Hacker News with Generative AI: Animals

Humpback whale briefly traps young kayaker in its mouth in Chile (apnews.com)
A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed.

Animals, Chile, Whales, Kayaking

66 points by vinnyglennon 7 days ago | 69 comments

Beavers finish seven-year dam project in two days saving – $1M (nationalgeographic.com)
After plans stalled for a new dam in the Czech Republic, eight beavers saved the day seemingly overnight. “At this point, nothing that beavers do surprises me.”

Animals, Engineering, Environment

61 points by vixen99 11 days ago | 45 comments

Scientists solve the mystery of sea turtles' 'lost years' (phys.org)
Using satellite trackers, scientists have discovered the whereabouts of young sea turtles during a key part of their lives.

Science, Animals, Biology, Marine Biology, Research

41 points by pseudolus 16 days ago | 7 comments

A Cat's Nine Lives Inspire a Way to Quell Quantum Errors (ieee.org)
University of New South Wales and Melbourne University researchers were inspired by cats to create a new kind of qubit that could be more resistant to errors.

Quantum Computing, Physics, Science, Animals

4 points by abe94 16 days ago | 0 comments

River dolphins launch pee streams into the air (arstechnica.com)
Amazon river dolphins may send messages with aerial streams of urine.

Animals, Biology, Amazon, Science

3 points by mallomarmeasle 18 days ago | 0 comments

'Super pod' of 1,500 dolphins captured on video as they cavort off Cali coast (apnews.com)
A miles-long cluster of dolphins has been filmed leaping and gliding across Carmel Bay off the central coast of California, forming an unusual “super pod” of more than 1,500 of the marine creatures.

Animals, California, Marine Life, Wildlife

8 points by c420 24 days ago | 1 comments

United States Camel Corps (wikipedia.org)
The United States Camel Corps was a mid-19th-century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwestern United States.

History, Transportation, Animals

11 points by RyanShook 25 days ago | 2 comments

Snakeskin: It's Fashionable, and It Scares Predators Away from Bird Nests (nytimes.com)
A museum curator with a ladder showed that birds that build cavity-style nests are able to protect their eggs with the skin shed by snakes.

Nature, Animals, Fashion, Science

19 points by Petiver 26 days ago | 4 comments

All the monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility recaptured (cnn.com)

Animals, Research, South Carolina

14 points by LinuxBender 27 days ago | 12 comments

Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends (bbc.com)
A sociable sunfish who was reportedly missing its human audience during a temporary closure of its aquarium in Japan has been comforted in an unorthodox way.

Animals, Japan, Aquariums, Social Behavior

142 points by krylon 32 days ago | 86 comments

The Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth (2017) (newyorker.com)
Using carbon dating and a new method involving proteins in the lens of the eye, Danish scientists have unravelled the mystery of how long Greenland sharks live.

Science, Animals, Biology, Research, Greenland

55 points by rbanffy 34 days ago | 45 comments

As China seeks influence, it has a cuddly way into City Hall: Pandas (nytimes.com)
After joining the Chinese leader Xi Jinping for dinner last year, Mayor London Breed of San Francisco accompanied him to the airport to bid him farewell. There, on the tarmac, she made her request: pandas.

China, Politics, Diplomacy, San Francisco, Animals

3 points by PaulHoule 40 days ago | 1 comments

Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again (nytimes.com)
Researchers say that the killer whale’s newborn calf in Puget Sound has also died and she’s unable to let go.

Animals, Marine Biology, Grief, Whales, Nature

139 points by pepys 48 days ago | 241 comments

Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads, say researchers (mainichi.jp)
OSAKA -- Every autumn, dead mantises can be seen lying on the asphalt of roads. A type of parasitic worm may be leading the creatures to their deaths there, researchers at Kyoto University and others have determined.

Animals, Science, Biology, Parasites, Research

154 points by anigbrowl 49 days ago | 110 comments

Why Do Some People Look Like Their Dogs? (nautil.us)
The resemblance isn’t just a comical coincidence.

