Did The Woodpecker Based Science Give Schultz a Birdbrain?
So I am a big connect-the-dots guy even when absolutely nothing is there. But I think it's warranted in regards to this literally "BIRD-BRAINED" play that occurred late in the game. I think the collar that Schultz was wearing actually may have caused him to make these boneheaded plays.
Not turning upfield toward the sidelines and not getting your feet in on the sideline are pretty routine 2-minute drill behaviors when conducting oneself a 2-minute drill.
The Q-Collar that Schultz was wearing literally acts like a cock ring. It keeps all the blood in your brain, so it can't precisely escape. I'll show you the science here. Apparently, the extra blood in your brain is supposed to keep the brain better-padded and protected like a woodpecker brain. The science on it is sketchy and I do not know what
They really don’t know if this Q-Collar is going to work, and all this science looks sketchy. Hey, I am all for trying to use science to prevent concussions but this is literally bird-brained medicine.
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They cherry-picked the one adaptation that can apply to humans from woodpeckers. Seriously check it out.
Cherry-picking the woodpecker’s adaptations
Why don’t woodpeckers get concussions?
The principle behind the NeuroShield might make us believe the answer consists solely in increased blood flow to the brain, but the reasons I was able to unearth are many:
1) Their skull has spongy bones arrayed in plates, and this shock-absorbing material is more rich in the forehead.
2) Their beak can absorb some of the impact as well.
3) They have thick neck muscles.
4) Their brain is at a 90-degree angle compared to a human’s, which means the force of the impact gets distributed over a larger area, causing less stress.
5) They have less space in their skull for the brain to slosh around.
6) Their brain is smaller than ours. Because of the scaling phenomenon, an impact affects their entire brain as opposed to causing smaller areas of the brain to experience blunt trauma.
7) The impact when they drill for food is of a short duration, which makes the acceleration more tolerable.
8) Finally, they have a bone called the hyoid which wraps all the way around their skull like a seatbelt, whereas a human’s hyoid bone is under the chin and does not wrap around to the back of the head. This has led a group of researchers to speculate that, with each peck, the woodpecker’s jugular vein may be partially occluded, and this may lead to more blood inside the cranium to prevent their brain from sloshing around.
The NeuroShield promotional material as well as its first study highlight the inspiration from nature, but clearly the NeuroShield ignores most of the woodpecker’s adaptations to focus on one bit of speculation.
I could totally see having restricted blood flow in any way to the brain causing brain fog or oxygen deprivation. Maybe late in the game, Schultz made bird-headed plays because they literally restricted his blood like a bird.