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| Skin: An additional tool for the versatile elephant trunk Posted: 18 Jul 2022 12:43 PM PDT A new study suggests that an elephant's muscles aren't the only way it stretches its trunk -- its folded skin also plays an important role. The combination of muscle and skin gives the animal the versatility to grab fragile vegetation and rip apart tree trunks. The research finds that an elephant's skin doesn't uniformly stretch. The top of the trunk is more flexible than the bottom, and the two sections begin to diverge when an elephant reaches more than 10%. When stretching for food or objects, the dorsal section of the trunk slides further forward. |
| Robot dog learns to walk in one hour Posted: 18 Jul 2022 09:22 AM PDT Like a newborn animal, a four-legged robot stumbles around during its first walking attempts. But while a foal or a giraffe needs much longer to master walking, the robot learns to move forward fluently in just one hour. A computer program acts as the artificial presentation of the animal's spinal cord, and learns to optimize the robot's movement in a short time. The artificial neural network is not yet ideally adjusted at the beginning, but rapidly self-adjusts. |
| Does this ring a bell? Wild bats can remember sounds for years Posted: 14 Jul 2022 04:04 PM PDT There are certain skills that once we acquire them, we rarely have to relearn them, like riding a bike or looking both ways before crossing a street. Most studies on learning and long-term memory in the wild focus on a handful of animal species. Now, researchers share the first report of long-term memory in frog-eating bats. |
| Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets Posted: 14 Jul 2022 11:50 AM PDT Scientists had long wondered how woodpeckers can repeatedly pound their beaks against tree trunks without doing damage to their brains. This led to the notion that their skulls must act like shock-absorbing helmets. Now, researchers have refuted this notion, saying that their heads act more like stiff hammers. In fact, their calculations show that any shock absorbance would hinder the woodpeckers' pecking abilities. |
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