots lose control of their limbs at 8G, when performing extreme manoeuvres for short periods of time. Any more than 10G, and they quickly lose consciousness. "We know that chameleons family and shoot their tongues towards their prey when attacking, and they can hit accelerations which are many, many times greater than snake strikes," says scientists. "But the difference is that the tongue is travelling without the brain." Brains simply cannot withstand powerful acceleration. "The brain is an incredibly delicate organ that is super-sensitive to accelerations and impacts," says scientists. When a fighter pilot experiences strong accelerations, blood is pumped towards their feet, taking away oxygen from the brain. If this happens too rapidly, the blood cannot return to their brain quickly enough and they lose consciousness. But snakes manage to circumvent this and remain fully in control, all while moving at far greater accelerations and striking their prey with enormous force. Part of the explanation may lie in the structure of their skulls. There are so many different joints which allow stretching and mobility. It could be that if one part lands first, it can absorb a little bit of shock before that's transferred to another part, so the snake can absorb the impact of the strike far easier and it doesn't concuss them." scientists compared it to "punching a bag rather than a brick wall." As he puts it, "the wall isn't moving that much to absorb the impact, while the bag moves to displace some of that feeling." Scientists are now trying to understand how the snake skeletal and nervous systems behave under such extreme conditions. The goal is to use that knowledge to make ourselves safer in scenarios where our own bodies might be exposed to large forces. The idea of snake attacks inspiring us to design safer vehicles that do a better job of protecting us from the impact of crashes may seem rather ridiculous. But the reality is closer than you might expect. "We're currently trying to work out exactly what happens on impact when the snake hits its target," scientists says. "Snakes are able to launch their heads, stop, immediately withdraw to a defensive position and then repeat this again and again and again.Can we use the snake power for our own benefit in the future?