Research
Modern Analysis Reveals Saber Tooth Tiger 2.0
The Smilodon (saber tooth tiger) was built robustly compared to extant cats. It had a muscular neck, broad shoulders and strong forearms. It was comparable in size to a modern-day lion but was almost twice as heavy owing to its stocky build. It had a short tail for its size when compared to modern cats. This couldn’t help balance it while running like the tails of lions and, especially, cheetahs. Its limb proportions are also similar to those of modern day forest dwelling cats, suggesting it might have needed to traverse dense vegetation. Thus, the general consensus is that it was an ambush predator like tigers today. To clarify, the Smilodon is called the saber-toothed tiger due to its similarity with the tiger in hunting technique and predatory role, and it is not very closely related to the tiger in physiology or on the evolutionary tree.
Can Fish Do Math?
This article was first posted on the Edict on the 10th of March, 2018.
The recent introduction of Biology in the Ashokan curriculum might indicate that it’s the new kid in the playground, but that’s not exactly true. Research in bio-psychology or more commonly, cognition, is already a part of Ashoka’s research culture. For his research proposal, Dhairyya Singh, a fourth-year psychology major, has dared to ask the question — Can zebrafish do math?
His thesis proposal asks, “Do zebrafish have the ability to learn how to count small numbers based on associative learning?” Put in simple language, his experiment attempts to explore the possibility of zebrafish being able to count small quantities (viz 1, 2, 3, 4) using a technique that teaches the subject that if two things occur together, they are associated.