Born January 12, 2004, they are 6 years old now!!
Update (10-21-10, 9:40 AM): Added picture.
January 17, 2010
January 10, 2010
A Fox! A Fox!
Around 11:20 AM this morning, I saw a fox while I was out horseback riding! How neat was that! Totally unexpected. I was walking along (ditch on my left, woods on my right), and saw it up ahead about 30 yards or so. It saw me and my horse, and walked towards us a few strides, paused, looked, then turned and ran off to its left into the woods. As it was running off, I got to see the rich, red color, the pointy nose, and the bushy tail.
January 7, 2010
Horses and Cold
In “How Horses Cope With Cold,” Heather Smith Thomas says:
Horses handle cold weather better than humans do; equines evolved in the cold climates of northern Europe and Asia. Their natural “comfort zone” (energy-neutral temperature zone, in which they don’t need to expend extra energy to maintain normal body temperature if weather is not wet or windy) is from about 15 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The horse’s body is better at creating and conserving heat in cold weather than dissipating it in hot weather.
…
Horses have a normal body temperature of about 100 degrees Farenheit (38 degrees Celcius). They maintain this temperature in cold weather with the help of several mechanisms which include shivering, changes in hormone levels, increased body metabolism, increased digestion of fiber (adding more fiber or more protein to the diet can help a horse keep warm, since digestion of these nutrients produce heat), growing longer and thicker hair which can stand up on the skin to make a layer of insulating air pockets, increased feed consumption, and increased activity. Cold horses on a frosty morning often run and buck to warm up.
…
If the horse gets cold, the blood vessels in his skin constrict to minimize heat loss, and the hair shafts stand on end for better insulating. If he continues to be cold, he starts to shiver, with his muscles rapidly contracting and relaxing–which quickly raises his metabolism rate and amount of fuel burned in the muscles. With his large blocks of muscle, the horse can shiver much more readily and more comfortably than a human. Since most of this muscle action is being converted to heat, this is a very effective way to warm himself. It takes a great deal of energy, however, to shiver for a prolonged period; this can use up his energy stores.
Read the rest. Good stuff. I’d have like the essay better if there were references to actual scientific research and articles at the end.
The last sentence and paragraph is fascinating; it’s all physics, chemistry, and their application in biology: the theory of insulation; the theory of thermodynamics; the law of conservation of energy; the conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy to heat.
This is a topic I’ll need to look into more, to see how this is all consistent with science and evolution.
Update (9:30 PM): Note that it is the air trapped in the horse’s hair that provides most insulation (air is a poor thermal conductor when no convection takes place). We use the same principle in double-paned windows, and in dressing in layers.
Update (10:43 PM): In “Cold Weather Horse Care Review” (TheHorse.com, January 05 2010, Article # 15582), Liz Brown writes:
Water is essential for regulating body temperature, said Greg Meyer, extension educator for large animals at Ohio State University. “We typically think of keeping horses cool with water, but water is required for energy for keeping them warm as well.”
Copyright © 2010 BLOOD-HORSE PUBLICATIONS. All rights reserved.
And in “Cold Weather Nutrition” (TheHorse.com, February 01 2008, Article # 11409), Kimberly Peterson, DVM, writes:
Generally, horses at rest in ambient temperatures of 70°F consume 2% of their body weight in roughage (hay) per day. A 1,100-pound horse will eat approximately 22 pounds of hay per day. Assuming an energy density of 1.0 Mcal/lb, which is typical of many hays, this equates to approximately 22 Mcal or 22,000 Kcal.
Roughage in the diet is the main source of heat for the horse. The bacterial fermentation of fiber in roughage, occurring in the large intestine, results in the majority of heat produced during digestion.
…
Added fat in the form of vegetable oil is an efficient calorie source at 4 Mcal/pound (four times the energy of hay). Up to 12% of the day’s total calories in the form of fats and oils is well-tolerated. While fat digestion releases almost no heat, it provides calories for energy and the maintenance of body condition (1 cup vegetable oil=2 Mcal).Copyright © 2010 BLOOD-HORSE PUBLICATIONS. All rights reserved.
January 1, 2010
A Great Day in History: the Return of the Horse to the Americas
“On Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to the New World he brought with him to the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola (which today forms the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) 24 stallions and 10 mares, arriving on January 2, 1494.” (p. 11 of The World According to Horses by Stephen Budiansky, (c) 2000 by Stephen Budiansky, publisher Henry Holt and Company, ISBN 0-8050-6054-5.)
