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Domestic cat larynges can produce purring frequencies without neural input
- j7ake 3y agoLove the journal current biology. Extremely accessible yet thought provoking science. It’s way more readable than the “broad audience” Cell, Nature, Science journals.
- Mistletoe 3y agoI can’t quite make out from the paper but did they just kill eight cats and remove their larynx for this experiment? Was it really worth doing that to determine this? I don’t think learning this was worth even eight cats dying and being mutilated if so. I’m from academia and science and I keep getting more disillusioned with the whole thing the longer I’m in it.
- j7ake 3y agoThe larynges were taken from euthanised cats that had terminal diseases.
- b112 3y agoWould you presume murder, if a scientist worked on a human cavadier?
- JCharante 3y agoIt depends on the maturity of the field. In the 1800s? Absolutely. Animal rights are behind that of humans in the 1800s (yes I know human slavery was common at that time, and that’s my point, humans were treated as property and not as people with rights, which is how our legal frameworks view non-human animals now)
- behringer 3y agoNo reasonable scientist would have been murdering people in the 1800s...
- TeMPOraL 3y agoI doubt there were many "reasonable scientists" in the 1800s.
- magicalhippo 3y agoSure, you get someone else to do that[1]. Don't ask, don't tell of course. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders
- rsynnott 3y agoI have… bad news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders Rule of thumb, when dealing with the 19th century: assume pretty much any level of cruelty, depravity, or plain stupidity was up for grabs (you have all three here, the stupidity being around the laws which made this industry inevitable). It wasn’t a very nice time, in general.
- lynx23 3y agoThat is a pretty naiv assumption.
- behringer 3y agoCongrats you found one example. I could probably list a dozen from recent times too.
- orra 3y agoWhy would you assume that? A, nobody wants to murder eight cats. B, it'd probably be illegal. > The larynges were harvested from animals that had to be euthanised due to terminal disease unrelated to the respiratory tract in veterinary clinics in Vienna, Austria. The animals’ owners gave their explicit consent for the larynges to be investigated postmortem.
- astrange 3y agoAnd then they mounted them on Legos. > After removing excess tissue and all but four tracheal rings, each larynx was mounted on a vertical tube that could supply heated (∼37°C) and humidified (100% humidity) air. Larynx stability was maintained with an adjustable plastic support structure (using LEGO blocks, Billund, Denmark) and 3D-printed plastic mounts.
- Scoundreller 3y agothey probably needed something reliable
- mojo74 3y agoPride of place on the mantlepiece along with a Death Star and Saturn 5 lego set. Head to https://ideas.lego.com/ https://ideas.lego.com/ to realise the dream...
- defrost 3y ago> A, nobody wants to murder eight cats. Many people embrace the idea of murdering more than just eight cats and actively develop better methods to do so: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/feral-cat-management-device-felixer-tested-at-animal-reserve/12296874 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/feral-cat-management-... https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/felixer,-the-grooming-trap,-works-to-control-feral-cats https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/felixer,-the-grooming-trap,-... A feral cat management device that uses lasers and sensors to specifically target cats has been shown to be effective in a field trial in remote South Australia.
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- PetitPrince 3y agoThey were already dead cats. From the material and method section: > The larynges were harvested from animals that had to be euthanised due to terminal disease unrelated to the respiratory tract in veterinary clinics in Vienna, Austria.
- OnlyMortal 3y agoSchrodinger has entered the chat
- __alexs 3y agoThey didn't kill any cats but also as a long term and very loving cohabiter with multiple cats, they are just cats. Animal cruelty is a serious problem because it makes some people miserable to see them suffer and the ones it doesn't make miserable are possibly dangerously psychotic. This isn't that.
- acosmism 3y agoi’m genuinely curious about how you feel about killing insects in the name of academia and science. the same?
- vixen99 3y agoWhen considering its purpose, does anyone else find something distasteful (to put it much too politely) about the whole idea of this experiment? And then there's this. https://www.wired.com/story/neuralink-uc-davis-monkey-photos-videos-secret/ https://www.wired.com/story/neuralink-uc-davis-monkey-photos...
- NikkiA 3y agoNo, this is 'science', following decent ethics - deceased animals that were donated to science by their owners. Perhaps discovering the source of purring isn't the deepest mystery cats could unlock via donation, but it's ethical, and might give us some insights into how the 'healing properties' observed by cat purrs works, or how to mimic it, either for vetinarian, or human medical purposes. Whereas neuralink is just killing healthy animals for eventual profit.
- nequo 3y agoDo you mind being more precise about what you find distasteful about it? The paper writes that the larynges came from animals that were deceased due to illness: The larynges were harvested from animals that had to be euthanised due to terminal disease unrelated to the respiratory tract in veterinary clinics in Vienna, Austria. The animals’ owners gave their explicit consent for the larynges to be investigated postmortem. This seems quite different from Musk’s Neuralink to me but I might be missing something.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoIn this case it was done in Austria, and on excised larynges of postmortem pets. > The animals’ owners gave their explicit consent for the larynges to be investigated postmortem.
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- gehwartzen 3y agoMy understanding is that cats purr both as an expression of happiness (like when petted) but also when sick, presumably for self comfort. Both of my cats without fail will gravitate towards me or my gf when we are sick and sit on our chests and purr. it's very sweet. I can produce a purring sounds in the very back of my throat but my gf can't no matter how much she tries/practices. I speak German natively and the purr is very similar to the sound of the letter "r" which I guess a lot of English speakers have trouble with.
- BizarroLand 3y agoEveryone should be able to roll their r's, but many people have a disconnect because they think it is done by moving their tongue and that misunderstanding prevents them from figuring it out. It's done by cupping your tongue to the roof of your mouth and blowing air through the cup, the pressure builds up and then suddenly releases, and if done correctly it will vibrate and make a purring, rolling r sound. The sides of your tongue abut your teeth on the sides and stay firm, but the tip only gets a little pressure to return to the roof of your mouth.
- Doxin 3y agoAnother trick for practicing rolling Rs is to replace the r in a word with a d. This works best if the R follows another consonant. So when practicing to roll your R don't say "bread" but try saying "bdead". If you manage to make that bd fast enough it'll turn into a sort of tongue slap that's a single "roll". From there it's simply a matter of practice until you can roll as long as you like.
- gehwartzen 3y agoThats how people have always explained making the rolling R sound for Spanish to me which is different from a rolling R sound in German. I was never able to make the Spanish r sound when I took it high school. In the "guttural R" used in German the sound is made in the back of the throat without the need to press ones tongue against the roof of the mouth; just the base/root of the tongue against the uvular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttural_R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttural_R This video explains it well with really fascinating videos clips showing a cross section of the mouth live while speaking. The whole thing is interesting but the main difference is shown at 3:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRKvpqOEbvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRKvpqOEbvU
- greenhearth 3y agoWhat do they mean by "neural input?" Do they mean a voluntary, willful mode of making the sound, as opposed to involuntary process, like breathing?
- NikkiA 3y agoFrom the looks of it it's just oscillation caused by breathing in certain ways, so yes, part of the autonomic nervous system, rather than something the cat chooses to do. The wording makes it sound like this is not all purring though, so there may be other ways cats can conciously choose to purr.