Cats And The High-Rise Syndrome

Most of us have kicked our girlfriend's obnoxious cat off of her terrace after the mangy fur ball has opted to show his contempt for us after a night spent over by urinating into our shoe. Luckily, our relationships have always been saved by a don't-break-up-with-me-for-killing-your-cat reflex that whichever pan-denominational imaginary old man who lives in the sky has wisely programmed into the feline: the one that allows it to somehow fall off skyscrapers and live.

Damninteresting.com has a... well, you know... account up on how cats are able to survive massive falls. Apparently, cats are more likely to die from a fall of less than two stories than they are to die of a fall from thirty-two stories. Part of it's due to the fact that cats twist themselves in mid-air to land on their feet. But the other reason?

The fact that cats can twist so quickly to attain feet-down contributes to survivability of High-Rise Syndrome, but it leads into the importance of the third stage. In order to perform the righting maneuver, many muscles have to fire in fast and in sequence, and the immediate aftermath of a quick muscle pull is tension; tension is anathema to surviving an impact. The tension is why six to seven stories seems to be the prime falling altitude: it gives the cat time to unwind after the hard twist, and relax into the free-fall for a moment before landing.

In other words, cats are chill, even while plummeting from dizzying heights.

High-Rise Syndrome [Damn Interesting]