Buzz
[Just a heads-up, this list is purely fictional and meant for fun. Happy April Fools' Day!]
10. Snuffle Calibration
Smaller mammals often have much more refined senses than humans. We’ve long known that animals outshine us in vision and smell, and now researchers are exploring how we stack up against our furry friends when it comes to touch sensitivity.
In humans, nerve endings are most concentrated in certain areas, particularly the fingertips. Here, our sensitivity surpasses that of animals, a trait that was crucial during the evolution of tool use. Other parts of the body, like the nose, have fewer nerve endings. It’s well-established that rabbits possess almost five times more nerve endings per square millimeter in their noses than humans.
Nerve density doesn’t necessarily equate to sensitivity, so researchers from Japan’s Okunoshima Institute of Technology set out to explore this further. In January 2015, they had human participants rub their noses on various surfaces, such as fleece, suede, and freshly kneaded dough, tracking their sensations through body temperature measurements. The experiment was then repeated with rabbits. Since thermometers aren't designed for rabbits, the scientists manually gauged the temperature rise by stroking the bunnies between their ears.
As expected, rabbit noses were significantly more sensitive to touch than human noses, with the difference even exceeding the researchers’ initial predictions.
To gather more comparative data, the researchers observed the changes in human participants' bodies after rubbing their noses against the rabbits’ fur. The next step involved the rabbits brushing their noses against the humans’ necks. Finally, humans and rabbits nuzzled each other, nose to nose, for several minutes. This final phase of the study yielded inconclusive results, and further research has been postponed until the scientists can find larger, fluffier bunnies.
9. At What Age Do We First Perceive Race?
There is ongoing debate among experts about the importance of race. While many studies have shown that race can be linked to susceptibility to certain diseases, some anthropologists argue that race is simply a social construct. It’s clear that many of our attitudes toward race are learned over time.
From 2002 to 2007, researchers at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, conducted a five-year study to understand when children start recognizing their own race and the races of others. The researchers observed 20 children at various stages of development throughout the study, seeking to determine when they began to perceive race and, more broadly, when they developed a sense of ethnicity.
At just two months old, the researchers noticed that the babies' toes were so small that they almost seemed unbelievable. The skin emitted a pleasant and distinct scent. Some of the babies giggled, though it was difficult to predict when or why they would laugh.
By six months, the babies began to blow bubbles of saliva. When the bubbles popped, they clapped their hands and laughed, gurgling with joy. At this stage, they were able to sit up on their own. When dressed in tiny business suits or sailor outfits, they looked like miniature adults with oversized heads.
By the time they reached one year old, the children were walking. Their walks, especially when dressed as Godzilla or in bumblebee outfits, were particularly memorable. Several of the babies could say "Mama" and would refer to all the scientists, regardless of gender, by this term.
Two years into the study, several children enjoyed playing with dolls and insisted that the researchers hold the dolls too. At the three-year mark, when the researchers visited after a long break, some children had their own tricycles. By the study’s conclusion, some of the children donned lab coats and pretended to be scientists themselves.
Although the researchers declared the experiment a success, the reasoning behind this conclusion remains unclear. At no point during the five years did they assess anything related to race or any other factor outlined in their original methodology.
8. Dogs Trained A Russian Scientist To Feed Them By Ringing A Bell
In the 1890s, Russian biologist Ivan Pavlov made waves in the scientific community with his now-famous experiment in which he trained dogs to expect food whenever he rang a small bell. This experiment laid the groundwork for classical conditioning, and Pavlov’s Nevya Institute won the prestigious Garnier Award for this groundbreaking work. However, according to Pavlov’s recent biographer, there is some debate over whether it was the dogs training Pavlov rather than the other way around.
In *The Bell And The Beagle: The True Story Of History’s Deadliest Madman*, Nikolai Esterhazy references newly declassified documents that shed light on Pavlov’s earlier failures with conditioning. In the most famous version of the experiment, Pavlov would ring a bell before feeding his dogs (initially two dachshunds, a ‘mystery spaniel,’ and a pug named Genghis). Over time, the dogs began to associate the bell with food and would start drooling even when there was no food in sight.
