Real Actual Science - Tumblr Posts
peacocks are more efficient and better at moving when they have a full train as compared to without. turns out this may be because they get swole af during breeding season to compensate
its really hard to measure moment arms in emu feet because their footwrists have cartilaginous extrusions that might work like kneecaps e: more like bicycle chain tensioners
i am not smart enough to summarize the conclusions of the independent patellar evolution presentation but weirdly emus dont actually have kneecaps
holy shit hoatzin chicks are straight-up quadrupeds holy shit the video is amazing too bad you have to be here to see it nyaa nyaa :p
gecko toes slip off wet glass when stationary because glass is too hydrophilic to counter the hydrophobic properties of gecko toe pads. interestingly they slide off dry teflon but are much better at sticking to wet teflon. clingfish have belly suction cups with three hierarchical structures on the cup rim which allow grip to rough and irregular surfaces. the demonstrative photographs are incredibly striking but i am being polite and not taking pictures during the presentation
yeah! i wish i had had more than thirty seconds to summarize it but the presentation schedule was crazy fast. the whole study was really interesting methodologically! see, there was a suspicion that the increased sex hormones during breeding season was adding muscle mass to compensate for the trains, but since the peacocks were on loan they were not able to do the more traditional dissective examination to compare. so in order to measure the muscle response and efficiency, they put cute little weighted backpacks on the peacocks and did respirometry stuff :) i wish i could have gotten pictures but i was already crashing the conference and i did not want to draw undue attention to myself, especially since i did get spotted by somebody who knew the person whose badge i was using. Hopefully soon i’ll be able to legitimately attend this sort of thing!
peacocks are more efficient and better at moving when they have a full train as compared to without. turns out this may be because they get swole af during breeding season to compensate