Heat loss from a cow — that’s the deal in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams —with dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg — tells about: Heat loss from a cow — Khan, Zahid A., Irfan Anjum Badruddin, G. A. Quadir, and K. N. Seetharamu (2006). ‘A Quick and Accurate […]
Tag: Elephant
The role of flapping elephant ears in heat dissipation
Elephants are big, and they get hot. Especially in Africa. Thus, from the elephant’s point of view, there’s sometimes an urgent necessity to dissipate excess heat. Some investigators have suggested that flapping their large ears (strictly, their ‘pinnae’) could provide a significant heat-loss mechanism. (e.g. Buss, I. O., and Estes, J. A., 1971, ‘The Functional […]
Elephant Trumpets, the Acoustics of
“Because trumpeting is often associated with intensely social events, expressing the very high level of excitement and importance of the event, it is not easy to ask elephants for trumpet calls!” But that did not deter a research team at the Laboratoire d’Acoustique de l’Université du Maine, Le Mans, France (assisted by the Zoo de […]
Another Possible Use, to the Elephant, of Elephant Hair
Elephant hair — the hair found on elephants — poses intricate puzzles for those who are inclined to look closely. This study works at solving one set of those puzzles: “What Is the Use of Elephant Hair?” Conor L. Myhrvold, Howard A. Stone, Elie Bou-Zeid [pictured here], PLoS ONE, 7(10), 2012, e47018. The authors, at […]