[HN Gopher] A frog so small, it could not frog
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       A frog so small, it could not frog
        
       Author : Abishek_Muthian
       Score  : 118 points
       Date   : 2022-06-25 11:52 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
        
       | schroeding wrote:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20220625115247/https://www.theat...
        
         | jhgb wrote:
         | https://archive.ph/6niS9
        
       | mastersummoner wrote:
       | > others pirouetting in an almost rotisserie-esque spin.
       | 
       | This article had me in honest-to-god tears multiple times while
       | still being informative and interesting. Good show.
        
       | schroeding wrote:
       | Amazing. This is now my second-favourite frog, with the number
       | one still being the squeaky Desert Rain Frog[1] :D
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBxn56l9WcU
        
       | Timon3 wrote:
       | The synopsis for this is: a type of frog is very small, and their
       | vestibular systems are too small to work properly - so jumping
       | results in an "uncontrolled landing". And the videos[1] are about
       | as funny as you can imagine!
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn1104#supplemen...
       | -> Other supplementary materials -> Movies S1 to S6; S1 is a
       | reference frog, S2-6 are the mentioned frog
        
         | darkerside wrote:
         | Amazing. I need these set to actual commentary on the Olympic
         | ski jump.
        
         | alehlopeh wrote:
         | The article is a fun read; it's informative and has a humorous
         | bent, and it avoids coming across as pretentious or lacking
         | detail.
         | 
         | The site's "paywall" is just a banner over the full content of
         | the article, making it amenable to Reader mode. It's like a 2
         | minute read. Just read it.
        
           | Timon3 wrote:
           | I mostly just wanted to show people the cool frog videos :)
           | of course people should read the article, but now those who
           | don't also got to enjoy them.
        
         | macjohnmcc wrote:
         | Pretty much guaranteed to always be the agony of defeat.
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | > The vestibular structures in these frogs are _so smol_ that
       | they verge on nonfunctional, making it extraordinarily difficult
       | for the amphibians to orient themselves in space while walking,
       | much less maneuver mid-flight.
       | 
       | Unrelated, but I love that words like "smol" are entering the
       | vernacular.
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | Interesting. I actually hate it
        
           | goldenkey wrote:
           | Smol-brain sentiment! ;-)
        
         | Rerarom wrote:
         | Scrolled down for this
        
       | cultofmetatron wrote:
        
       | dtgriscom wrote:
       | More video of them jumping:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ngnnhcT-s
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | > Landings this catastrophic [...]
       | 
       | Size also throttles the consequences of impact - the mice bounce,
       | humans break, horses splash pattern.
       | 
       | Other fun is the short jump distance-compared-with-body-length -
       | inertial mass vs drag goes as L^3 vs L^2. And short legs
       | encourage high takeoff accelerations - flea jumps are
       | bottlenecked on 100+ G tolerance.
       | 
       | Mating calls can also be size-bottlenecked in creation. Smaller
       | crocodilians used to exist, but extinctions left only those with
       | long-range infrasound calls. Which you have to be long to make.
       | So adult males have been trapped large. Perhaps they too will
       | someday escape.
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | Heavier cyclists love this volume:surface area fact and joke
         | about getting to the bottom of the hill faster. Of course if
         | there's another hill on the other side, the jokes end pretty
         | quickly.
        
       | chrischen wrote:
       | What's great about nature and survival is that it often has a
       | mind of its own completely different from what we as humans think
       | how something is supposed to be, whether it's sexuality or frog
       | jumping behavior.
        
       | prvc wrote:
       | Of the two senses I could find of the verb to frog, namely:
       | 
       | >To ornament or fasten (a coat, etc.) with trogs
       | 
       | and
       | 
       | >To hunt frogs for food
       | 
       | , neither one makes sense in the context of the headline.
        
       | Morizero wrote:
       | The cherry on top of this comedy is a researcher named Pie
       | studying Pumpkin toadlets
        
         | goldenkey wrote:
         | Seen this one recently which struck me as oddly serendipitous:
         | 
         | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25979629/
         | 
         | Authors Roberta Heale 1, Alison Twycross 2
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-26 23:00 UTC)