Clever Creatures

Animals in action: it’s physics, baby.

Studying physics,
mathematics, and chemistry
is worshipping God.
—Fethullah Gulen

No animals were harmed in the making of this story.

Years ago, before returning to the state where I live now, I had a coven of friends who had at least two things in common: they were all women, and they all lived with cats. One of them confessed something she’d done while visiting her young nephew. He’d just gotten a puppy. He was very excited, of course. It was a puppy—it was cute.

He handed it to her. She fussed and oohed and ahhed over it for a while. Then she was done. So she opened her arms, and down it fell, flat on its belly.

I guffawed. “How was I to know? I’ve never had a dog!” She was horrified. The look on her face made me laugh even harder.

As every cat human knows, when you drop a cat—even a kitten—they twist around and land lightly on their feet and go trotting off to see if any food has appeared in their bowl.

Dogs don’t do that. Dogs drop like a sack of potatoes. Then they—or at least the puppy in question—lie there for a few seconds, get up, shake their heads, wag their tails, and go trotting off to see if any food has appeared in their bowl.

I leave it to you to decide which of the two species is superior.

(That’s a trick question: they both are, especially as measured against Homo sapiens.)

If you’ve watched any nature documentaries since the creation of high-end cameras, you have probably seen that gorgeous slo-mo sequence following a cat as it falls to the ground. It is as beautiful as any Olympic athlete in action. And both are following the same laws: the laws of physics.

You can see a lovely photo of a twisting falling cat in this article from from Knowable magazine.

And at the good old BBC, you can watch a stunning super-slo-mo video sequence—one that stretches a three-second fall to a minute and a half—of a caracal, a cat that is beautiful no matter what it is doing.

In an interesting article about how biology and physics intertwine—the above-referenced Knowable piece—the author observes that while “the field of animal behavior physics is still in its infancy,” much progress has been made to explain how individual animal behaviors are shaped by their interactions with other individuals and with the environment.

“Shaped by their interactions with the environment.” In other words, another case made for why we shouldn’t be screwing around with our environment because everything in it is important, from kelp to caterpillers to caracals.

All right, all right, I can hear you bleating: housecats do not help the environment! They are among the most destructive forces in urban wildlife! I won’t argue with you there; that’s why their humans should keep them indoors.

Further, I’ll point out that the cats we spoil and love today did not come into existence organically but were, for good or ill, bred (by us) into the companions they are today. And since they are now mandatory in any civilized household—don’t argue with me there because that is a fact—there’s nothing to be done about the inherent threats they pose. Except to keep them indoors when possible.

Although, just for the sake of argument, some sources make a case for the environmental contributions that are made by outdoor cats. Wag is a commercial site intent on selling you things, but it appears to contain solid information and is partnered with reputable nonprofit organizations. It states: “Cats are elite rodent catchers and help control populations of invasive species and small animals that multiply quickly.” The site also notes that the carbon footprint of cats is less than half the size of that of dogs. Not to diss on dogs; I’m just saying.

This is not an article about cats. I just get excited.

Back to the matter at hand. The Knowable article is fascinating in its rich array of other examples of physics in action among biological creatures: “Attractive forces between nearby atoms facilitate the ability of geckos and some insects to climb up walls or even walk on ceilings.” Wait, what? Atoms and geckos in one sentence? Since when did atoms have anything to do with...? Oh, wait. Atoms literally have everything to do with.

Here’s another one: “Scales on California king snakes possess textures that allow rapid forward sliding, but increase friction to retard backward or sideways motion.”

The size and shape of an animal drives how it moves: “Fish with slim bodies, for instance, propel themselves by side-to-side motion of body and tail. Fish of many other body shapes generate motion by moving their fins.” (And then, of course—I don’t know why I keep going back to this, it just always makes me happy inside—there’s the barreleye fish, hanging around in the lower depths looking up, always up, for dinner options.

One more, and then I’ll leave you alone. This one for a friend who politely pretends that her allergies are what makes her averse to my cats. (She’s still my friend.) She prefers birds, and who can blame her? Birds are groovy.

Birds apparently know that flexible sticks or twigs provide better stability than rigid rods; physics experiments have shown that the bending of the more flexible materials enables frictional forces that help hold the nest together.     

The paragraph continues the way so many articles about cool science stuff seem required to continue: by pointing out how this information will benefit us, the late-arriving guests at the party who drink all the booze, spill food all over the carpet, tell tasteless jokes, and refuse to leave. You know—people. The article’s referenced experts:

...suspect that applying more bird knowledge about assembling nest components could help scientists design novel metamaterials for various purposes.

Which is cool, although the nest-building info was already cool.

I’ve relied heavily on one article for this issue because it is so interesting. And no wonder. Its author, Tom Siegfried, is the former editor of Science News, has written for a bunch of magazines about varying kinds of science topics, and has written this book: The Number of the Heavens: A History of the Multiverse and the Quest to Understand the Cosmos.

He also has wit. Other books by him? The Bit and the Pendulum, Strange Matters, and A Beautiful Math.

---

Lagniappe: Let’s revisit Bryan Pfeiffer’s Chasing Nature, shall we? On July 18, his entry was titled The Little Butterflies You’re Overlooking.