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Hi, I would love to tell you about animal nutrition, science, and why you should always trust a chicken. Check out my articles at educritter.com, maybe suggest one yourself, and don't forget to breathe. Any/all pronouns

[educritter]

Why This Ingredient 3: Minerals

Part three of the ingredients and their uses series, minerals! Take care of your body: lick a rock today!

Very few of these are the minerals described in the article, but they look cool so here we are.Photo by Edz Norton on Unsplash Minerals are underrated. For a lot of minerals, only a tiny amount is needed for them to take an immense part in the body’s ability to stay alive and well. Many come from rocks, but often those rocky mineral sources are broken up and modified by plants, or simply mixed…

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[educritter]

Why This Ingredient 2: Vitamins

Part 2 of my series on pet and livestock feed ingredients! If you ever wondered why a certain vitamin is in something, I've got a little synopsis of what it does waiting just for you.

Did you know most animals make their own vitamin C?Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash It comes as a surprise to no one that everyone needs to eat their vitamins, including the livestock out in our yards and pastures. Knowing what vitamins, and what those vitamins do, however, is another story. I’m sure you’ve taken a look at a label and wondered what on earth that vitamin is for, so I made you…

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[educritter]

How To Get Picky Eaters To Eat Their Feed: 7 Tips And Tricks

Got a picky eater in your flock, herd, or house? I've got solutions. Come check them out!

“Ugh, gross! Peas again!?”Photo courtesy of Vassil on Wikimedia Commons We’ve all met that one animal that outright refuses any feed that’s new, that they deem unworthy of their sophisticated palate, or sometimes even a feed they like for seemingly no reason at all. They turn up their nose, leaving it untouched in their feeder, and then they get grouchy or even sick because they aren’t getting…

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[onaslansside]

Banana trees arent trees.

They’re grass.

You know how banana trees have giant leaves? They all form the stem, like blades of grass.

You know how bananas grow in bunches? You get ONE (1) giant cluster per stem all neat and tidy in circular rows. Just like a head of wheat on a single stalk. That red thing at the end? That’s the flower. It’s bigger than your head, usually, so the weight pulls it down (bringing the bananas closer to you - handy!)

You know how banana trees have hard trunks? WRONG, the stems are just made of grass. You can cut down a six-inch-diameter banana tree with two or three swings of a machete. (No one ever asks if cutting down the banana trees is fun, it looks fun) Yes it’s fun. 

Y'all, eating one banana is like eating one grain of wheat or rice

[the-one-and-only-vic-lociraptor]

WEIRD QUESTION

If our world was 5-dimensional, would it be easier for us/our minds to adjust to another special dimension or another time dimension??

[educritter]

Alright so you're probably going to love this if you're curious about this kind of thing:

String theory models generally assume there are actually ten dimensions, and some versions of the string theory model of the universe assume up to twenty-six. Having additional dimensions in the universe that only act on the tiniest of levels would help us explain how some quantum mechanics stuff works, and why gravity is so absolutely wacky in comparison to most of the other fundamental parts of physics. Here's a pretty fun article on it if you'd like to start a deeper exploration: Do we really have more than three spatial dimensions? - Big Think

[blu-hohos]

Okay I know this might not be scientific at all but hear me out:

Your pupil adjusts it's size to the existing amount of light at the moment right? So when it's too bright your pupil shrinks, and when the light is barely there it gets real wide to absorb as much light as it can right?

So here's the thing: when you look at something/someone you love, your pupil expands. So does that mean that when you're looking at someone you love your vision becomes brighter??

Idk but this has been on my mind a lot lately.

Science side where you at

[educritter]

Kinda, yeah. Ultimately your vision is put through the filter of your brain before it gets to your consciousness, so things probably won't appear brighter to your conscious mind, but it seems to make your vision sharper and that's potentially one of the reasons it happens.

