Cats are great, but the best thing about cats is to watch them drink water. They get such a serious little face, and their little pink tongue just laps and laps so fast. It’s probably the most adorable thing ever. As is turns out, how cats drink is both adorable and impressive from a physics standpoint, according to researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“What we found is that the cat uses fluid dynamics and physics in a way to absolutely optimize tongue lapping and water collection,” said Jeffrey Aristoff, one of the four researchers who conducted the study at MIT. “Nobody had ever studied it before, so nobody knew how the water went from the bowl into the cat’s mouth.” No wonder they look so serious; they’re doing complicated physics!
A dog curls its tongue like a ladle to collect the water; a cat uses its tongue to create a stream of water by pulling the liquic upward, then closes its mouth to swallow up the water before it can be pulled back down by gravity. It’s a remarkably efficient way to drink since cats don’t have opposable thumbs, which explains why a dog’s chin is all covered in water and saliva while cats stay cool and dry no matter what.
Now, the hard part is figuring out how I can drink without getting my whiskers all wet! Maybe I should study how my cat does it and apply the same method in my own drinking and eating habits.
Tags: weird science, physics, how cats drink water, drinking water without getting wet, how cats drink without getting wet, animals, unusual animal studies, animal behavior, physics of how cats drink water, house cats, cats, Jeffrey Aristoff, MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fluid dynamics, physics