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Daily Bread, Dogs, Science/Nature

Daily Bread for 11.10.24: The Neuroscience Behind… Wet Dog Shakes

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with scattered morning showers, and a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:41, and sunset is 4:36, for 9 hours, 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 65.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, the Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.

The neuroscience behind wet dog shakes:

When a dog shakes water off its fur, it is not just a random flurry of movements — nor a deliberate effort to drench anyone standing nearby.

This instinctive reflex is shared by many furry mammals including mice, cats, squirrels, lions, tigers and bears. The move helps animals to remove water, insects or other irritants from hard-to-reach places. But underlying the shakes is a complex — and previously mysterious — neurological mechanism.

Now, researchers have identified the neural circuit that triggers characteristic ‘wet dog’ shaking behaviour in mice — which involves a specific class of touch receptors, and neurons that connect the spinal cord to the brain.

November Meteor Showers 2024 (Leonids in Mid-November):

See also Leonid meteor shower: All you need to know in 2024.

Daily Bread, Plants, Science/Nature

Daily Bread for 8.3.24: The Most Dangerous Garden on Earth and Other Extreme Gardens

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:49, and sunset is 8:11, for 14h 21m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1977,   Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers.

By Dave Jones – EEVblog, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34239424
0:00 Intro
0:20 Why is this tree so lonely?
04:06 It’s the world’s deadliest garden!
06:18 Imagine holding a 100-pound vegetable
08:45 The world’s hottest river!

Asking Kevin of the the_three_chimigos how he keeps his streets in order:

Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: A New Color of Cat

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Sharon Ardalo reports Mutation Has Led to a New Type of Cat, Scientists Say: A research team has identified a new type of cat which has the typical adorable face and fur pattern of the black and white tuxedo cat, but with a difference: the fur on this feline’s back starts off with a solid color…

Daily Bread, Nature, Science/Nature

Daily Bread for 7.1.24: A Study of Wolves’ Influence in Isle Royale National Park

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 15m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1836, scientist Increase Allen Lapham arrives in Milwaukee. By 1844 he had published Wisconsin’s first book, A Geographical and Topographical, Description of Wisconsin. He was a founder of the Milwaukee Female College, which later became Milwaukee Downer College, a charter member of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and a founder of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Toward the end of his life, he was Wisconsin State Geologist. He also was an influential advocate of the weather bureau in the 1870s.

On this day in 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg begins.

Danielle Kaeding reports Study tracks how wolf reintroduction at Isle Royale affected foxes, martens (‘UW-Madison researchers find wolves had temporary effects on the diet of foxes and marten numbers at remote National Park site’):

The reintroduction of wolves has only had temporary effects on other small carnivores at Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The park is the site of the longest predator-prey study on record between wolves and moose. Over the years, the wolf population has fluctuated there, but the species almost went extinct in the last decade after only two inbred wolves remained. Those wolves couldn’t reproduce to control the moose population.

In the fall of 2018, federal authorities began to introduce 19 wolves to Isle Royale. UW-Madison researchers led a study that took a before-and-after look at how wolves affected small carnivores there, such as red foxes and American martens.

….

Jonathan Pauli, a forest and wildlife ecology professor at UW-Madison, said the research highlights the competitive interactions between the species.

“In the absence of wolves, foxes have free range of the island and that’s to the detriment of martens,” Pauli said. “But when wolves return, at least at first, they then enforce these really important costs on foxes, which benefits martens. But, eventually, it all kind of settles down.”

What’s in the Night Sky: July 2024:

City, Daily Bread, Insects, Nature, Science/Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.23.24: Cicadas Begin to Emerge Nearby

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset 8:19 for 14h 56m 20s of daytime. The moon is full with 100 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1854, the Milwaukee and Mississippi railroad reached Madison, connecting the city with Milwaukee. When the cars pulled into the depot, thousands of people gathered to witness the ceremonial arrival of the first train, and an enormous picnic was held on the Capitol grounds for all the passengers who’d made the seven-hour trip from Milwaukee to inaugurate the line.

On this day in 1949,  after approval from the Western occupying powers, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany takes effect.

