An anecdotal observation of anti-predatory tool use in a New Zealand parrot

I observed a wild kākā (Nestor meridionalis) excavate a piece of deadwood from the branch it was perched on and carry it to a new position immediately above a perched predatory falcon (Falco novaeseelandiae). It then raised its head upwards, and in a single downward motion with its head, released the piece of wood towards the falcon below. The piece of wood stuck the falcon in the back, which immediately took flight and disappeared from view. I conclude my description of this anecdotal observation of anti-predatory tool use with caveats and alternative interpretations.

Left Atrial Appendage Function Assessment by Tissue Doppler Transesophageal Echocardiography in Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients

Background: Strokes due to Cardioembolic causes are the most severe in ischemic stroke subtypes. LAA flow patterns and function could be assessed accurately by TEE. The study aimed to present the importance of Transesophageal echocardiography in the assessment of LAA function and its relation to cardioembolic stroke. Methods: 120 patients were enrolled in the study and were subdivided into 3 subgroups, each group included 40 patients. Group A; patients had a stroke with normal sinus rhythm, Group B; patients had a stroke with atrial fibrillation, and Group C; normal control subjects. The study participants were evaluated by medical history, physical examination, standard 12-leads electrocardiogram, a transesophageal echocardiographic detailed evaluation of the LAA, and brain CT and/or MRI for patients with stroke. Results: both stroke patients with AF and sinus rhythm had significantly higher LAA mean orifice diameter and higher LAA length than control patients, significantly lower mean LAA medial wall tissue Doppler upward and downward motion velocities than control patients and that patients with stroke and AF had significantly lower mean LAA pulsed wave emptying and filling velocities than both patients with stroke and sinus rhythm and control patients. Presence of LAA thrombi, spontaneous echo contrast, and stroke recurrence were higher in stroked AF patients than stroke patients with sinus rhythm. Conclusion: increased LAA orifice diameter, LAA length, and reduced filling and emptying velocities and upward and downward motion velocities of the medial wall of LAA as detected by TEE are associated with stroke and cardio embolization.

Strengthening influence of El Niño on the following spring precipitation over the Indo-China Peninsula

El Niño is a dominant source of interannual climate variability around the world. Based on the observed and reanalyzed datasets for the period of 1958-2019, this study explores the influence of El Niño on the spring precipitation over the Indo-China Peninsula (ICP). The results show that El Niño has a significant negative correlation with the following spring precipitation over the ICP. However, this climatic teleconnection of El Niño was unstable, with an obvious interdecadal strengthening since the early 1990s. During the decaying spring, the El Niño-related sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies would induce an abnormal downward motion along with an anomalous low-level anticyclone over the western North Pacific. Before the early 1990s, such El Niño-induced atmospheric circulation anomalies were located to the east of the ICP, exerting little influence on the spring ICP precipitation. In contrast, since the early 1990s, the abnormal downward motion and anomalous low-level anticyclone extended westwards covering the whole ICP, hampering local spring precipitation. This interdecadal change is owing to a relatively stronger intensity and longer duration of the El Niño-related warm SST anomalies over the tropical central Pacific in the epoch after the early 1990s (1992-2019) than in the previous decades (1958-1991). Our findings highlight a strengthening effect of El Niño on the following spring climate over the ICP since the early 1990s, which has great implications for the regional climate prediction.

Atomism

Epicurus maintained that the universe is composed solely of microscopic material entities called “atoms” (Greek for “unsplittable”) and void; atoms have only the properties of shape, size, weight, and resistance, whereas void or space is extended and penetrable. All perceptible qualities, such as sound, color, and even thought, are the result of specific combinations of atoms, which are themselves composed of theoretically indivisible units called minima. Space and time are similarly quantized, and atoms travel at a uniform velocity of one minimum of space per minimum of time. There are infinite atoms in infinitely extended space, but only an incomprehensibly large but not strictly infinite variety of atoms; it is suggested that this quantity is a specific order of magnitude (like the modern “omega number”), and is the inverse of the minimum; in turn, all atoms are composed of an incomprehensibly large number of minima. This conception of point-like but extended minima escapes some of the objections posed to the theory, such as the incommensurability of side and diagonal in a square. The tendency of atoms to fall is a result of the fact that they emerge from collisions in a favored direction, which by definition is down (comparable to the absence of left-right parity in modern physics). The Epicurean swerve is a sideways motion of one minimum, and prevents the perpetual collisions of atoms from resulting in their uniform downward motion.