Unfortunately, the experiment backfired—the dogs learned too quickly and began jumping onto Pavlov’s lab table when his back was turned, ringing the bell themselves in hopes of getting food. Since Pavlov couldn’t risk breaking the association between the bell and food, he had no choice but to feed them. Otherwise, the dogs might lose interest in the bell, rendering the entire experiment pointless. Essentially, the dogs could manipulate Pavlov into feeding them whenever they rang the bell… which they did several times a day, often forcing the scientist to rush out of important meetings with a bag of dog food.
This continued for several months, until the Russian Interior Ministry shut down the experiment due to concerns over the dogs' obesity. However, Pavlov was undeterred and managed to successfully replicate the experiment using beagles, known for being somewhat clueless and not very skilled at jumping onto lab tables.
7. The Malaysian Monkey Boats Of World War II
While Malaysia’s involvement in World War II is often overshadowed by other more famous Southeast Asian campaigns, it wasn’t their military strength that left the most lasting impression on the people. Instead, it was the peculiar experiments carried out by Dr. Dwight Saimiri.
Dr. Saimiri, a behavioral psychologist from Sydney, Australia, found himself in Malaysia when Japan attacked in 1941. Troubled by the psychological impact of the violence sweeping through the country, he spent the next three years developing what he called ‘Happy Ops’ for the Malay navy. His theory was that fostering a positive mental attitude would enhance the sailors' efficiency. To test this, he devised one of the most bizarre experiments of the war: he created a small replica of a torpedo boat and crewed it with baby squirrel monkeys dressed as sailors. With the reluctant approval of the Malay government, these ‘simian sailors’ sailed alongside a Malay scout ship for more than a year.
“All they had to do was look over the side, and what would they see? Not the death, not the carnage. Just these monkeys, dressed in little sailor hats, prancing around the rigging of their own little boat. The sight was a tonic for the spirit,” Dr. Saimiri wrote in his diary.
Though Malaysia is home to 10 unique monkey species, Dr. Saimiri chose to import squirrel monkeys from Panama because, in his words, the local species “weren’t really cute enough in the hats.”
In a recent BBC interview, Tam Wan, the last surviving member of the original crew, can’t help but smile as he recounts the stories: “By the time one monkey realized he’d been slapped on the cheek, the other monkey was already halfway down the ladder!” He laughs. When asked if the experiment was more of a distraction from the war effort than anything else, Tam’s expression grows serious, but the laughter never quite leaves his eyes. “I remember one mission. We were just off the coast and got hit by a Japanese bombardment. Our sister vessel took a hit and sank, so we turned around and started throwing life jackets to the stranded crew when the monkeys began doing this little choreographed dance. It took us 10 minutes before we remembered the guys in the water. So yeah, it was bittersweet.”
6 Pigs Enjoy Slapstick
Have you ever wondered if animals have a sense of humor? A team of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark certainly did. But instead of just pondering the idea, they designed a thorough study to answer this question once and for all.
Their test subjects? Pigs.
Pigs were selected for two primary reasons. First, Jutland—home to Aarhus University—accounts for almost 80 percent of Denmark's pig farming, making it easy for researchers to access their subjects. Second, and more importantly, pigs are the only nonhuman mammals that offer clear vocal signals when they're amused. Per Svinsen, the lead researcher, explains that pigs 'modulate the tone of their squeals to express happiness or even joy, much like humans.' In simple terms, pigs can laugh.
To find out what tickled pigs the most, Svinsen’s team split 17 pigs into two groups. The control group was given snacks, which the researchers believed would prompt a positive response. The second group wasn’t offered snacks, but instead the researchers went all out to make them laugh... by acting like total clowns. Svinsen and his colleagues would 'accidentally' drop their folders, trip and fall while walking, and bump into each other in a slapstick, Charlie Chaplin-like manner. The pigs’ enjoyment was measured by a special noise dosimeter, designed to capture only the distinctive 'happy' squeals.
The results were striking: In just one hour, the pigs in the slapstick group emitted nearly twice as many joyful squeals as those in the control group. This pattern held steady even after the pigs were reassigned to different groups. And that’s how we discovered that pigs have a taste for physical comedy.
