Superpower abilities of rats
Rats can follow wind and other airflows with just a sniff and a tic of their whiskers. New research helps explain how the rodents can do everything from find food to predict weather. The term whisking is a phenomenon used with regards to tracking wind flow. Whisking is when whiskered animal moves its facial whiskers repetitively back and forth in a sweeping motion. Rats, trained to locate airflow sources from a fan, on a circular table were rewarded sugary solution, the rats searched for the source of the wind in a series of experiments. After, the rats’ whiskers were trimmed to tiny stubs and then repeated the experiments. The trimmed rats often moved in a zig-zag way, becoming 20% less efficient at locating the blowing air. It’s believed that the rats sniff odor signs as they engage in whisking; the behaviors are synchronized by shared regions of the individual’s nervous system. Human-grown beards lack the specialized structure of whisking.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/superpower-abilities-rats-randy-bilesky?published=t
