Fish Story

U.S. National Swimming Team coach Jonty Skinner says he has the secret for teaching Olympic swimming hopefuls how to swim better: study fish. “A normal human being would say the fish is flapping its tail and creating propulsion,” Skinner said. “Actually, it’s not. It’s the total movement of the body.” Not bad advice, says West Chester (Pa.) University zoology professor Frank E. Fish. He cautions that humans can’t move like fish because, for instance, their knees don’t bend both ways, but humans can learn from fish by learning to be more streamlined, Fish says. Skinner says he got the idea of studying fish because “these creatures have evolved for millennia.” (AP) ...Luckily, that kind of thinking hasn’t inspired Boeing engineers to study birds.