One of the studies that explored these effects showed that people are more sensitive to subtle facial expressions when they've got the good ol' affection hormone coursing through them, which would come in handy for navigating intimate relationships. It also appears to be a visual cue to confirm or deny that affection is mutual in intimate relationships, as simultaneous pupil dilation is correlated with higher trust scores. But anyway, yes, your vision does get brighter in terms of total available light, but you might not perceive it because brains are weird. Also here's the studies I mentioned if you'd like to read more:

Oxytocin enhances pupil dilation and sensitivity to ‘hidden’ emotional expressions

Pupil-mimicry conditions trust in partners: moderation by oxytocin and group membership

[dragomircho]

you know how saturated red makes your eyes go funky? why does that happen??

[educritter]

Oh, hey, a thing I can answer without writing an essay. This happens with any color that you gaze at for too long, especially if they're very saturated. Basically, because your brain is getting constantly pinged with the signal to make you see [color], that whole pathway from your retina to your brain gets tired and adjusts itself. As a result, when you look away you get funky inverted colors because the cone in your retina isn't responding to the same color hitting it any more and so you end up seeing all the other colors present.

[educritter]

How To Ferment Chicken Feed

Curious about fermenting chicken feed? Cool, I made this for you.

It’s kinda like soup and sourdough had a baby, but for chickens.Photo by Will H McMahan on Unsplash Fermenting your chicken’s feed before serving it is surprisingly easy, and it has a lot of benefits. It adds probiotics to feeds without them or gives them a hearty boost in feeds that have probiotics included. It also increases protein content and breaks down complex nutrients so that they’re…

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[educritter]

Moving to Patreon January 2024!

Hey there lovely Critter, If you’re looking at this page I have some cool news: Turns out Patreon is a better hosting platform than WordPress for little Critters like me. 60 bucks a year was just way too much when I’m a grad student and not even allowed to use google ads. Anyway, all my articles now and in the future will remain completely free on Patreon! Come check it out, at…

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[duskform64]

A Question for the Science Side of Tumblr

Are all trees related, or is 'tree' simply a form some plant evolved in completely independently from one another?

[educritter]

Depends on how far back you want to go. Technically everything is related to the first organisms ever to exist.

But, to be a little less vague, you can think of tree (and really plant in general) phylogeny similar to how you think of animal phylogeny - let's take predators for example. They're all a category of animal, but where they branched off from a common ancestor can be quite different. The common ancestor of cats and hyenas is very different from the common ancestor of orcas and dolphins, for instance, but if you go far enough back they had the same general ancestor at some point because they're both mammals. Similarly, orcas and komodo dragons share an ancestor at some point because they're both vertebrates, but they branched off from each other an even longer time ago than orcas and hyenas, and the further back you go the more likely it is that an ancestor somewhere in that line was not a predator.

So, with trees, if you go back far enough they're all related, but the further back you go in their ancestry the more likely you are to find a plant that isn't a tree as one of those ancestors, and that lineage might have fallen in and out of tree and not-tree several times on the way to the tree you see before you. tl;dr: Some trees are closely related and some are more a product of convergent evolution, but that line is really blurry if you look at it close enough.

[many-lotahmen-universe]

Here's a thought,

A common trope in fantasy is giant versions of real animals. What if slime monsters/gelatinous cubes are just giant versions of microorganisms?

[educritter]

So, first of all, heck yeah. That's a brilliant thought, because there are some terrifying microorganisms out there and I would love to see E. coli O157:H7 in a monster block (and will now hound my brother to make a Goblins and Growlers one shot with that monster.)

Anyway, the reason you don't see microorganisms at slime sizes (with a few exceptions on technicality like caulerpa taxifola, a giant algae) in non-magical worlds is because of simple diffusion and surface area to volume ratios. To be more specific, the smaller you are, the more surface area you have in comparison to your total volume, and as a result the more efficient your ability to diffuse becomes. Diffusion is a passive process where things essentially leak in and out of a cell. Because single cells are only able to make so much energy by themselves, diffusion is the best way for cells to get rid of waste products and take in what they need from the environment. If you get too big, you make too many waste products and need too much from the environment to diffuse properly, because you don't have enough surface area for the volume you're trying to support.

