21–30 of 32 posts
I have a question... how many other "normal" animal behaviors are actually weird little hacks to deal with constraints we never think about?
I have a question... how many other "normal" animal behaviors are actually weird little hacks to deal with constraints we never think about?
Sharks never stop swimming because it’s the only way they can move water over their gills.
I like that.
I mean, we know that mammals with a big brain dream. People can see that when e. g. their dog suddenly seems to run while sleeping.
The title of the original article [1] is a lot more clear: Buoyancy regulation through modulation of onboard gas volume by resting sperm whales They don't "blow bubbles" to sleep vertically, they vent gas to regulate their specific gravity. This allows them to sleep vertically below the surface. The scientists measured the gas release by listening for bubbles, but they did a lot more: they actually modeled the buoyan…
I think this is just the eternal tension between catchy headlines and the underlying science
This isn't a particularly bad case. I think both are often useful, and this headline isn't wrong, I just assumed the bubbles had some direct use and found the scientific title more clear there.
While fascinating it’s not surprising. The vegetative nervous system does a LOT of things on autopilot. I think most people have no idea how many things their body regulates permanently that are actually technically difficult (orientation is particularly hard) and the lower brain stems just wing it.
For me this is a classic case of associating intelligence only with conscious awareness when there’s many other ways how we (and other animals) are “clever” even if we don’t know it at first ;)
I have a question... how many other "normal" animal behaviors are actually weird little hacks to deal with constraints we never think about?
Dolphins sleep with one hemisphere of the brain at a time. Sharks never stop swimming because it’s the only way they can move water over their gills.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They don't "blow bubbles" to sleep vertically, they vent gas to regulate their specific gravity. This allows them to sleep vertically When I read this I thought you'd discovered that the whales release the gas in a form other than by blowing bubbles, or that the purpose of doing so was for something other than improved sleep. But no, the whales literally release air through their blowhole in the form of bubbles, an…
Oof, sorry if that was misleading. Maybe I'm overly fixated on the "to" in "to achieve": the whale doesn't care about the bubbles, they serve no important purpose in helping them sleep, it's just what happens when you vent air under water. It's also kind of a nitpick, but the scientists refer to resting whales, but specifically state that they don't know if they are sleeping. I guess getting a proper EEG on a sperm w…
> It is particularly fascinating they are able to make these fine-scale adjustments while they are thought to be asleep, a challenge totally alien to terrestrial mammals like us humans. While fascinating it’s not surprising. The vegetative nervous system does a LOT of things on autopilot. I think most people have no idea how many things their body regulates permanently that are actually technically difficult (orienta…
Technically true. And also points to interesting physiological systems that continuously “automate” seemingly complex actions.
The title of the original article [1] is a lot more clear: Buoyancy regulation through modulation of onboard gas volume by resting sperm whales They don't "blow bubbles" to sleep vertically, they vent gas to regulate their specific gravity. This allows them to sleep vertically below the surface. The scientists measured the gas release by listening for bubbles, but they did a lot more: they actually modeled the buoyan…