By Mark Salamon, June 2, 2018
Just when I think I’ve grown accustomed to the miracles of modern medicine, I wake up to another bombshell news story that has me totally awestruck. And today was one of those days, because a research team in France has finally been able to use a combination of lab experiments and space-age computer models to explain why our knuckles make that popping sound when we crack them. (1)
Back in the stone age when I went to school, we were taught that this sound was probably caused by the collapse of microscopic gas bubbles. But thanks to this new and very expensive research, we are now fairly certain that this sound is actually caused by the collapse of microscopic gas bubbles.
The only thing that I found distressing is that it appears that France may be gaining on us in the category of spending huge amounts of money to answer questions that were already answered when I was in grade school.
But several other life-saving conclusions were drawn from this research. For example, we now know that not everyone can crack their knuckles, those who can often can’t do it on all fingers, and after a cracking, it takes about twenty minutes before you can crack again.
And the big question on everyone’s mind is, of course, “will cracking my knuckles give me arthritis when I’m older?” I was relieved to find out that after the supercomputer analized all of the mathematical models, we still have no idea. This gives us a big opportunity to surge back into the lead in the money-spending department by continuing to study this critical issue.