What I learnt this week 20 - Part 1: Are dogs officially smarter than cats? Bacteria power, & Superstrong prehistoric women!
This is the one! 20 weeks of WITLW (catchy, I know). I don't really have a way to celebrate other than to go 'woo!'. So yeah, get over it.
This week has been a crazy week for science. In fact I struggled a lot to get 10 down to 5, and I have so much to say about a couple of them I'm gonna have to break week 20 into TWO posts! So Thursday and Friday (and possibly a bonus Saturday) will come tomorrow. But for now:
Monday: Cyanobacteria power!
The future?
When you look at solar panels, or photovoltaic cells, and realize how inefficient they are, only converting 25% of sunlight into energy at best, what other solutions do you think of? Come on, be creative.
Thicker panels? Better angles? Bigger cells?........ how about... adding the prefix 'bio' to photovoltaic cells?
Some very imaginative researchers figured this out, and have managed to use a regular ink printer to print out energy-producing cyanobacteria onto a conductive surface. What this means is that living organisms can potentially provide power through the day as well as night, using their energy reserves when the sun goes down to continue their output.
This will typically have a low-power purpose, at least for now, but already the researchers demonstrated the ability to light LED's, work a clock and so forth with what they had in these early stages.
The applications are almost endless, largely because the process will inevitably be cheap, easy, biodegradable and environmentally friendly to create, and provide bio-panels and batteries at any time of the day.
One application is bio wallpaper, able to power things like air purifiers, smoke alarms and now household lighting is turning to low powered LEDs, those too... The wall in your house!
The potential in medical care with low power diagnostics is another of many potential ideas and with this kind of creativity in science, I personally can only see it going a long way. Can't wait.
Tuesday: Dogs officially smarter than cats?
A never-ending debate, I know. But it doesn't hurt to get more evidence to support your argument. A latest study does just that, by actually counting the number of neurons in each animals' brain, including bears, ferrets, hyenas, lions and others. The researchers are of the belief that, rather than brain size compared to body mass, the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex is a more absolute calculation of intelligence, since this:
...determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience - Herculano-Houzel
So although dogs do not have the largest brain, it turns out they have significantly more cortical neurons than cats. Let's look at the numbers.
- Cats: 250 million
- Dogs: 530 million
- Brown Bears: 250 million
That third one struck me as particularly interesting. A brown bear's brain is about ten times the size of a cat's, yet it has the same neuron count. Golden retrievers have more than double those (I'd wager a border collie would have even more), but it pains me to admit:
- Humans: 16... billion. Or 86 billion in total.
In fact, I found some interesting pictures on wiki from older, less accurate studies on other animals. Take a look at the Gorilla and Human compared to the elephant in the two pictures; the first being absolute neuron count, the second being in the cerebral cortex:
It's quite outstanding how much the humans stand out, but I would take these kinds of studies with a grain of salt for a number of reasons. For example, it only took me a minute or so to find a study showing that the ...Long-finned pilot whale has more neocortical neurons than any mammal studied to date including humans!
And to make things worse, if we go by these numbers, the Fin whale, Habor porpoise, Minke whale, and false killer whales are all more intellectually superior to our closest cousins such as the dim-witted gorilla, the dunce orangutan or the even more vacuous chimp. Check the whole list here!
Additionally, I question the point of this study anyway which claims to have done this for the first time, when I actually quite easily found the numbers on the above wikipedia page going back to 2005.
I guess the point of this Tuesday post is to inspire more dog Vs cat arguments, and not much else!
Wednesday: Superstrong prehistoric women
When you think of women... ok I won't go there.
Typically, due to sexual dimorphism of the human species, females tend to be smaller and physically weaker than men. But not limited to that role, some women take it upon themselves to endeavour in some pretty tough sports, and the physical prowess that comes with it would easily be sufficient to snap me in half like a twig.
Researchers decided to look at rowing champions and analyse their upper body strength and compare them to your average prehistoric working woman. Turns out, the strongest women out there today are weaker than the every day woman back then.
How could this be?
We normally think that our lifestyle across the globe allows us to push exceptional bodies to the ultimate limits of strength, speed and agility. Yet a regular farming girl puts us to shame?