But in a magical world, where ambient magic can be used and an energy source and/or support metabolic functions... Excuse me, I need to go make a list of all the scariest microorganisms.

[friendbreakfast]

ok so ive already talked about this with a friend a while ago but id like others opinions. maybe like, science side of tumblr? or like, pet/animal side of tumblr? dunno how its called but yeah, that.

so maybe im like, too skeptical to something thats actually really simple and i shouldnt be skeptical about but i always find it a bit iffy when people say certain dog/cat/animal breeds have a specific personality.

like even though animals follow their instincts way more than humans do (yes, i know we humans are animals too) and are just simpler creatures than us, it is STILL way more credible to me that each individual member of a breed has its own personality, and the "personalities" we see may be us pushing stereotypes on them or causing them to act certain ways due to how we treat them and then pushing that onto them as if it was BIOLOGY and NATURE

like so many stereotypes for dog breeds are like "this breed is EVIL and WILL bite you" which to me just seems like that particular breed is treated in more abusive ways so theyre more likely to have defensive and aggressive traits. it doesnt feel like an innate thing. i mean there are always examples of even the ones most considered "the most aggresive breeds" that are just, cute and cuddly and adorable, right?

but yeah, dunno if this makes sense or if i explained myself correctly and stuff??

[educritter]

Sooooooo this one is complicated. Nature and nurture are ultimately both the ultimate cause of a personality within a dog (or anything else we've specially bred for a trait over a very long time). In fact, breeding for personality is why we have domesticated animals at all - a wolf is a very dangerous companion even when raised with care, where a dog generally isn't. Think of genetics as the total potential of an animal. For instance, lets take a look at one of those "big scary" breeds, like a Rottweiler. Rotties have been bred generation after generation to guard resources for their families, specifically originally cattle. Over time, they became guards of a household instead. We selected, generation over generation, dogs that are good at guarding things. So, rotties have huge potential to guard things well, because they're born with traits like a good ability to focus, the energy to keep that focus over time, and the bulk and prey drive to chase off anything that might threaten what they're guarding. But... Modern rotties are companions rather than guards. The prey drive and high energy that makes them good guard dogs has to be nurtured in a healthy direction like playing with toys, going on walks, and training, or you end up with a stir crazy dog with an instinct to guard resources and no outlet or conditioning except to be a butt about it. Most of the dogs that we understand to have "aggressive" personalities actually just have a high prey drive and no real outlet for it, or they haven't been taught what outlets are appropriate, or, in the worst cases, have been taught to pursue inappropriate outlets by less than savory humans. Meanwhile, a lot of "cute and cuddly" breeds like golden retrievers end up being the actual most dangerous breeds, because people assume they don't need to train them at all on what is and isn't appropriate behavior. Those breeds have great potential to be stellar companions, but without the right training they end up worse off than their "big scary" cousins.

Does that help at all?

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

Science side of Tumblr please explain why sonic is in my embryology book?

[villainessbian]

We identified a gene that, when fruit flies lacked it, it made them apparently look like hedgehogs. So it was called Hh, the Hedgehog gene.

Then when we discovered more genes related to that one, in mammals this time, and how important they were to embryonic development, we had to give them all different names, and geneticists literally just had fun and called them with different actual hedgehogs' names. And one geneticist thought he'd be funnier still, so we have the Desert Hedgehog (Homologue) gene (DHH), notably responsible for gonadal differentiation, Indian Hedgehog (Homologue) gene (IHH), notably responsible for bone creation... and the Sonic Hedgehog (Homologue) gene (SHH), which we studied a lot more so there's more things we know it's responsible for, including the facts that your two brain hemispheres aren't fused and that some brain cancers don't develop all the time. We know, because when the gene has issues, your brain hemispheres may be fused and/or full of cancers.

[twilektrekkie]

Science and Trekkie side(s) of Tumblr! I pose a question!

So we know that astronauts have to exercise regularly while in space because the lack of gravity reduces bone density. So would extra gravity do the opposite or do damage their joints?