Lexical typology through learner corpora: semantic domain of falling

This paper investigates the use of the Russian verb padat’ ‘to fall’ and its quasi-synonyms. Padat’ is dominant in the system of Russian predicates of falling —and therefore should be suitable for describing any type of uncontrolled downward motion. However, in a number of contexts a diff erent means of expression is required. These contexts are not easily detected because they normally render the meanings which are peripheral in the semantic domain of falling. In this study, we attempt to fi nd such contexts with the help of the Russian Learner Corpus, which contains texts produced by heritage speakers and learners of Russian with various dominant languages. The corpus enables search by error tags and gives valuable data for the analysis of learners’ interlanguage. Lexical and grammatical violations found in the free production of foreign learners of Russian are used to uncover cases where the dominant verb padat’ ‘to fall’ yields to its quasi-synonymous counterparts. In this paper we are aiming at detecting specific limitations in the distribution of the dominant lexeme and, based on the data coming from the Russian Learner Corpus (for this study examples from learners dominant in English and Korean are taken), we focus on the initial point of the falling motion, precipitation subframe and aspectual characteristics of the dominant verb upast’ and its quasi-synonym vypast’. The latter issue is investigated through the scope effect that the verbs of falling demonstrate in combination with the Russian proximative adverb počti ‘almost’. For each case we give a possible explanation of the learner’s error and make an attempt to establish the rules of standard Russian that make the use of the dominant lexeme unacceptable. The results of the study significantly contribute to typological analysis of dominant systems across languages and have implications for synchronic and diachronic studies of domain lexemes.

Doing without verbs of falling: the semantic domain of uncontrolled downward motion in Aghul

The article focuses on verbs expressing the semantics of uncontrolled downward motion in the Aghul language. The peculiarity of the Aghul system is the lack of dedicated lexical means for the idea of falling: this kind of motion is described by stems that are derived from verbal roots meaning ‘to fi nd oneself somewhere’, ‘to hit against smth’, ‘to tear off ’, etc., which are combined with various spatial preverbs. Despite such an unusual system, the principles of its lexical division are in line with general typological trends. Out of four frames, which are cross-linguistically relevant for the domain of falling (motion from an upper surface, detaching, loss of a vertical orientation, and destruction), Aghul co-lexifies two — upper surface and detaching (both are encoded with the root -arxas ‘to fi nd oneself somewhere’). Each of the two other frames uses several verbs which specify the type of trajector and/or the manner of motion. Thus, the loss of a vertical orientation is further subdivided into three zones, viz. non-specifi ed falling of a person (-urq’as ‘hit against smth’), falling of a person backwards (al-ʁ-adarkas ‘SUPER-UP-move’), and falling of an inanimate subject, which is lexically combined with falling of a person sideways (al-at’t’as ‘SUPER-tear_off ’). Falling- destruction may be described by the verbs ʕʷas ‘go’, ajč’ʷas ‘go out’, and -uq’as ‘sit down’, the choice of the verb here depends on the degree and nature of damage. Semantic shifts have been discovered only for two of the verbs considered in the study (-arxas and -urq’as). Though these verbs in their basic meanings do not belong to the domain of falling, their shifts follow the same patterns as those observed for dedicated falling verbs, cf., e.g., the metaphors of getting into an unpleasant situation, falling behind a group, falling to one’s lot, the onset of a season or a daytime. Our data shows that the derivation of similar meanings from verbs of diverging semantics allows us to elucidate the motivation for each shift