This long weekend may give Wisconsinites their first cicada-viewing opportunities. Claire Reid reports 17-year cicadas are emerging now in Wisconsin. Here’s where you can find them:

“With the temperatures this week and rain showers today and tomorrow, that’s really going to help things,” [Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Insect Diagnostics Lab PJ] Liesch said. “Once the emergence gets going in full swing, we’re probably going to be seeing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of these emerging in relatively small areas in Lake Geneva and other spots in the state.”

Here’s where else the cicadas are expected to emerge in the coming weeks.

This map, created by director of UW-Madison's Insect Diagnostics Lab PJ Liesch, shows where 17-year Brood XIII cicadas have emerged in Wisconsin in the past.
Where will 17-year cicadas emerge in Wisconsin?

The Lake Geneva area will be the best place in Wisconsin to see the 17-year cicadas due to their well-established record there, especially along the northern side of the lake, Liesch wrote in his blog.

Other cicada hotspots include areas of Green County and Rock County, including Janesville and Beloit. Additionally, the insects are expected to be prevalent in southwestern Wisconsin’s Driftless Area counties: Iowa, Sauk, Richland, Crawford and Grant.

See also Return of the Cicadas.

I hope we’ll see cicadas in Whitewater; if not, we’ve other viewing spots nearby.

How the cicada phenomenon is capturing our collective attention:

Daily Bread, Insects, Nature, Science/Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.18.24: Return of the Cicadas

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:05 and sunset 7:41 for 13h 35m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1775, the British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements.

Chicagoland in May, parts of Wisconsin in June.

See also UW Insect Diagnostic Lab, Learn more about cicadas, and Help map periodical cicadas in Wisconsin.

Cicadas explained: Three facts about the buzzing insects:

Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: They Know It’s You

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Embed from Getty Images Nicola Davis reports Big cats can tell apart known and unknown human voices, study finds (‘Tigers, cheetahs and snow leopards, like domesticated cats, respond differently to familiar and unfamiliar voices’): From tigers to cheetahs, big cats may seem majestically aloof but researchers have found they can tell apart familiar and unfamiliar…

Cats, Science/Nature, Technology

Friday Catblogging: Space-Transmission Cat

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??Justine McDaniel reports Taters the cat stars in NASA’s first video streamed from deep space: On the path to Mars, nearly 19 million miles from Earth, Taters the cat got his big break. The orange tabby starred in the first video streamed from deep space, a successful NASA experiment that marked a milestone for advancing…

Cats, Daily Bread, Science/Nature

Daily Bread for 12.16.23: Fetching

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 Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset 4:22 for 9h 02m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians hold a Boston Tea Party when they dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

Leo Sands reports Cats can play fetch, too, study finds:

according to a new study, many cats share a trait more frequently associated with pet dogs: They play fetch.

The peer-reviewed study, published Thursday, dispels any lingering myth that cats do not know how to retrieve objects for their owners, said its authors, who based their findings on a survey of the owners of 1,154 cats that played fetch on every continent except Antarctica. Some cats can and do play fetch, they found, although it depended on the feline’s individual traits and the bond shared with its owner.

“It was more common than people were probably expecting, and even I was expecting,” Jemma Forman, an animal psychologist at the University of Sussex and an author of the study, said in an interview. The authors of the study, published in the Scientific Reports journal, said they believe it is the most extensive conducted to date on this specific behavior among cats.

….

The study, limited to cats whose owners already reported fetching, did not assess how prevalent the behavior was among the general cat population. While many cats do fetch, Forman suggested that more research was needed to determine how common it was more generally. A cat’s breed was not a barrier to its ability to fetch, the study found, although Siamese cats were particularly well represented in the sample.

See Forman, J., Renner, E. & Leavens, D.A. Fetching felines: a survey of cat owners on the diversity of cat (Felis catus) fetching behaviour. Sci Rep 13, 20456 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47409-w

Fetching? Well, yes, of course they are.

How to Give Dead Batteries New Life:

Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: They Have Their Reasons

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Embed from Getty Images In Scientific American, Jack Tamisiea writes that Cats Kill a Staggering Number of Species across the World (‘Domestic cats are cherished human companions, but a new study shows the enormous breadth of species the felines prey on when they are left to roam freely’): Despite their small stature and memeable mugs,…