5. Hummingbirds Understand Quantum Mechanics
The intricate mechanics of hummingbird flight have baffled scientists for over two hundred years. There's even an urban legend that Charles Darwin’s grandson, Phlostigon, took his life over his failure to solve the puzzle. (In truth, Darwin had no grandchildren, and certainly none with such a ridiculous name.) To maintain their famous hover, hummingbirds beat their wings about 50 times per second, which should theoretically cause them to burst into flames from air friction alone. To power these rapid wingbeats, their hearts must beat at nearly half the speed of sound, or four times faster than the fastest speedboat ever built.
So how do they manage it? For many years, scientists couldn’t figure it out. The renowned Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus famously denied the very existence of hummingbirds, only reversing his stance in his sixties after Voltaire accidentally threw one at him. But in 2007, a breakthrough occurred when researchers observed that hummingbirds behaved in perfect harmony with the principles of quantum physics.
In simple terms, scientists have long understood that matter can exist as both a wave or a particle, neither, or both simultaneously. However, it cannot solely be a wave or a particle—it must be both, neither, or both. In contrast, some have suggested that antimatter may be either a wave, a particle, neither, or both, though it's more likely to be neither, neither a wave nor a particle, nor both. Furthermore, pairs of particles and antiparticles can spontaneously 'pop' into existence, but one or both must also behave as a wave—unless neither does, in which case the particles will vanish immediately (though in some cases, they don’t).
Once this theory gained traction, it became easier to demonstrate that hummingbirds draw energy from the enigmatic 'dark matter' now thought to exist in many universes, potentially not including our own. Since quantum entanglement dictates that linked particles will react the same way, and these particles are either waves or aren’t (but will always behave as if they were), scientists showed that tickling one hummingbird would make all others giggle uncontrollably. Researchers hope this breakthrough will lead to a hummingbird-based wireless communication system, with many committing to tickling as many hummingbirds as necessary to make this a reality.
4. Medicinal Dachsunds
During World War I, many soldiers found themselves grievously wounded, with medical care for the injured often being a perilous challenge. Soldiers were frequently forced to lie on stretchers in trenches, waiting for safe transport. Basic first aid was the only option available, and it saved many lives. However, many more lives were lost, and that’s where Olof van Nostrand stepped in.
A Swedish physician, van Nostrand was the son of veterinarians and reportedly never fell ill in his life. He attributed his immunity to countless hours spent as a child rolling in the dirt and playing with animals, which he believed 'fortified his constitution.' Upon learning of the Allies' struggles in the trenches, Olof traveled to Central Europe to test a theory he had long suspected: that dogs could prevent infection. He chose miniature dachshunds for his experiment, drawn to their impressive stamina and the convenience of transporting them 'in a suitcase.'
It didn’t take long for van Nostrand to find volunteers, as informed consent meant little to the bleeding men in need of help. He allowed his dogs to lick the soldiers' wounds, documenting his findings in journals. He discovered that soldiers licked by the dogs were 60 percent more likely to survive.
The Allies enlisted van Nostrand as a full-time physician, and his original team of two miniature dachshunds, Rusty and Buddy, grew into a corps of over 100 dogs. Other medics were trained in van Nostrand's Medicinal Dachshund System (MEDS).
Today, historians attribute the survival of thousands of Allied soldiers to Olof van Nostrand and his methods. As an added bonus, the dachshunds were said to have thwarted many ambushes.
3. Scientists Learn Jump Rope Rhymes To Communicate With Elephants
Elephants are among the most intelligent animals on Earth, ranking alongside dolphins, some primates, and the African grey parrot for their ability to learn communication skills equivalent to a 14-year-old. Elephants employ a variety of methods to communicate, including trumpeting, bellowing, squealing, and using their trunks to touch each other in order to detect chemical signals. They also practice 'seismic communication,' where they convey messages by stomping and interpret vibrations through their sensitive feet, even over great distances. Despite this impressive range, most attempts to teach elephants language in the past have been limited to using their trunks to sign or select images from a card deck.
