> While dogs slowed down and hesitated before they attempted to use an uncomfortably small opening, in the case of cats, we did not detect this change in their behavior before their attempt to go through even the narrowest openings. However, remarkably, cats showed hesitation both before they attempted to penetrate the shortest openings, and while they moved through it.
I just skimmed, but I didn’t see any mention whiskers. It’s seems to me that cats can make highly precise measurements of width just by sticking their heads in a space, but height judgments requires additional consideration.
> Cats are also aided by their large and sensitive vibrissae, which are positioned on such locations of their head that the cat can detect nearby obstacles in closer encounters. Vibrissal sensation can compensate for the somewhat weaker vision in cats from closer distances or in poorly illuminated environments. Therefore, it is possible that cats approached the narrow openings in our experiment without differential hesitation, and they could use their vibrissae to assess the suitability of the apertures before penetrating them.
If you have ever put a cone on a cat (which lasts about five minutes), you see they get crazy. They hug the walls.
Their whiskers are a major factor in their perception.
I think they can also dislocate their spine.
My cat likes to sit in what we call his "Buddha" position, with his back bent about 90 degrees, and his paws in front. This seems to be a common position. He'll sit like that for an hour.
You've just reminded me of watching the family cat when I was a child, wanting to squeeze himself into the gap between the end of a sofa and the wall. He tested the gap with his whiskers a couple of times - nope, too narrow. Then the lightbulb moment - he turned just his head sideways, and tested again. Plenty of room! So he rammed himself into the gap. And got stuck.
Before I had cats, I used to think of them in terms of other animals. What I mean is that a dog or a horse is very defined by its skeletal structure. They are like popsicle stick armatures with some flesh thrown on.
Now I think of cats more like amorphous blobs with some hard bits stuck on. I think anyone who owns a cat will know what I mean by this.
For what it's worth, their hips and shoulders are actually limited in range of motion compared to humans, due to the very high muscle attachment points that are also what make them so amazingly strong and explosive for their small size. But an extremely flexible spine combined with the ability to dislocate key joints means they can still fit into very small, narrow spaces, presumably an adaptation allowing them to hunt small rodents that burrow and hide out in underground dens. Which I assume is why they have the instinct to immediately jump into and check out any box or cabinet or other enclosed space you open. You never know if there might be some voles in there.
A stray cat I adopted as we could not find his owner was named "Beanbag" (transitioning to "Mr Bean", no reference to the comedian)for exactly this quality.
After a few days of recovery and starting to get comfortable, he started to snooze and literally poured off the couch, like a bag of beans... and he loved to stretch in my lap while I coded, putting up with all the typing & mousing... Truly liquid, indeed! Wonderful little guy, I still miss him.
My cat can sleep with its head upside-down event if there's no apparent reason for it to do that. I have another cat tough, which is tough, heavy but small, and resisting any external force, also keeping his claws open.
yes i think this model of cats is exactly right. kind of like how our fingertips would just be lumpy sacs without fingernails, cats seem to have structure and flexibility in the way that like a tent does.
Those would need to be very low-energy cats. You wouldn't be able to look at them for a very, very long time.
If my quick math is correct, for the de Broglie wavelength of a cat to be comparable to its width, it would need to be travelling no faster than about 10^-33 m/s.
> If the opportunity was given to them, dogs opted for a detour in the case of uncomfortably small apertures
Except in the case of one very sweet but not exactly brilliant large dog I know that legitimately believes his entire body is just the tip of his nose that he can see. I’ve seen him walk straight through a 2” hole in a screen door, and he will repeatedly try to sit on e.g. a chair armrest and not understand why it doesn’t work.
We had two cats, and my wife wanted more. I was happy with two, so we compromised and now we have four of them.
The feeding logistics of four, one with a special diet, are difficult. I can't imagine having seven of them long-term, especially the litter boxes. I've fostered kittens before, so I had nine cats in the house and it felt like all I did for those weeks was feed cats and scoop poop.
Interesting because I have recently been trying to catch a stray cat for a capture-release process and the cat will not walk into a typical trap-door type wire mesh trap. Watching him on video the roof of the trap seems to freak him out. It seems a better trap would have a narrow gap with high door that lets them confidently walk into the trap and trigger would just block the slot perhaps with some sort of sliding door blocking the exit.