John Kessell writes, in his Spain in the Southwest (Copyright © 2003 by John L. Kessell, Published by University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN10: 0806134844, ISBN13: 9780806134840), that the horses were Andalusian barbs (at least, that is how I interpret this excerpt from his Chapter 1):
The domesticated animals they brought, especially spirited Andalusian barb horses and snarling greyhound and mastiff attack dogs, astonished the Tainos. Cows, pigs, goats, and chickens also came ashore and multiplied. When allowed access, Natives took readily to this tamed and assorted meat supply, as they did to material items like candles or scissors that proved more efficient than their own.
Image of Andalusian/Iberian from Wikipedia, which attributes this sketch as: “Welbeck Le Superbe Cheval de Spanie,” engraving (reprinted 1743) by C. Caukercken, after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, from the first Duke of Newcastle’s A general system of horsemanship in all its branches (new edition printed for J. Brindley, bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in New Bond-street, 1743)
And in the Internet exhibition “No Traveller Remains Untouched” of The Albert B. Alkek Library of Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, they write of the reintroduction of the horse to the Americas:
The horse came to the New World – to Hispaniola – on Christopher Columbus’ second transatlantic voyage, on January 2, 1494. Hernan Cortes brought the first horses to New Spain (current-day Mexico) in 1519.
Update (11:25 AM): Wikipedia claims:
In 1518 Velázquez put him in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. At the last minute, due to the old gripe between Velázquez and Cortés, he changed his mind and revoked his charter. Cortés ignored the orders and went ahead anyway, in February 1519, in an act of open mutiny. Accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses and a small number of cannons, he landed in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mayan territory.
September 28, 2009
Ape Intelligence
NOVA and National Geographic made a fascinating documentary entitled “Ape Genius,” in which they showed how apes learn and how they function mentally. In one segment of the show, they compared how chimpanzees and human children learn and function; someone posted videos on YouTube in two parts: child vs chimpanzee, part 1 and child vs chimpanzee, part 2. There are also some fascinating, interesting segments on problem solving in apes and learning by imitation. You can watch the whole show (one hour, divided into six parts) on NOVA’s Website. They give you the option of watching it in Quicktime or Windows Media.
On a related note, National Geographic has an article (which I have not read) entitled “Almost Human,” by Mary Roach. They also have some interesting video clips on ape intelligence.
Another good segment, from National Geographic’s “Human Ape,” is about self-recognition.
September 10, 2009
Cats Rock
Sarah, a cheetah at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, does a 100-m sprint in 6.130 seconds!!
September 8, 2009
Birds, Brains, and Brahms
Some birds can move/”dance” to music, like the cockatoo Snowball, who can “dance” to Stevie Nicks. Birds seem to have some neurological precursor to music appreciation. Snowball seem to be able to follow rhythm — sure looks like it does!!
You can get the idea by watching the first minute or two; nothing new happens after that. I wonder if this bird started the movement on its own, or was taught it. And was the person behind the camera directing it? I’d have to assume the movement/dancing is natural (not directed), as the bird is being studied by scientists.
The owner of the bird, Irena Schulz, says, in “Part Five” of “Avian Einsteins,” that the bird started dancing on its own, and will get back on beat if it follows her off beat (when she did so to see if Snowball was merely following her cues). She says Snowball can follow only a constant, regular beat; it cannot follow syncopations. Ms. Shulz also says that more research will be done on Snowball to see how he behaves to music when he is alone in a room, when she is there but supports Snowball only vocally, and when she dances with Snowball.
“Bird Lovers Only” has some links to research papers on Snowball.
“Part Two” shows the bird Alex, owned and studied by “scientist and noted bird researcher” Irene Pepperberg. “Part Three” shows some corvids (called in the video “the feathered chimpanzees;” it’s the crow family, including crows, rooks, ravens) studied by “professor of comparative cognition at Cambridge University” Nicola Clayton.
Speaking of birds, there has been research done on birds to help us understand stuttering, I don’t recall where I saw video on that, but there is some mention of such work on Scientific Blogging and Science Friday.
Update (11:30 AM): It’s fascinating how the scientific method has developed from the ancient Greeks — Hippocrates, Aristotle, Archimedes and more — through the Renaissance — Gilbert, Harvey, Galileo, Newton and more — to today.