Well apparently that's just it. It's suggested that because these prehistoric women lived a life of tilling soil, harvesting crops, grinding grain 5 hours a day at least and so on, could very well have butched them up to something incredible.
Specifically, the women from 6,000 years ago had similar leg strength, but their arms outclassed rowing champions by up to 16% - 30% more than your average student.
Interestingly, women from 3,500 years ago had weaker legs by about 12%, and up to 13% stronger arms. Did they learn to farm on wheelchairs, perhaps?
So, ladies (and definitely men, too), the next time you think you've reached the peak of physical perfection... TRY HARDER!
That's it for today, but a special part 2 will come out tomorrow, finishing off the week.
Thanks for reading, and please follow @steemstem, @stempede and join us in the steemSTEM group chat on Steemit.chat!
Images CC0 Licensed
I think I have daddy's shoulders so I can likely give those prehistoric ladies a run for their money.
On a side note: WITLW. I am just learning to speak but there may be an issue with Dyslexia here. Perhaps that can be the topic of 'what I this learned week' next time.
What, you problem got a way speak I the with??
I am not convinced that humans are more intelligent than dogs, although I do think my bulldogs prove that not all dogs are intelligent! xD Really interesting post, thank you! I am now off to convince my bulldogs that they have to go out for a walk in the cold and the dark...hmmmm, maybe they are more intelligent than I thought... also, as I have 5 ...yes 5 dogs to walk, I recon I might be on par with the cave woman with arm strength! haha
Well, if you need to actually sit the bulldogs down and give them a proper talk to convince them, i'd say they're pretty smart indeed! I'm just going to assume that's how it goes down every day.
As for the 5 dog total... I have nothing but envy for you and your biceps.
Haha...yes there is that! xD Needless to say, I don't go to the gym lol
I read an article several years ago in scientific american or discover that said dogs have the emotional life of a two or three year old child. I'll try to find the link, but somehow I found that astonishing and unsurprising at the same time.
Dogs are super smart for pets, but just smart enough that their motivations and actions are recognizable to us and, so their mistakes make them appear super dumb. Cats are super dumb, but graceful, so our intuition is that they're smart when really they're just beautiful morons.
I watch my cat, Smash and I gotta say I often think of him as a little baby. He loves being held, cradled like a baby, he gets super excited for treats, goes all hyper after taking a dump or finishing a meal, has imaginary fights and so on... it's pretty interesting how much they align with baby versions of ourselves!
Dogs on the other hand, the ones i've owned clearly have some kind of empathic intellect. They know when to comfort, they also know when to fake injuries to get treats, or what tone of voice means what. I could never put a preference on any animal, but dogs are impressive, to say the least.
I don't mean to speak ill of cats or dogs - but I think dogs especially have a reputation for goofiness - but I also think their goofiness can be a manifestation of their heightened intelligence. Like watching a toddler try to do something beyond its ability - the fact that it tried is testament to its intelligence even though it looks silly doing it.
Of course there must be a lot of individual variation from animal to animal. Maine coons, for instance, seem smarter than most college professors.
Yeah that's some petty good food for thought actually. Kinda makes me think of those crappy Planet of the Apes movies, but with dogs finally gaining sentience (if they don't already have it and are just hiding it)
Lol at the professors!
I guess it depends where the neurons are located in the brain to determine the levels and different kinds of intelligence... and also what perspective we are defining intelligence from. Very interesting stuff as always :D
Yeah for sure, one of the other reasons to take it lightly. For example, creative intelligence hasn't even been considered, and social intelligence would be like comparing apples and oranges when it comes to cats and dogs. It's no more important than the arguments at the pub at the end of the day.
hahaha farming on wheelchairs :D :D
So, whales consist of the most intelligent species? (I could not resist making the joke :p )
Well... not from my experience!
Wow! Nice, it's like your style of writing changes per time. I love the way you write. You write nicely. Wonderful post! I didn't know I had so much neurons in my brain. This post is informative. Waiting for the remaining days to come up tomorrow...
My style is just so vast it looks different every time =P