I shake my paw at you

Sometimes I wonder whether scientists don't overthink things a little. My Primary Human recently abandoned me to attend some physics conference in New Orleans. I checked out the online epitome -- because I like to keep track of what my human is up to -- and found that there were a couple of papers involving computer simulations of "the feline reflexive habit of shaking its paw to remove an irritant."

Um, yes, we kitties do tend to shake our paws to remove irritants -- or, in my case, to disentangle my claw from the delicate multi-thread count designer sheets Secondary Human recently purchased for the new bedroom furniture. I never really gave it much thought; a cat's gotta do what a cat's gotta do. Who cares about the specific frequency of the shake movement, or the underlying mechanism?

Scientists at Georgia tech and Georgia State University, that's who! They've developed a new software package called AnimatLab to simulate the paw shake motion. Apparently they think the typical paw shake frequency (about 10 Hz) is insufficient to account for "the high periodic accelerations if only the distal muscles were used." Their 2D simulated model "revealed evidence of a whip-like motion." They think proximal hip muscles could contribute to the high paw accelerations.

Whatevs. So long as those irritants get removed, and I don't get stuck onto the bedsheets, I'm happy.