22 Discoveries of 2022
nationalgeographic.com
nationalgeographic.com
My favorite has to be the one that some spiders might dream. "Jumping spiders rapidly move their eyes and twitch during rest, suggesting they have visual dreams, never before observed in arachnids."
The runner up is either a new world record for largest freshwater fish, a 661-pound river sting ray, OR, finding the new global record-holder of the tiniest land snail title, with a shell width of 0.6–0.68 mm and a shell height of 0.46–0.57 mm
I don’t get why a 17th century Spanish shipwreck, a whole 200 years after the discovery of the new world, can be considered one of the greatest discoveries of the year. Can someone who understands this domain explain the significance?
Some editor needed to find one more discovery to make it 22 items because it was 2022, and this was the first one the new intern found.
oh snapp.. was the pig conscious as a disembodied brain? that sounds terrifying
To me it doesn't sound that the pig was cut into pieces. It reads to me that everything was left in place.
They noted that the dog appeared to be in extreme pain, but otherwise reacted normally.
How is this allowed?
Society at large is comfortable with the wholesale slaughter of animals for our benefit.
If you really want to show respect, then call them swine.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pig#Etymology_1
> From Middle English pigge (“pig, pigling”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn), apparently from Old English picga (attested only in compounds, such as picgbrēad (“mast, pig-fodder”)), from Proto-West Germanic piggō, puggō (“piglet”). Compare Middle Dutch pogge, puggen, pigge, pegsken (“pigling”), Middle Low German pugge, pûke (“piglet”). The word applied to an immature animal rapidly gaining weight, so it probably derives from the verb "to big" (build, increase), from Middle English biggen, byggen, from Old Norse byggja, byggva (“to build”), from Proto-Germanic būwijaną (“to build”), from PIE bʰuH- (“to become, to grow”). Pokorny suggests this root might be somehow related to bū-, bew- (“to blow; swell”), which could account for the alternation between "pig" and "big".*
> A connection to early modern Dutch bigge (contemporary big (“piglet”)), West Frisian bigge (“pigling”) and similar terms in Middle Low German is sometimes proposed, "but the phonology is difficult".[1] Some sources say the words are "almost certainly not" related,[2] others consider a relation "probable, but not certain".[3]
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hog
> 2. (specifically) An adult swine (contrasted with a pig, a young swine).
In any case, hog is not derogatory. The comment I was responding to was ridiculous, so I flipped the script to demonstrate that.
It's very possible the argument is that this research outweighs the cost of life for these animals.
It's also possible this was effectively going to happen anyway. Research animals are often, by law, culled rather than sold or the like, and many researchers do their best to ensure that their sacrifice is not wasted. If they are going to be euthanized anyway, they may be directed to a project like this.