Aren't they similar builds and fit into the same sort of niche?

Hearing is such a critical sense for animals, for communication, avoiding predators, hunting, etc. It seems like near constant deafening cicada noise would have had a significant impact over time on the other species in these areas.
At various points on my hike, I resorted to stuffing toilet paper wads into my ears because it was so unbearably loud.

There is a ridge behind my house and I know it produces thermals. There are red-tailed hawks that live in the neighborhood, and I often see them hovering in place over the ridge somehow, or using it for quick transport.

I know thermals are made when the ground heats and cools unevenly. Does it happen over ridges because one side gets heated up more than the other? Or is it a different reason? Are there other geographic features that create thermals or other types of air currents? How?

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I am not a mountaineer, I just like looking at photo and videos of beautiful mountains. I noticed that the Matterhorn is usually hit by clouds and strong winds right by the peak. With that amount of windshear it gets every single day, how does it survive? I was imagining just from the last 100 years alone the shape of the peak should have already changed, like it would plateau or something. How does it maintain that iconic peak?

Edit: my question is meant to be gauged towards chemical feasibility/utility; I understand many proteases and cell types have in reality evolved for acidic digestion. Assuming proteases and cell types could have evolved for an alkaline environment, is there a root necessity acidic conditions are advantageous over basic ones or could it be reversed

I looked at some graphs of extinctions in history and noticed that during the late 1/3 of the Carboniferous period through most of the Permian period, and the middle half (or more) of the Jurassic period there were less extinctions compared to most of history.

Certain fungi or parasitic insects force their hosts to bury themselves underground, or climb to the tops of plants or what have you. How do they do this? I assume it's not some sort of hacking into the mainframe and plugging into their brain. Something hormonal? Is there some inbuilt desire to dig or go high that these things turn up?

Logically they probably could from what I know but also the human body is pretty illogical in the first place so out of curiosity, like if someone had a burn scar or smth and got cut deep enough or stabbed or whatever to scar over that old scar. Would it be a different colour?(like hypopigmentation on hyperpigmentation?)

Once it arrives at its destination, in what proximity will the NGR Telescope and the James Webb be at the L2 point?

Leprosy has been feared for the entirety of the history. I know it is curable nowadays, but I have a question about the "natural" course of the disease.

I remember reading a claim that Old World populations built genetic resistance to leprosy within the historic time - that even a 1000 years ago leprosy was more dangerous than it would have been today even if the drugs treating it disappeared. Does it have any basis? Alternatively is it possible that bacteria itself became less damaging like it happens with other infections sometimes? Or it is completely baseless and 2000 years ago it has been no more virulent than it is nowadays?

From a Chicago Sun-Times article on the beluga whales heading to the Shedd Aquarium:

"The shipment comes on the heels of a Shedd announcement last week that one of the Marineland belugas — Peekachu, a 23-year-old female — had died. Shedd has not released a cause of death, but staff there said last week that Peekachu had not been consistently eating a full diet since her arrival and that there were concerns she was dehydrated."

How does an animal immersed in water become dehydrated?

How does that compare with other organs? How does that compare with how much other animals devote to their brain?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/FnUBgjD1GxxE94L39

It looks so interesting and I have no idea how to find information about it. I'm so curious as to what it could look like down there as well as what kind of sea creatures live there and so much more

(I don't know if this is chemistry or biology? 🤔)

Had a long look at some Doom, Raid, Mortein, Dyroach, Eliminator, and all those spray cans in the shop yesterday.

Does it genuinely matter which one you use? If it's going to kill a cockroach, won't it in any case kill a beetle, spider or those flying spider things? Maybe an ant specific one might not help for big cockroaches... but also, it can?

What is specifically going to kill a flying insect like mosquitoes or flies, but not... beetles and cockroaches, and vice versa.

Out in our farmlands and such, those pesticides will be better controlled and more insect specific. But does it really matter for us mere home dwellers which can we use?

This is something I (40s) did as a kid with friends at sleepovers. I have always been curious about this! What is the mechanism?

So take away the extremes of height, hot, cold, etc and go for a typical northern hemisphere forest, there's so many trees all roughly similar height and vying for the same energy source (sunlight). Why hasn't one universal efficient shape evolved? It's not like they need plumage to impress each other, and the variations between beech, oak, maple, horse chestnut etc. is quite noticeable! (Thanks in advance)

Would not be surprised if global-warming/climate-change is partially to blame, thats saddening…

My only question is, we couldn’t have stopped that?? There was no warning that could have been issued??? Living in a dangerous climate, are these things not constantly being supervised by scientists & climatologists??

I just dont understand how we harness the technolgy to put a man on the moon yet conversely we cant stop or predict a grusome natural disaster??? Am I missing something??

I was visiting a swiss glacier. Next to all the beautiful ice structures and amazing visibility through the ice, these airbubbles caught my eye.

The visible structures, in my head, only happen in a fraction of a second and then the bubble collapses but here it is all trapped in ice and frozen in place.

I was thinking about it for a long time but I can't get a satisfying answer to how something like this actually happens.

I posted it here, so you can see, what I'm talking about:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1w0ixut/burst_airbubble_trapped_in_glacier_ice/

Do they not deplete soil nutrients as aggressively as crops? Or do they achieve crop rotation through a natural process that isn't apparent to a layman?

"Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning."

Imagine two raccoon mothers each with four kits. One lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The other lives in New York city, New York, USA.

Raccoons are social creatures who have demonstrated observational learning in lab settings, so its fair to infer they do it in the wild (in this case, "wild.") as well.

So each raccoon mother has learned from other raccoons where to shelter, get food, water, where specific threats are and everything else to survive in their respective cities.

One year, their locations are switched.

No doubt the mothers would survive, but wouldn't they be at a severe disadvantage because the social knowledge they have relied on doesn't apply? They would have to lean on instinct more, wouldn't they?

If that's the case, could they, and many other animals, have what we consider culture?

Not asking if this has been studied, but is this plausible?