Never seen this before:
I came across this in the twitter-comments on this tweet about Matt Ridley’s dog making a question mark in the snow. Which was good, but not so good as the disorientated penguin.
“With five thousand kilometres ahead of him, he’s heading towards certain death.”
Death. Can’t seem to avoid it.
The non-equestrianism-obsessed, which is most people, tend to regard the mostly Olympic sport of “dressage” as ridiculous.
But what this video tells me is that maybe dressage is not persuading horses to be not-horses. Rather is it persuading them to behave as they did when they were kids, or foals, or whatever horses are when they’re kids.
"When I grow up, I want to do DRESSAGE". pic.twitter.com/T8z3AwMRmi
— Helen Dale (@_HelenDale) February 11, 2021
Came across this here. Blog and learn.
Here:
As window material, it would be much more resistant to accidental breakage. The clear wood is lighter than glass, with better insulating properties, which is important because windows are a major source of heat loss in buildings. It also might take less energy to manufacture clear wood because there are no high temperatures involved.
Transparent wood could become an alternative to glass in energy efficient buildings, or perhaps coverings for solar panels in harsh environments. There could be no end of uses.
Remarkable. Thank you Scott Adams.
Having recently received a life sentence of quite advanced lung cancer, I find myself noticing reports like this one entitled Ultra-precise lasers remove cancer cells without damaging nearby tissue. Cancer treatment is progressing fast, in all manner of directions, and I am now seeing stories of this sort every few days. Will it progress fast enough to prolong my life in a significant way? Knowing what I do of how long it takes for an innovation to go from a recent observation or discovery to a routine service, my guess now would be: not. But I can’t help hoping that it might.
In another context, I have described this sort of feeling as the torture of hope.
I came upon this above report at the Twitter feed of Steve Stewart-Williams. There being a lot more to that guy than cute animal videos.
Following on from all these creaturely links, how woodpeckers survive being woodpeckers?
Woodpeckers have incredibly long tongues. I did not know this.
Yes I haven’t recently resorted to the SS-W TwF for a Friday Cats and Other Creatures posting. But in the small hours of last night I did two short postings, neither of which had anything to do with any Creatures and that needs putting right. So, here we go.
We’ll start with what sort of creature we humans are. It turns out we’re a type of fish.
Next up, well played that gazelle
Diver convinces a baby octopus to trade its plastic cup for a seashell.
An insufficiently anxious chicken.
Puppy cuddles duck.
The amazing diversity of big cats.
Some dogs making friends with the biggest cat there is.
Kangaroo fights look a lot like boxing matches except that, unlike human boxers, the kangaroos periodically rear back on their tails and kick their opponents with both feet.
Rat uses pencil to activate trap and get food.
The babe magnet that is also a giant billboard for predators.
Cats negotiating obstacle courses. It’s how the hind legs don’t hit anything either that impresses SS-W.
Finally, with me remembering this earlier posting here, a spider that is definitely confused by a mirror.
Michael Jennings said this, five years ago. I believe he now has a new job.
Called “Covid Hysteria”, so I think I know how he’ll be coming at the subject. I learned this from Facebook, in a posting sent out to all his Facebook friends. But you surely don’t tell all your Facebook friends something you are trying to keep deadly secret, so I assume he won’t mind me gossiping about this. If he does mind, well, he should have been more discreet.
I greatly admired this earlier book of his.
I “follow” all sorts of people on Twitter, but if they haven’t recently posted at just the moment when I look at my Twitter feed, I am liable to miss things.
Things like this photo, by Andrew Sharpe, of a “moonset” behind his beloved Ely Cathedral, which he posted on December 30th:
Outstanding.
If Sharpe hadn’t posted something about vaccines, just when I happened to be doing a little lurking on Twitter, I might never have bothered looking at his latest stuff, and I might have missed this completely.
Danny Deraney tweets this:
This dog is practicing faces in the mirror and I am dead. pic.twitter.com/t3iX5GWezb
— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) January 27, 2021
But is the dog “practicing faces”? Or is it just trying to get some sort of reaction out of … another dog?
The thread that follows includes the claim that only three species besides us know that a reflection of me in a mirror is a reflection of me in a mirror: dolphins, great apes, and elephants.
But in my opinion, some dogs and some cats also pass this test. Not all dogs and all cats, because many dogs and many cats are thick as two planks. But many are not, and in my opinion are capable of working this out. As one tweeter says: “Some dogs” do have the sense of self that a mirror might reveal, if they get it. Some dogs do work out that “that’s me there”. Ditto some cats.
By the way, the reason cats and dogs vary so much in intelligence is that they have been bread by humans who were selecting for other qualities besides intelligence, like: docility, obedience, sociability, and cuteness. On the whole, intelligence was not being selected for (especially not with cats), and consequently it varies hugely. In my opinion.