Update (noon): That’s not to say that all moderns experiment better, just to say there are more “tools in the tool box,” and that the potential for better experimentation is there. How good someone is as an experimenter depends entirely on his/her individual premises and cognitive methods; and those things depend on choice, on acts and products of free will. Objectivity is chosen, not deterministic.
Monkeys & Music
In “Play that monkey music: Tunes inspired by tamarin calls seem to alter the primates’ emotions” (Science News, Tuesday, September 1, 2009), Jenny Lauren Lee writes:
[Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison] says even the music that made the monkeys content is not pleasant to the human ear. The tamarin calls are higher pitched than human voices and use faster tempos. Likewise the authors report that the monkeys showed no response to samples of human music, except for an unexpected ‘calm’ reaction to a rousing piece by the heavy-metal band Metallica.
Even though it sounds different, the music tamarins and people find relaxing or stressful shares some common core elements. Long legato notes and certain jumps in pitch, such as the jump from do to mi in the do-re-mi of Western music, are calming sounds for both the monkeys and people. Clashing chords and short staccato bursts seem to have menacing associations.
Snowdon says these similarities suggest that tamarins and people may share evolutionary roots for music. But neuroscientist Joshua McDermott of New York University says further studies would be necessary to make that claim.
“Although I don’t see that these initial results tell us a whole lot about the origins of human music, I think there are extensions of [the study] that could,” McDermott says. He also says he would like to see the researchers use a more objective measure of the monkeys’ stress—for example, levels of the hormone cortisol.
© Society for Science & the Public 2000 – 2009 All rights reserved.
The Fastest Muscles Alive
In “The Evolution Of Super-Fast Muscles” (Scientific Blogging, July 8, 2008, 12:00 AM), they write:
[Coen] Elemans, the study’s first author, now is a postdoctoral researcher in biology at the University of Southern Denmark. He conducted the study with Franz Goller, a University of Utah associate professor of biology; and two University of Pennsylvania scientists: Andrew Mead, a doctoral student, and Lawrence Rome, a professor of biology.
…
To conduct the study, the biologists measured vocal muscle activity in freely singing birds and made laboratory measurements of isolated muscles.They found the zebrafinch and European starling can contract and relax their vocal muscles in 3 to 4 milliseconds, or three-thousandths to four-thousandths of a second, which is 100 times faster than the 300 milliseconds to 400 milliseconds (three-tenths to four-tenths of a second) it takes for humans to blink an eye, Elemans says.
The birds’ vocal muscles move structures analogous to “vocal folds” in humans. The muscles change the position and stiffness of these folds to alter the volume and frequency of the sound.
Superfast muscles can produce mechanical work or power at more than 100 hertz (times per second) and these superfast vocal muscles at up to 250 hertz, which means the birds can turn elements of their song on and off 250 times per second, Elemans says.
© 2009 ION Publications LLC
We could not grasp this fact about muscles were it not for concepts and methods developed by a line of scientists going back to the 1600s and beyond: Newton’s definition of force; Watt’s definition of power; scientists’ ideas and discoveries on repetitive motion, “work,” sound, and more. At one point, people had to develop the idea that sound was a disturbance in air (and other media), then prove it. Such knowledge was a prerequisite to applying the concepts of force, power, and work to sound. What’s more, people had to discover that air was substantial, that it had mass, weight and density. (No mass, no force.)
As always, the hierarchy of knowledge is at work.
August 11, 2009
Good For Cats
My cats are about out of dry food, and are taking a while to transition from dry to wet, so I am compromising with them. I went to Veterans Memorial Drive Animal Hospital today and bought some high-quality, high-protein, grain-free dry food: Evo (an Innova company) brand’s Dry Cat and Kitten Food and Nature’s Logic brand’s Natural Rabbit Meal Dinner Fare.
Nature’s Logic, for example, says of their dry food:
Highly palatable and nutrient dense meat based dry foods with concentrates of select fruits and vegetables containing no wheat, corn, rice, soy, potato or chemically synthesized vitamins, minerals, or trace nutrients. Each dry diet is specially coated with digestive enzymes and plasma protein containing high levels of natural vitamins, minerals, and albumin and globulin proteins.
And I bought some grain-free canned while I was there:
