The "Plane on a Treadmill" Question

[ZenGum]

Okay, in regards to the eternal question of "can it take off from a treadmilll?" the tally so far is planes, yes, pigeons and shrimp, no.

What about coked-up reindeer?

To compare nasal blood flow across species, the research team recruited five human test subjects from the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, where some of the authors are based, and shoved a video microscope up their noses to chart blood flow. Furthermore, the researchers tested vascular reactivity (i.e. how much the blood vessels can change) by "local application" of 100 mg of cocaine, a common vasoconstrictor used in ear, nose, and throat research, to the interior of one of the subject's noses.


The team then anesthetized a pair of adult reindeer and did a similar microscope survey of blood vessels, then put the reindeer on treadmills to heat them up, and recorded where their heat output was highest with a thermal imager:

There is no record of the reindeer achieving lift-off.

I guess they need more cocaine.