Feline fluid dynamics
NOV 12, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024825
Washington Post : The fluid dynamics of a cat lapping water is the subject of a recent paper in Science . A group led by Roman Stocker, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, conducted the study. Not funded by a grant, the group members proceeded on their own, solely for professional pleasure, prompted by Stocker’s observations of his own cat drinking, which always kept its chin and whiskers dry in the process. While dogs curl their tongue like a ladle to collect water, cats curve their tongue under and touch the liquid lightly with the tip. They then raise their tongue rapidly, sending a mini stream of water up into their mouth, which they then snap shut. “The cat, in effect, balances the forces of gravity against the forces of inertia, and so quenches its thirst,” as Marc Kaufman writes in today’s Washington Post.
© 2010. American Institute of Physics