Interesting article from The Atlantic about how and why mammals shake themselves dry. Dogs, mice, elephants – all shake to remove moisture from their bodies for survival.
Back in 2010, three researchers from Georgia Tech – Andrew Dickerson, Zachary Mills, and David Hu – used a ‘wet-dog simulator’ and a high-speed video camera to capture various animals shaking themselves dry (including a pig, goat, and kangaroo) to work out the relationship between shake frequency and body mass. They concluded that animals naturally shake to the point that the air drying can pick up the rest, with about 30% moisture remaining.
I wonder why this doesn’t work for people. It must be related to how much water gets trapped in your fur/hair/wrinkles. (It works for elephants too, and they’re not hairy.) It would be nice not to have to carry towels to dry off after a shower or swim.
Now my question is: who’s going to snag the research from a biomimicry angle and use it to develop a new line of high tech functional gear?
>> The Atlantic: Dogs Can Shake 70% of the Water from Their Fur in 4 Seconds, Here’s How
>> Research and videos from Andrew Dickerson, Zachary Mills and David Hu