Wet-dog physics
By Stephen Ornes
Source: Science news for kids
Written on November the 8th 2010
When hairy animals are wet, they shake to dry themselves. Scientists at the Georgia institute of technology in Atlanta made videos of 40 animals shaking water off. They came to the conclusion that the smaller the animal, the faster it has to shake to dry and the bigger the animal, the slower it shakes to dry. While mice shake at the frequency of 25Hz, it takes grizzly bears to shake off the water at the frequency of just 4Hz. They think that if an animal couldn’t dry itself that way, it would take 25% of their daily calories to dry and every time it stays wet, it would get hypothermia and die.
I think this is the most efficient way for furry animals to dry themselves. I chose this article because it’s very interesting how a mouse shakes that fast! Scientists where using laws of physics to calculate the frequency of their movement. I couldn’t imagine a world where animals don’t know how to shake water off of them. In a world like that so many animals would die of hypothermia!
Ivan, you have met all the requirements for the current event. Good job making connections between your first paragraph and your second (hypothermia).
ReplyDeleteWow, that's so cool! I think you chose a great interesting article. I did not know that every animal shakes water off themselves! Nadia:)
ReplyDeleteThis is another interesting topic. You are right about hypothermia. Some animals like birds really do depend on their ability for them to shake water off their feathers. However, when they get in an oil spill, they can't do this and many die because they get hypothermia.
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