Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren vog Obam and today's episode as another classic
Speaker 1: from our former host, Christian Sagar. This one has to
Speaker 1: do with a strange phenomenon of animals seemingly miraculously escaping
Speaker 1: certain kinds of natural disasters. Do they have a sixth
Speaker 1: sense about it? Or do they just make better use
Speaker 1: of their senses than humans? Hey brain Stuff, it's me
Speaker 1: Christian Sagar. Have you heard about how pets sometimes go
Speaker 1: missing just before an earthquake hits? Or how about in
Speaker 1: two thousand four when a tsunami hit Southeast Asia and
Speaker 1: killed more than two hundred thousand people, but almost no
Speaker 1: wild animals. And did you know that dogs, elephants, antelopes, bats,
Speaker 1: and even flamingoes fled the scene before the wave hit,
Speaker 1: even flamingos. Many people assume it's because animals are more
Speaker 1: attuned to their environment than we are. Others like the
Speaker 1: United States Geological Survey Agency, say there's no connection between
Speaker 1: animal behavior and natural disasters. But if there were, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it warrant a closer look. Think of the impact it
Speaker 1: would have if we knew animals could predict dangerous natural events. Now,
Speaker 1: the majority of researchers looking into this aren't claiming animals
Speaker 1: have a sixth sense or anything supernatural going on. What
Speaker 1: they do think is that animals make greater use of
Speaker 1: their senses than we do. Using these, they react to
Speaker 1: environmental signals that we stupid humans just don't notice. Of course,
Speaker 1: different species have varying sensitivity to these fluctuations, and most
Speaker 1: evidence is anecdotal. But if animals are aware of natural disasters,
Speaker 1: here's how they know when troubles are coming. Most likely,
Speaker 1: animals can hear sounds that we can't, especially the infrasonic
Speaker 1: low pitched vibrations made by earthquakes, storms, while canoes, avalanches,
Speaker 1: and oceans. In some studies, researchers found that these sounds,
Speaker 1: usually lower than twenty hurts, make humans uneasy and even nauseous.
Speaker 1: So with their greater spectrum of hearing, it makes sense
Speaker 1: that animals would perceive these before us as unsettling. If
Speaker 1: you heard a deep rumbling sound coming at you from
Speaker 1: a wide angle, what would you do? Did you hang
Speaker 1: out and make sandwiches? Or would you run for your life?
Speaker 1: One study that supports this infrasonic hearing theory happened when
Speaker 1: Stanley Corn was studying whether dogs suffered from seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 1: One day, many of his one hundred and ninety three
Speaker 1: test dogs suddenly flipped out. Corn could not figure out
Speaker 1: what was going on until a day later, when he
Speaker 1: noticed that an earthquake struck nearby at a six point
Speaker 1: eight on the Richter scale. After reviewing the results, Corn
Speaker 1: found that fourteen of the animals had hearing impairments, and
Speaker 1: these were the dogs that didn't become anxious before the earthquakes.
Speaker 1: Looking further, he noticed that dogs with floppy ears were
Speaker 1: less likely to be agitated than those with perky, open ears,
Speaker 1: So it looks like the strength of their sense of
Speaker 1: hearing was what attuned the dogs to the earthquakes low tones.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that through their sense of touch, animals
Speaker 1: can feel vibrations through the ground or sense shifts in
Speaker 1: air or water pressure. Hurricanes are known to decrease such pressures,
Speaker 1: and scientists have observed that sharks change their behavior when
Speaker 1: storms cause pressure drops, swimming to deeper waters where they'll
Speaker 1: be protected. Birds and insects also seek cover when this happens.
Speaker 1: They're also sensitive to something called ray lay waves. These
Speaker 1: are minute vibrations that travel through the Earth's crust. These
Speaker 1: waves are inaudible and travel ten times the speed of sound,
Speaker 1: which would explain why some animals since disaster coming sometimes
Speaker 1: days before it strikes. Now that you've heard the theories,
Speaker 1: do you think we should make safety decisions based on
Speaker 1: the behavior of our local animals? Well, China did in
Speaker 1: nine when they evacuated a city before an earthquake hit
Speaker 1: after its animals showed signs of anxiety that was estimated
Speaker 1: to have saved thousands of lives. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Christian and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio.
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