It might be stated even more interestingly than that, because it’s “directionally but not directly,” meaning it’s almost a “warp vision” picking up scatters and “seeing” around corners, right?
What a weird article. Humans can also detect heat. So is this is just about how some animals are more sensitive than others? Because I'm 100% certain that nobody in history has ever said "dog noses don't feel temperature".
It's not merely sensing heat, but sensing weakly radiating heat from a distance. The human researchers could only distinguish the test and control objects by touching them.
I think degree of sensitivity, discrimination, or directionality can warrant counting a 'new sense'. I would consider my sense of thermoreception to be different from that of a snake's heat-pits, or hearing to be a different sense from feeling vibrations.
This confused me as well. I didn't see anything in the article that distinguishes between the surface temperature of the nose being raised specifically via (a) infrared light vs. (b) some other source conductive heat transfer.
I'm not super familiar with mammal physiology, but I would think (a) counts as a new sense category, whereas (b) counts as a just a new understanding of how sensitive the nose is.
But dogs’ rhinaria are moist, colder than the ambient temperature, and richly endowed with nerves—all of which suggests an ability to detect not just smell, but heat.
Interesting, I wonder if this has anything to do what looks like dogs licking their own noses when they get super excited, among other behaviors. Or at least my girl does, and I’ve always wondered what that was about.
Ha! hadn't heard that before but yep. CO2 sensor? photodiode? have a temp dependency. the nice ones are compensated and maybe give a coarse temp readout if i2c/spi enabled...
Dogs tend to go straight for the front and rear ends of other dogs for sniffing and licking too. They probably just want to know what you ate and when ;)
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 77.9 ms ] threadThere is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_eye
But after a bit of consideration I do indeed prefer dogs to have three eyes now.
Did you actually read the article?
I'm not super familiar with mammal physiology, but I would think (a) counts as a new sense category, whereas (b) counts as a just a new understanding of how sensitive the nose is.
> the surface temperature of the nose being raised specifically via (a) infrared light
If you've ever felt the sun on your skin, you've sensed heat from electromagnetic radiation.
If you've ever been in front of an infrared lamp or heater, you've sensed heat from infrared light in specific.
How would that be a new sense category?
Interesting, I wonder if this has anything to do what looks like dogs licking their own noses when they get super excited, among other behaviors. Or at least my girl does, and I’ve always wondered what that was about.
Thermal Excitation of the Mechanotransduction Apparatus of Hair Cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29395911
My background was originally in electrical engineering, where this is probably more widely known than in computer science.