Turkish verbs of falling

The article presents the results of a corpus analysis of verbs expressing the idea of uncontrolled downward motion in Turkish. The study focuses on 5 lexical items. The dominant verb of the semantic field düşmek covers nearly all types of situations of falling including motion from a higher surface to a lower one, loss of vertical orientation, detaching, falling of precipitation and downward motion of multiple subjects. The only situation that cannot be described with düşmek is falling of buildings (i.e. falling with destruction). The four other verbs have narrower semantics and specialize in a certain class of subjects or manner of motion. Yıkılmak fills the gap left out by the dominant verb, viz. it refers to buildings that collapse when falling. Each of the three other verbs overlaps in its coverage with düşmek and represents a more frequent means to express the corresponding event: yağmak is used for falling of precipitation, dökülmek describes falling of liquids or bulk solids and may be applied to multiple subjects of other kind, devrilmek refers to a loss of vertical orientation. Semantic shifts of these verbs are in line with typological patterns revealed for the domain of falling. Predictably, most of the metaphors use düşmek as their source, e.g. LESS/BAD IS DOWN, falling into a state, loss of functionality in humans, the onset of a season, elimination. The derived meanings from other verbs include loss of non-material values, e.g. smb’s authority, hope, etc. (yıkılmak), appearing in abundance, e.g., of drubs, kicks, support, lie (yağmak), free fl ow of abstract entities, e.g. words, music, etc. (dökülmek), overthrow of power (devrilmek). The article also briefl y discusses 3 verbs from adjacent domains, which may in some contexts come close to the idea of falling: inmek ‘go down’, batmak ‘sink, submerge’, and dalmak ‘submerge, dive’.

The metaphors of falling

The paper discusses the metaphorical extensions of FALLING verbs, identified on a sample of 20 languages, including, besides several Standard Average European languages, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Aghul, Adyghe, Basque, and some other languages from different language families. The verbs under study are characterized by a wide range of figurative meanings, which are shown to be recurrent across languages, cf. the well-known pattern LESS IS DOWN, as well as the semantics of the onset of a season, transformation, surrender, lagging behind a group, and many others. The study is conducted within the frame-based methodology: figurative meanings of the verbs with initial semantics of falling are revealed from dictionaries and corpus data, as well as via elicitation with the help of a context-based questionnaire specifically designed for these purposes. The revealed metaphorical usages of FALLING verbs in different languages are reported mostly in the corresponding papers of the present volume. This paper gives an overview of the attested figurative meanings of the verbs denoting uncontrolled downward motion and offers a typological analysis of the detected patterns. Based on the typological data, we argue that the derived meanings should be traced back not to the idea of falling in general, but to a particular frame of falling, i.e. to a certain type of uncontrolled downward motion: falling from above (from an upper surface), loss of vertical orientation, destruction, or detachment. Thus, the onset of the time period goes back to falling from an upper surface, transformation is derived from loss of vertical orientation, surrender from destruction, and lagging behind a group from detachment.

Wing-Beat Frequency and Its Acoustics in Birds and Bats

Synopsis Animal flight noise can serve as an inspiration to engineering solutions to wind-noise problems in planes or wind turbines. Here we investigate the acoustics of wingbeats in birds and bats by co-registering wing-movement in natural flight with acoustic noise. To understand the relationships between wing movement and acoustics, we conducted additional acoustic measurements of single moving wings and other moving surfaces with accurately tracked motion paths. We found a correlation between wing-surface area and the sound pressure level of wingbeats; with bats tending to produce lower levels than birds. Measuring moving wings in isolation showed that a downstroke toward a microphone causes negative sound pressure that flips back into positive pressure at the reversal to the upstroke. The flip back to positive pressure is unrelated to the action of the upstroke, but occurs when the downward motion is halted. If the microphone is positioned above the downward wingbeat, then sound pressure instead quickly rises during the downward motion of the wing. The phase pattern of the impulse created by the wingbeat varies systematically with recording-angle. The curvature of the wing appears to be a determinant of the average frequency of the acoustic impulse. Our findings can be used to predict the acoustics of smaller flying animals where repetition pitch of similar underlying impulses, repeated at much higher wingbeat-rates become dominant.