Friday, July 01, 2016

Word of the day: sclerosed

The word of the day is sclerosed:
  1. hardened or indurated, as by sclerosis.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sclerosed)


"The swift's minute filoplumes would convey essential information on feather orientation to its brain; Foster's body hair ruffles empathetically.  The urban fox engenders his deep respect: choosing to hunt, even though it could survive on pizza scraps.  In contrast, humans seem 'sclerosed superspecialists.'"


 - Carolyn Ristau, "Wild Things", 17 June 2016 Science (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6292/1402)

No, I don't get it.  In those examples, aren't the swifts and foxes specialized?

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