In 2012, researchers at the Mwingi Elephant Research Camp in Kenya faced an intriguing puzzle. Every day around lunchtime, elephants would gather in one corner of the camp, stamping their feet rhythmically for about half an hour before wandering off. The staff eventually discovered that this coincided with the lunch break at a nearby girls' school. During this time, the girls would often engage in jump rope games, and the rhythmic movements of their jumps, combined with the thud of the rope on the ground, generated seismic vibrations that traveled to the camp, which the elephants interpreted as a form of communication.
The researchers were thrilled by the potential implications of this discovery. However, their early attempts to replicate the girls' movements, such as simply jumping up and down rhythmically, failed to capture the elephants' attention. After several unsuccessful trials, they set aside their pride and visited the local school. There, the students kindly spent hours teaching them how to jump rope and shared some of the most popular rhymes associated with the game.
Armed with their new skills (and a borrowed jump rope), they returned to the research camp, where their clever assumptions were proven correct. By performing the actions to 'Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around / Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground,' they immediately captured the elephants' attention. The elephants gathered around the researchers, stamping their feet and even caressing them with their trunks.
While the scientific community is excited by the ability to communicate with elephants in this novel way, there's still uncertainty about exactly what the elephants are saying to the researchers—or what the researchers are communicating to the elephants. However, research continues, and the discovery that a janitor's daughter knows all the words to 'Miss Mary Mack' has opened up intriguing new possibilities for further study.
2 Puppies And Laundry
Despite what you may have heard, dogs are not colorblind—they can see colors, just not in the same way humans do. This means that when given objects in different colors, dogs may show a preference for one particular hue over others.
Professor Benjamin Scooterson, an expert in Bestial Science at Pelican Crossing University, decided to test a popular theory. He collected 25 dogs—ranging from two to six months old and varying in size from roly to poly—and placed five piles of clothing in front of them. Each pile was a different color: white, dark, light, bright, and multicolored. The clothes had recently been dried and were warm to the touch. The dogs were given 30 minutes to roll around in any pile they liked, while Professor Scooterson carefully observed their behavior.
The results were surprising! According to his findings, half of the dogs preferred to roll in the dark-colored clothing, while only 5 percent were drawn to the white laundry pile. The remaining 45 percent were fairly evenly split between the light, bright, and multicolored piles. Professor Scooterson also discovered that 95 percent of dogs with dark fur gravitated toward lighter-colored clothes, especially those with longer coats that shed regularly.
As a fun side note, Professor Scooterson also observed that 100 percent of researchers studying puppies rolling in warm laundry will eventually abandon their professional demeanor and join the dogs in playing with the laundry themselves.
1. Making Cats Not Be So Aloof And Haughty
Most cat owners will admit that while they love their cats, the feeling is rarely returned. Cats have long been notorious for being one of the snottiest species ever observed, whether in the wild or in a domestic setting. However, this may be on the verge of changing. A groundbreaking study led by Dr. Dwayne Taylor at the University of Michigan has pinpointed the gene responsible for the cat's arrogance. This gene has been humorously named “Farad’s Oil Ploy” (or “FOP”), an inside joke among the researchers involved in the study. (Dr. Taylor is well known for embedding playful references and hidden meanings in his academic papers.)
When the FOP gene becomes active in a kitten’s brain—typically around the age of two months—it triggers the release of chemical compounds that function as “selfish” catalysts, ensuring the cat focuses on its own needs from then on. This explains the aloofness that often leads to heartbroken cat owners. FOP continues to release these selfish catalysts throughout the cat’s life, but Dr. Taylor developed a drug that he believes can block the FOP gene’s activity indefinitely.
To test the drug, Dr. Taylor gathered the most surly cats he could find and divided them into two groups: a control group and a test group. Just three hours after receiving their first dose of the drug, every cat in the test group became cuddly and “totally lovable,” as the report described. Cats that had previously been described as “snooty and rude” were now climbing all over the researchers, licking their faces, and nuzzling everything in sight. Dr. Taylor (who had always longed for a loving cat after being rejected by his childhood pet) was reportedly seen cradling one of the cuter cats, whispering, “I’m never gonna give you up.”
This discovery holds great potential for human applications. A similar gene is present in humans during adolescence, though it is typically overridden after puberty. There is speculation that using this drug on teenagers and pre-teens could significantly alleviate the challenges they face. The drug is set to undergo small-scale trials in middle schools across the country. Is your child’s school on the list?