The overhead view of figure 3 in particular is noteworthy to me. The 3 human subjects are represented as abstract ovals, and the cat drawn as a cat who is staring up as if to look through the fourth ceiling at the reader.
The reader becomes, in a sense, a greeble.
This paper would have been a fun project for a scientific illustrator.
For reference, in the cat realm a greeble is what cats are looking at when they stare up at the ceiling or wall and there is nothing there. At least that you can see.
So instead of the real cat staring at the imaginary greeble, we the reader are the real greeble staring at the imaginary cat. Who is staring back because it can see us.
In addition to the vibrissae explanation, I also wonder if their eyes (vertical pupils) just see better when it comes to height and not width, necessitating greater hesitation when it comes to judging things at their height and not high in the air. I am thinking they might need to move their head or eyes a bit side to side, though it may still be too fast to be readily apparent to the researcher. Relevant article [1]:
"If you have a vertical slit, you're very likely to be an ambush predator," says Banks. That's the kind of animal who lies in wait and then leaps out to kill. He says these predators need to accurately judge the distance to their prey, and the vertical slit has optical features that make it ideal for that.
But that rule only holds if the animal is short, so its eyes aren't too high off the ground, Sprague says."
Ergo, cats have vertical pupils but tigers have round pupils. The tiger can probably judge horizontal distances better than the cat.
The title made me click, and the content was enjoyable. But I still don't think clickbait like this should be present in scientific papers.
It's something about how scientific papers are not "for pleasure", they're informational tools. An easter egg in a game is cool right, but an easter egg in a graphics driver? That's the distinction I'm making here.
I am so puzzled by this attitude. People are free to make any distinction they want, the way they want, but the representation you have of a scientific literature is erroneous.
Scientific articles are informational tools that report results of experiments and nothing more. If the results are interesting to the peers, they are published. By they are not world's laws made paper unless sufficient replications are made.
This means that each article need to be read with the context of the literature in mind and with a critical eye. Each are a single point of evidence to a phenomena.
Hence, there are subjective informational tools, written toward a specific audience (the experts of the domains) to inform of a specific result in a specific case.
On top of that, their are specific journal/issues where these types submissions are allowed. Don't read these submissions if you are looking for serious "information tools"
Scientific literature must be handled the same way as legal literature. If you are not a law expert, you ask a lawyer. If you think you are a legal expert when you are not, surprising consequences may arise.
In universities, they are classes dedicated to handling the scientific literature. They are provided for a reason.
So please, don't use cat's physic for liquid simulation in game engine... or please do?
I watched as a cat dove through a narrow opening
(stair baulsters)only to wedge its aft end,stop dead,do a totaly ignoble face plant,and then sort of oooze through to land gracelessly.
So in this case there was no hesitation,and cats
regularly missjudge and get run over by cars,so at best the data is just that...data.
Much easier: A cat only knows about the size of its head. If the head fits through, the body will do also.
That's extremely easy to guess for a cat, no body awareness, just head radius awareness
[+] [-] move-on-by|1 year ago|reply
I just skimmed, but I didn’t see any mention whiskers. It’s seems to me that cats can make highly precise measurements of width just by sticking their heads in a space, but height judgments requires additional consideration.
[+] [-] melvyn2|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|1 year ago|reply
Their whiskers are a major factor in their perception.
I think they can also dislocate their spine.
My cat likes to sit in what we call his "Buddha" position, with his back bent about 90 degrees, and his paws in front. This seems to be a common position. He'll sit like that for an hour.
[+] [-] abanana|1 year ago|reply
You've just reminded me of watching the family cat when I was a child, wanting to squeeze himself into the gap between the end of a sofa and the wall. He tested the gap with his whiskers a couple of times - nope, too narrow. Then the lightbulb moment - he turned just his head sideways, and tested again. Plenty of room! So he rammed himself into the gap. And got stuck.
[+] [-] diggan|1 year ago|reply
> Wiskers are mentioned, but using the scientific name - vibrissae
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41870897
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pmahoney|1 year ago|reply
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/04/20
[+] [-] accrual|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wormlord|1 year ago|reply
Now I think of cats more like amorphous blobs with some hard bits stuck on. I think anyone who owns a cat will know what I mean by this.
