生活中的小謎團(tuán)，你解開了嗎？

為何貓會發(fā)出呼嚕聲?

We’ve shown before that cats don’t always purr when they’re happy, but the mystery goes way deeper than that. There is no purring organ in the throat of a cat, and even though extensive research has been done on the function itself, the exact origin of the function in the anatomy of cats is still unknown.It’s theorized that they might do it by the constriction and dilation of the larynx, but no evidence has ever been provided to prove or disprove that theory. It was, however, found that the frequency of a cat’s purr falls somewhere in the range required to accelerate bone regeneration and healing, so it might just be a healing superpower that we had no idea even existed in the animal kingdom. That might also explain why we take it to be a happy sound, as the frequency is not just beneficial for the cat—it tends to make us happier as well.

事實(shí)證明，當(dāng)貓心情愉悅時并不一定會發(fā)出呼嚕聲，但問題遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不止如此簡單。在貓的喉嚨里并沒有發(fā)出呼嚕聲的器官，即使在發(fā)聲功能上做了詳細(xì)的研究調(diào)查，確切的發(fā)聲器官在貓身體的哪個部位仍無從得知。從理論上來說，聲音與喉嚨結(jié)構(gòu)和擴(kuò)張有關(guān)，但并沒有任何理論證據(jù)來證實(shí)這一說法。但有研究指出，貓發(fā)出呼嚕聲的頻率可達(dá)到加快骨頭再生或治愈所需的范圍。因此，這一舉動亦可解釋為一種不被人所知的治愈魔力。這也解釋了為何人們認(rèn)為貓發(fā)出的呼嚕聲是一種開心的聲音：這個頻率不但對貓有好處，亦令人類感到心情愉悅。

What Causes Hypnic Jerks?

為什么會有入睡抽動?

Often when we are about to fall asleep, we experience a kind of a falling sensation which causes us to wake up with a start. It happens to almost everybody, and the sensation is known as a hypnic jerk. It also sometimes happens when you tilt the chair you’re sitting on too far—somehow you can sense when you’re about to fall, and you wake up with a hypnic jerk. We really have no idea what causes them or whether they serve any modern purpose.

當(dāng)我們將要進(jìn)入睡眠狀態(tài)時，常遇到一種要下墜的感覺，令我們突然驚醒。幾乎每個人都有過這種經(jīng)歷，這就是我們所知道的“入睡抽動”。同樣的感覺亦會發(fā)生在當(dāng)你坐得離椅子太遠(yuǎn)，椅子傾斜而你感覺到快要從椅子上掉下去時，便會因?yàn)槿胨閯佣蝗惑@醒。我們?nèi)詫υ斐扇胨閯拥脑蚝翢o頭緒，亦不知其是否具有特定作用。

Why Do Giraffes Have Long Necks?

為何長頸鹿的脖子那么長?

Many may believe that only giraffes with long necks survived evolution because they had an advantage over the other, short-necked ones, but that’s not really true. Longer necks provide no particular advantage to giraffes because they care more about the type of leaf than the height at which it’s situated. If it’s confusing to you, science doesn’t have much of a clue either. There’s just no consensus on the exact conditions that would have caused long necks to be selected positively among giraffes.

大多數(shù)人相信長頸鹿的長脖子是演變的結(jié)果，認(rèn)為長脖子比短脖子的長頸鹿在生存上更有優(yōu)勢，但事實(shí)并非如此。長脖子并不具有明顯的優(yōu)勢，長頸鹿在進(jìn)食時更關(guān)注的是樹葉的種類而不是樹葉所在的高度。若然你對此持懷疑態(tài)度，科學(xué)亦無法對此做出解釋，科學(xué)界亦并沒有對長脖子是優(yōu)勝劣汰的結(jié)果這一結(jié)論達(dá)成共識。