

Why rats can't vomit, and why humans do - marketer
http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm

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ojbyrne
My sister has pet rats, and I had to babysit them for a while. They're
actually really cool, smart and interesting. I recently finished the book "The
Omnivore's Dilemma" which draws a lot of parallels between rats and humans
(basically we have a lot of the same adaptations around eating). I'd recommend
the book and the pet.

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prospero
Out of all the submissions on the site, this is my favorite.

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dcurtis
Did anyone else feel a little tiny bit like vomiting while reading this?

It's fascinating.

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tdavis
The most fascinating thing to me is that people have actually devoted studies
to finding out whether or not a large swath of animals can vomit.

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etal
People have devoted _careers_ to finding out which animals can vomit. A fellow
named Borison has numerous entries on the final table -- assuming it's the
same person, this bright spark hit the scene in 1953 with the finding that
crab-eating macaques and rhesus monkeys can spew; and decades later, in 1981,
he followed up with the surprising finding that while most rodents can't
upchuck, the woodchuck could.

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tdavis
My God. You're _right_. I don't really know what to think here.

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shimon
I'm thinking we need to register vomitr.com and crowdsource this. A community
of people answering the question: Is your favorite pet species vomiting right
now?

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LogicHoleFlaw
Unfortunately, yes. I just spent the last few evenings steam cleaning my
carpets because my dog has a very sensitive digestive system...

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tdavis
Imagine our fortune if we were to engineer a non-vomiting dog! Also, cats. No
more hair balls. Growing up around no less than 2 dogs and a cat throughout my
entire adolescence gives me a desire for this tech. It would also make a good
Founder story!

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PieSquared
I have no idea how this is hacker news, put I found it pretty interesting
nonetheless. :)

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davidw
Articles like this may not be "on topic", but they're unlikely to devolve into
flame wars, and attract people interested in flame wars, as would an article
about politics or (often) economics.

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maurycy
The table under Evolution of vomiting is especially interesting. Never saw
vommiting pigeon!

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ars
I don't know if it counts as "vomiting" but it's how they feed the chicks,
they regurgitate partially digested food.

Before you get disgusted: some humans will chew food in the month to feed to a
baby. And pigeons can't chew.

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blogimus
The article explains the difference between vomiting and regurgitation. In
general, vomiting is active and requires coordination of many muscles.
Regurgitation is passive.

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ars
Pigeon regurgitation is active though. They do it on purpose to feed a chick.