And what about ppl that are from planets like Vulcan that are used to more intense gravity? Would less gravity mess with their bone density?? How could they work on the same ship if that was the case??

I'm filled with concern and curiosity and would love some answers so I look forward to seeing what you have to say!

EDIT: This has gotten nothing but likes. If you're curious about this too and you want answers you gotta reblog! It's the only way to get ppl's attention! Come on guys!

[educritter]

Hello friend, this is such a good question. So, when you're under higher gravity, as far as we've been able to tell, your bones get denser because they're under additional stress. However, too much extra gravity and the material bones are made of isn't able to compensate and you'll start developing stress fractures anyway. Joints, in the meanwhile, would actually experience stress faster than bone because the plasticity of cartilage isn't exactly useful when it's being smushed all the time. Arthritis would likely develop much faster because the joints are under too much stress. Vulcans would probably have serious issues residing on a human vessel unless they regularly underwent some form of regular gravity therapy while on board. However, given that inertial dampeners and general anti-grav technology exist on Starfleet vessels, I'm not sure why that therapy couldn't exist and compensate well enough for the difference. Heck, you could probably even have personal gravity fields so you wouldn't need the therapy. But, that would come with other issues like "what happens when those fields touch?" so all species you find on Starfleet vessels do fine at earth gravity for 'reasons'.

[faeriegodpwn]

Help me out science Tumblr. Something has been bugging me since I saw an episode (I think 8) of "The Boys" and I need that itch scratched.

SPOILERS

So, when Deep has to eat Timothy he says Tim has a family with kids. But if it's a male octopus wouldn't he die after mating? So, either Deep or Timothy were lying or Tim is trans or the show runners put in a cliche without realizing it was impossible.

[educritter]

I've never watched this show, nor do I have any idea what it's about, but I can tell you that not all species of octopus die after mating. The pacific striped octopus, for instance, can mate multiple times without self destructing. So... Maybe he's a different species? As far as I know female octopuses also die around the time their clutch hatches for most species, so if those kids aren't eggs Tim is probably not one of the species that self destructs. Or maybe he adopted - nothing in the rules says octopuses can't adopt.

...Now if I ever watch the show Tim will immediately be trans with several manta ray babies he cares for in my mind.

[magic-weirdo]

If we took water from the oceans, like the area where the glaciers are melting, froze it and put it back into the ocean... would that help at all??? like, we wouldn't be adding more water to the ocean we'd just be re-freezing it. Would it even work?

[educritter]

So, technically, yes, as an absolute hypothetical. Because ice is a lighter color than water, freezing the poles would help reflect light, which could help slow down the melting. The issue is that those glaciers are melting because there's too many greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and making ice requires energy, and making the energy currently produces greenhouse gasses... so by freezing the water and putting it at the poles, you'd actually be making the world warmer and melting the poles faster because you'd make a bunch of greenhouse gasses that would capture even more heat from the sun. As for the theory of like... opening a bunch of refrigerators outside (which is the logical next step to this line of questioning imho), the heat those fridges take out of the air has to go somewhere, because energy can't be created or destroyed. So the cold side would do its best to make things cold, and then pour all that heat out the back, making no difference except that a bunch of energy - that usually is made alongside greenhouse gasses - got wasted moving heat from one side of the fridge to another. Also, this is why when your fridge is humming you'll feel a little warm gust from the bottom or back. It's moving the heat from the inside of the fridge to the outside.

[idkwahtiamdoing]

If anyone ever sees this I had a very serious question I swear...

So if blood cells is made in the bone marrow and it flows in the veins and all, IS IT BONE SOUP OR FLESH/MEAT SOUP???

I need to know this

Like I cannot just wake up in the middle of the night with only this on my mind without any answer.....

[educritter]

Not all cells are made in the marrow, mostly just red blood cells (and a few others). Blood, meanwhile, has an incredible amount of red blood cells, but also little bits and bobs from pretty much every tissue in the body. So, blood uses a bone soup base, but ultimately it's whole-body soup.