NY Times: Eye Shape May Help Distinguish Predator From Prey

Why do the eyes of some animals, including goats, have horizontal-shaped pupils, while others, such as rattlesnakes and domestic cats, have vertical slits?

It’s a question that has longed intrigued researchers, and a study of 214 species published Friday suggests the answer may be strongly linked to giving animals a survival edge: vertical pupils and circular pupils help certain predators hunt, while horizontal pupils help other species spot predators from afar.

Not all vision scientists accept the researchers’ hypothesis, however, citing examples of animals that do not fit cleanly into these classifications.

Cat's Eye (Left): David Corby, CC2.5, Goat's Eye (Right): Jo Naylor, CC2.0

The research, which was conducted by a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and Durham University in Britain, was published in the journal Science Advances.

...

“People had been saying that the horizontal pupil helps expand the horizontal view of the ground, they just hadn’t shown that,” said Martin S. Banks, a visual scientist from Berkeley and lead author on the paper. “Our contribution was to build a model and show that that happened.”

But there was an obvious caveat to this conclusion: What would happen if the sheep bent its head to the ground to eat? Logic would suggest that the horizontal pupil would become perpendicular to the ground.

But the researchers made a surprising discovery while taking pictures of goats at a petting zoo — the eyes actually rotate as much as 50 degrees when the head turns downward, keeping the pupils parallel to the ground. Dr. Banks assumed that other scientists had noted this ability, but he found no mention of it after doing an extensive search of the scientific literature.

The researchers then studied horses, antelopes and other grazing animals, and found that they could rotate their eyes as well.

Dr. Banks and his team also used the computer model to identify advantages of vertical slit eyes. They found that vertical pupils help an ambush predator better estimate the distance to its prey by sharpening depth perception and its focus on a target.

One asterisk on this explanation is that large predators like tigers and lions that ambush prey have circular eyes, not vertical slits. The authors reason that because these animals are taller, their eyes do not have to compensate as much for those same visual cues.

Fascinating stuff.  And does seem obvious when one thinks about it, just like so many prey-animals having their eyes on the side of their heads, and predators forward-facing.  Obvious...after someone's pointed it out to us.  And, as for primates ?  Optimised for an arboreal environment ?

History Repeating

Hmm, this from the Guardian piece on Thatcher's deal with Rupert Murdoch back in the eighties seems familiar.

Times Newspapers had long cherished their independence. In 1966, when the Times was in financial difficulty, the new owner who came to the rescue, Lord Roy Thomson of Fleet, promised to sustain it as an independent non-partisan newspaper – precisely how he had conducted the profitable Sunday Times. Murdoch was able to acquire both publications in 1981 only because he began making solemn pledges that he would maintain the tradition of independence. He broke every one of those promises in the first years.

Almost feels as if there were something in much more recent history along...oh, yeah...

Most readers just write a letter to the editor. Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to buy the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones. To do that, he must first win over the Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones for the last 92 years and has so far resisted all of his overtures, in part because of concerns about what he might do to the Journal.

He insists he will not meddle in the journalism or slash-and-burn the staff. "We're not coming in with a bunch of cost-cutters," he said, but added: "I'm not saying it's going to be a holiday camp for everybody."

Of course he wouldn't.  On the one hand, you've got his entire history, and his use of just about every property he ever owned for partisan political purposes, and then you've got the word of...Rupert Murdoch.

Now if only someone could encourage Rupert to put Fox News behind a paywall too...

Tyranny !

So...how is the Republican-led 114th Congress currently fighting back against the evil tyranny of the Muslim Marxist Kenyan Dictator-in-chief, that libtard Demoncrat Barack Hussein Obama ?  Oh that's right, by not doing their job.

Never mind the usual bullshit of obstructing or holding up Obama's executive nominees, such as with current nominee to be Attorney General, Loretta Lynch whose confirmation has been held up for five months now as Republicans try to tie the confirmation into a variety of completely unrelated issues.

No, I'm talking about things like exercising their constitutionally established powers 'to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations' or 'to declare War.'  With the former, we have TPP, an agreement that would (probably unconstitutionally) restrict the government's ability to regulate international trade and commerce, and for which Barack Obama requested 'fast-track authorization' in which Congress would have no ability to make any changes or amendments to said deal.  And for the latter, we have the ongoing war against ISIS, one of many undeclared and likely illegal wars in which the United States is currently engaged.  A war for which Barack Obama has previously claimed he doesn't need any new authorisation, and yet for which he was eventually cowed into requesting authorisation from Congress.  So, how are we doing ?

What say you Congress on preventing the evil dictator from wresting trade-making decisions away from you ?

Why, no problem at all Mister Obama.  Please take that onerous burden from our hands.

WASHINGTON — Key congressional leaders agreed on Thursday on legislation to give President Obama special authority to finish negotiating one of the world’s largest trade accords, opening a rare battle that aligns the president with Republicans against a broad coalition of Democrats.

In what is sure to be one of the toughest fights of Mr. Obama’s last 19 months in office, the “fast track” bill allowing the White House to pursue its planned Pacific trade deal also heralds a divisive fight within the Democratic Party, one that could spill into the 2016 presidential campaign.

... 

It would give Congress the power to vote on the more encompassing 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which President Bill Clinton pushed through Congress despite opposition from labor and other Democratic constituencies.

What about war then ?  After all the stink the Republicans in Congress made about the proposed deal with Iran, you'd think there's no chance at all they wouldn't take advantage of Obama handing them on a silver platter a chance to have their say officially on the war with ISIS.

Ah, who gives a shit ?  What's one more undeclared war ?

But remember, Obama is a TYRANT !  And it is imperative that you vote Republican in the next elections so that we can TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK !

What a fucking joke.