Helen FieldsScience Writer

Monday I wrote a story for ScienceNOW about how snakes move. They only run one picture, which meant we couldn’t use this awesome shot of a snake sewn into a little cloth jacket. Doesn’t the snake look perky? It’s all, “Hey, guys! I’m in a jacket! What’s up?”

The study was figuring out how snakes have different friction in different directions – they’re more frictiony toward the back than the front, so they can slide forwards. The jacket was to even out the friction. If you put a snake in a jacket and you put it on a table covered in cloth, it can’t get a grip to slither forwards; it just squirms around. But it looks stylin’!

photo credit: Grace Pryor and David Hu