Breathe easy, now we know why a zigzag climb is best - The Times 22nd February 2008

Sheep do it. Goats do it. Trekkers climbing steep hills by instinct do it . . . But only now have academics investigated why we create zigzags when we climb hills - and why, when it can mean walking 20 times as far, a zigzag is faster than the shortest distance between two points. Writing in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, they explain that zig-zagging requires less puff.

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