[+] [-] nonameiguess|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bl4ckneon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alamortsubite|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] toss1|1 year ago|reply
After a few days of recovery and starting to get comfortable, he started to snooze and literally poured off the couch, like a bag of beans... and he loved to stretch in my lap while I coded, putting up with all the typing & mousing... Truly liquid, indeed! Wonderful little guy, I still miss him.
[+] [-] jeffbee|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dominicrose|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] keeganpoppen|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bayindirh|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pvg|1 year ago|reply
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned
[1]https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/asjt-cats.htm
[+] [-] evilotto|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tirant|1 year ago|reply
https://web.archive.org/web/20050203111131/http://bonsaikitt...
Obviously it was a hoax, probably one of the first ones reaching the first generation of internet users. But lots of people fell for it.
[+] [-] ookdatnog|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bschne|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ISL|1 year ago|reply
If my quick math is correct, for the de Broglie wavelength of a cat to be comparable to its width, it would need to be travelling no faster than about 10^-33 m/s.
[+] [-] stronglikedan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] runxel|1 year ago|reply
"On the Rheology of Cats":
https://www.drgoulu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Rheology-...
[+] [-] ChoHag|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anotherevan|1 year ago|reply
"!!!" I said.
"What?" She shrugged back into cat form.
"You're a shape shifter?"
"All cats are. There's just never any reason to not be a cat."
/src https://mastodon.art/@MicroSFF/112928631782738642
[+] [-] _yb2s|1 year ago|reply
Except in the case of one very sweet but not exactly brilliant large dog I know that legitimately believes his entire body is just the tip of his nose that he can see. I’ve seen him walk straight through a 2” hole in a screen door, and he will repeatedly try to sit on e.g. a chair armrest and not understand why it doesn’t work.
[+] [-] jmspring|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] zafka|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fullstop|1 year ago|reply
The feeding logistics of four, one with a special diet, are difficult. I can't imagine having seven of them long-term, especially the litter boxes. I've fostered kittens before, so I had nine cats in the house and it felt like all I did for those weeks was feed cats and scoop poop.
[+] [-] kator|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pugworthy|1 year ago|reply
The reader becomes, in a sense, a greeble.
This paper would have been a fun project for a scientific illustrator.
[+] [-] pugworthy|1 year ago|reply
So instead of the real cat staring at the imaginary greeble, we the reader are the real greeble staring at the imaginary cat. Who is staring back because it can see us.
[+] [-] stef25|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dist-epoch|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anotherevan|1 year ago|reply
Detached collarbones is one of the many interesting things I know about cats because of my cat obsessed kid!
[+] [-] tropdrop|1 year ago|reply
"If you have a vertical slit, you're very likely to be an ambush predator," says Banks. That's the kind of animal who lies in wait and then leaps out to kill. He says these predators need to accurately judge the distance to their prey, and the vertical slit has optical features that make it ideal for that.
But that rule only holds if the animal is short, so its eyes aren't too high off the ground, Sprague says."
Ergo, cats have vertical pupils but tigers have round pupils. The tiger can probably judge horizontal distances better than the cat.
1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/08/07/4301496...
[+] [-] damontal|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cph123|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rosmax_1337|1 year ago|reply
It's something about how scientific papers are not "for pleasure", they're informational tools. An easter egg in a game is cool right, but an easter egg in a graphics driver? That's the distinction I'm making here.
[+] [-] Kydlaw|1 year ago|reply
Scientific articles are informational tools that report results of experiments and nothing more. If the results are interesting to the peers, they are published. By they are not world's laws made paper unless sufficient replications are made. This means that each article need to be read with the context of the literature in mind and with a critical eye. Each are a single point of evidence to a phenomena.
Hence, there are subjective informational tools, written toward a specific audience (the experts of the domains) to inform of a specific result in a specific case.
On top of that, their are specific journal/issues where these types submissions are allowed. Don't read these submissions if you are looking for serious "information tools"
Scientific literature must be handled the same way as legal literature. If you are not a law expert, you ask a lawyer. If you think you are a legal expert when you are not, surprising consequences may arise.
In universities, they are classes dedicated to handling the scientific literature. They are provided for a reason.
So please, don't use cat's physic for liquid simulation in game engine... or please do?
[+] [-] metalman|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sandebert|1 year ago|reply