Human Behavior, Animals, Psychology

14 points by dnetesn 49 days ago | 2 comments

The comb jelly can fuse with another (including nervous and digestive systems) (cnn.com)

Biology, Animals, Zoology, Marine Life

101 points by alok-g 52 days ago | 25 comments

Scientists explore longevity drugs for dogs that could also 'extend human life' (theguardian.com)
Researchers say drugs may be able to increase lifespan by extending health and thus shortening the rate of ageing

Science, Longevity, Animals, Health, Aging

21 points by pseudolus 57 days ago | 2 comments

Brazilian velvet ant is ultrablack (nytimes.com)
Scientists found that the dark markings on a species of fluffy wasp reflected less than 1 percent of light.

Science, Biology, Animals, Color, Nature

41 points by bookofjoe 59 days ago | 26 comments

Mike the Headless Chicken (wikipedia.org)

Animals, History, Oddities

38 points by rrauenza 59 days ago | 6 comments

Meet Bex, Kawasaki's Rideable Robot Goat (2022) (cycleworld.com)
This goat prances or lets you ride, showing Kawi’s focus on humanoid development.

Robotics, Kawasaki, Humanoid Robots, Animals, Technology

39 points by rmason 65 days ago | 24 comments

An artist who trained rats to trade in foreign-exchange markets (2014) (theatlantic.com)
Mr. Lehman could predict the prices of foreign-exchange futures more accurately than he could call a coin flip. But, being a rat, he needed the right bonus package to do so: a food pellet for when he was right, and a small shock when he was wrong. (Also, being a rat, he was not very good at flipping coins.)

Animals, Finance, Research, Behavior, Art

247 points by doener 65 days ago | 119 comments

Argentine rodents are Dubai oasis' newest residents (apnews.com)
A desert oasis hidden away in the dunes in the far reaches of skyscraper-studded Dubai has drawn a surprising new set of weary world travelers: a pack of Argentinian rodents.

Animals, Dubai, Argentina, Travel

13 points by nafnlj 67 days ago | 4 comments

Animals as Chemical Factories (worksinprogress.co)
Horses bled for antivenom, crabs drained for endotoxin tests, and silkworms boiled for silk. Science can now replace these practices with synthetic alternatives — but we need to find ways to scale them.

Animals, Science, Biotechnology, Animal Welfare, Sustainability

47 points by royalroad 70 days ago | 62 comments

Kafka's Screwball Tragedy: Investigations of a Philosophical Dog (mitpress.mit.edu)

Philosophy, Literature, Books, Kafka, Animals

84 points by anarbadalov 74 days ago | 12 comments

Animals in Espionage (cia.gov)
At CIA, we find inspiration in all kinds of places, including nature. From robotic catfish to real-life spy birds, animals and their look-alikes have helped Agency officers perform a variety of critical duties, including eavesdropping, intelligence gathering, security, covert communications, and photo surveillance.

Espionage, Animals, CIA, Technology

36 points by carlos-menezes 75 days ago | 20 comments

Oldest known wild bird lays egg at 74 (bbc.co.uk)
The world's oldest known wild bird has laid an egg at the approximate age of 74, US biologists say.

Animals, Biology, Nature, Birds

238 points by GeoAtreides 77 days ago | 110 comments

There Are No More Dogs in Antarctica (chrisdobo.com)

Antarctica, Animals, Environment

128 points by thunderbong 78 days ago | 94 comments

Scientists baffled as orcas seem to revive an 80s trend: dead salmon hats (theguardian.com)
Researchers suspect that orcas may be reviving a peculiar fashion statement of sorts not seen since the 1980s.

Animals, Science, Behavior, Trends, Fashion

7 points by rntn 81 days ago | 1 comments

Zoo experiment finds 1 in 5 animals test positive for Covid (sciencealert.com)
A new paper provides a stark reminder that the virus responsible for COVID-19 is still spreading, with 9 animals out of 47 testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at a zoo in Brazil.

Animals, COVID-19, Science, Brazil

7 points by geox 82 days ago | 2 comments

The Surprising New History of Horse Domestication (scientificamerican.com)
The world we live in was built on horseback. Many people today rarely encounter horses, but this is a recent development. Only a few decades ago domestic horses formed the fabric of societies around the globe. Almost every aspect of daily life was linked to horses in an important way. Mail was delivered by postal riders, people traveled by horse-drawn carriage, merchants used horses to transport goods across continents, farmers cultivated their land with horsepower, and soldiers rode horses into battle.

History, Animals, Science, Domestication

36 points by Brajeshwar 82 days ago | 28 comments