Horses have both binocular vision and monocular vision. Binocular vision is used when their eyes and ears are focused on something in front of them. And monocular vision is used when they use each eye separately to watch movements — notably those of predators. This means horses have to switch from one vision to the other every now and then. It’s a tricky world out there! Sudden change in focusing causes objects to hop and go out of shape for a moment. This explains why horses tend to unexplainably get spooked at times. Considering that no other species had played such a matchlessly versatile role in our cultural history, it is sad that horses are visually challenged animals. Besides, they have a blind spot spreading out to some four feet in front of the face. Even when you are only six inches away from a horse’s face, it can’t see your middle or lower body. It can’t see the ground near their front feet, and it only sees the track through blurry eyes. And it has a blind spot directly at the tail-end, which makes it unintentionally kick at you if you approach it from behind.

SNEAK PEEK

1. Cooking: One

Nicholas Kurti once said: “‘I think it is a sad reflection on our civilisation that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus, we do not know what goes on inside our souffles”. What was Kurti doing when he delivered this famous statement?

1. Poking a thermocouple into a cheese souffle

2. Cooking: Two

Beginning in the 1880s, reacting to over-civilization, the YMCA and then the Boy Scouts started making close-to-nature camps. In these camps, young men found themselves busy preparing and serving food. Who talked about the food axis around which camp life revolved?

2. Historian Abigail van Slyck

3. Cooking: Three

Living in the 19th century, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin had the vision of a discipline that would blend the physics and chemistry of cooking with “the glorious, sensual world of taste”. No wonder he is known as France’s great food philosopher. What is his famous aphorism?

3. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”

4. The acidity factor

Formic acid is an unlikely aftershave lotion, but when an ant bites you, it sprays the spot with this chemical. One modern poet thought of the chemical’s effect on the ant itself, and posed a question: “Would you be calm and placid / If you were full of formic acid?” Who was it?

4. American poet Ogden Nash (in ‘The Ant’)

5. Seen not wholly

It is said men perceive women as body parts. Interestingly, women too tend to perceive women the same way (for comparison with themselves?). Maybe, men and women are differently motivated. “What we do know is that they’re both doing it.” Who said it after a study?

5. Dr Sarah Gervais (University of Nebraska – Lincoln)

6. Distance, quantity

Swedish/English speakers tend to use distance-related words to mark time (a short break, a long wedding) but Greek/Spanish speakers prefer quantity-related words (a small break, a big wedding). Who has it that different languages may embody different worldviews?

6. Lancaster University linguist Panos Athanasopoulos

7. Just a small detail

Dogs and wolves have similar facial musculature, but one detail in dogs have changed over 1000s of years specifically to communicate with humans. It’s a small facial muscle which allows them to intensely raise their inner eyebrow, which wolves do not. Who detected the change?

7. Dr Juliane Kaminski (University of Portsmouth)

8. Brain, teeth, tools

Simple correlations connecting the evolution of brain size, tool use and tooth size are unlikely to hold true. Hominins had larger brains before chewing teeth became smaller, and they made and used stone tools when brains were still quite small. Who pointed out these facts?

8. Aida Gomez-Robles (George Washington University)

9. It’s a bumpy road

When we read a book, we get the impression of a continuous pass over the text. Actually, our eyes jump around, mostly forward, sometimes backward. Our mind stitches together a smooth experience. Who said it is “a testimony to the ability of the mind to create illusions”?

9. Roger Levy (BCS at MIT)

QUIZ No. 908

1. Feathers came first, then birds. Some bird ancestors were feathered-bodied. Who found it?

– Mike Benton
– Roy Chapman Andrews
– Stephen L. Brusatte

1. Mike Benton

2. Who evinced that books give a feel of psychological ownership but e-reader stuff doesn’t?

– Dr Sabrina Helm
– Bruce MacFarlane Hood
– Florence Goodenough

2. Dr Sabrina Helm

3. The yellow colour on Europa’s surface is sodium chloride — table salt! Who figured it out?

– Dr Kevin Hand
– William Robert Brooks
– Sherburne Burnham

3. Dr Kevin Hand

4. ‘Small Is Beautiful’. Schumacher got the title of and the inspiration for the book from …

– Leopold Kohr
– Matthew Soberg Shugart
– Robert David Putnam

4. Leopold Kohr

5. Who became one of the greatest 19th-century historians despite grave visual impairment?

– Erich Brandenburg
– George Williams Brown
– William H. Prescott

5. William H. Prescott