Researchers took this high-speed video for the sake of science, to unlock the mysteries of mammalian dryness. Which is actually a quite impressive feature of mammals, the ability to dry themselves really, really fast. For example, a large dog can rid itself 70 percent of the water in its fur in four seconds, while many mammals are capable of creating centrifugal forces 10 to 70 times that of gravity. This is a good, necessary thing in cold climates, when otherwise our wet friends might freeze to death.David Hu and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who are responsible for the above wet-shake facts, studied 16 different species of mammal — including mice, dogs, tigers, and bears — and found that each species fine tunes its own shaking speed, balancing drying power with energy conservation. Naturally, little mammals shake the fastest, which is key to building up enough force to break the surface tension holding water to their fur. Bigger animals have a lot more skin to flop around and, thus, can generate more force with less speed. The results of Hu et al are published this week in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.This is all fine and good, but if animals are so awesome at this, someone tell me why my damn dog insists on shaking off while he’s still in the water. And then again all over my towel and phone and shoes. Thanks, asshole.
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