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An Illustrated Guide to Hippo Castration (2014)
- reify 9mo ago[flagged]
- gnabgib 8mo ago(2014)
- aaronbrethorst 8mo agoI don't think much has changed in the state of the art of hippo castration in the last twelve years.
- RobotCaleb 8mo ago[flagged]
- Sniffnoy 8mo agoThey're not saying it's not worth talking about. They're saying it should have a date tag, as is customary for old articles on Hacker News.
- tomhow 8mo agoPlease don't post snarky comments here. That user is one of the most engaged, helpful users on HN and it's a long-standing convention that the year is appended to titles of articles that are not current.
- pugworthy 8mo agoI mean, sensationalistic or "Why didn't you post on / This isn't reddit" or not, this is one of the more amazing opening sentences ever... > Few things in this world are as elusive as a hippopotamus testicle
- onionisafruit 8mo agoI was fond of “all the surviving animals were able to return to their feces-infested communal pools within hours of the surgery with no negative consequences”
- scotty79 8mo ago1 out of 10 died though.
- snthpy 8mo agoShort and sweet. An absolute masterpiece of scientific writing! A family friend used to run a travel business with tours to the Okavango Delta. When I asked him how it was going, he replied "Great, we've only ever lost one honeymoon couple to hippos"! People don't realise they are one of the most dangerous animals to humans.
- trhway 8mo ago"Jaws" hippo edition: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aKEgTUkpk64 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aKEgTUkpk64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJQpq8mLbm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJQpq8mLbm0
- card_zero 8mo ago[flagged]
- andsoitis 8mo agoAnimal cruelty is immoral.
- card_zero 8mo agoSo is sanctimony, good job nobody around here is being cruel or sanctimonious.
- mock-possum 8mo ago> The vets successfully castrated 10 out of 10 hippos with their method, losing only one of the animals to postsurgery complications Yeah those are not good numbers.
- tass 8mo agoAccording to a related article: https://www.discovermagazine.com/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-castrate-a-hippo-4775 https://www.discovermagazine.com/why-its-nearly-impossible-t... The death was caused by an "unknown pre-existing condition" but doesn't elaborate further.
- trhway 8mo agoVets castrating an animal under anesthesia pales in comparison to male calves castration by using tight rubber band (AMZN sells them too) to cut the blood supply to scrotum and thus causing necrosis and ultimately scrotum and testicles falling off. Without any anesthesia. A widespread, most popular, practice in US. The animal suffers tremendous pain for several weeks. The true cost of beef.
- mbrezu 8mo agoHow long before this is included in an AI benchmark? Can't wait :-)
- tumidpandora 8mo ago> hippos' stunning wound-healing abilities—perhaps related to the antibacterial properties of the creepy "red sweat" that coats their skin sounds interesting and definitely something worth looking into as well
- bambax 8mo agoWe have been taught in high school that the reason humans and "all mammals" had external testes was to cool them. But elephants have internal testicles, and, apparently, so do hippos. This seems a much better strategy than having such an important (and sensitive!) organ hanging out at the mercy of predators, foes, or even banal accidents. The evolution explanation for this appears to be lacking.
- seanhunter 8mo agoEvolution is a process of massively parallel multistart hill-climbing where the objective function is "did this creature successfully breed". It doesn't settle on a global optimum, just finds many many local optima that enable creatures to succeed in passing on their DNA. Why in human males is the prostate such a troublesome thing? Because by the time the prostate becomes a problem, males have generally done any breeding they're going to do, so there is no advantage to natural selection to improving it further. Is it optimal? Definitely not. Presumably it is (taking the wide view) probably a good thing that evolution doesn't find global optima or there would be far less ecological diversity.
- bambax 8mo agoYeah I totally agree with this. We want to find explanations and justifications for everything, but it's largely possible that the location of testes actually doesn't matter -- internal, external, whatever.
- seszett 8mo ago> it's largely possible that the location of testes actually doesn't matter It's not really that it doesn't matter, just that there are several different options to allow good enough fertility. If sperm has to be stored/generated at a temperature lower than 36°C, then external testes are a solution to that, but a lower body temperature works as well. Developing enzymes that work good enough at a higher temperature also works (apparently what birds have done). And maybe just accepting a lower fitness of sperm cells works if the animal produces more of them. Hippopotamuses have a low body temperature of about 35°C, so internal testes work for them.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- Surac 8mo agoreading this i wonder how long some tech bros need for a starup that offers AI assisted hippo castration for executives as the next hype
- kjs3 8mo agoPlease don't give them any ideas. It's one small step from 'this works great on hippos!' to 'I hear there's a human population problem...'.
- skeledrew 8mo agoWe do have a human population problem. It's aging out of existence.
- cryptonector 8mo agoSome tech bros can't bring themselves to say that it would be good for the human species to survive [for any length of time].
- dtgriscom 8mo agoFlashback to a Robin Williams bit, where Marlon Perkins of "Wild Kingdom" directs his assistant to circumcise a water buffalo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbhByVMhXM&t=45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbhByVMhXM&t=45s