Cats gotta groom, dogs gotta roll — they can’t help it

Today’s question:

Why do cats groom themselves so much and dogs like to roll in the dirt?

Well, gee, because they’re cats and dogs and that’s what cats and dogs do. Fish swim, birds fly, cats groom, dogs roll around in the dirt.

Cats groom themselves for any number of reasons. They are tidy creatures. They groom to clean away any food particles or other odor-causing particles that might give away their locations to predators or prey. They groom to help cool themselves off. They groom to spread their natural oils evenly across the fur and they groom to relax. Grooming even helps keep their nails trimmed. It’s what cats do.

Dogs like to smell like they think a dog should smell. If you give your dog a bath with a nice shampoo chances are the first thing it will do after you dry it off is to roll around in the grass to mask the smell of the shampoo.

And dogs roll around in dirt so any prey they might chase won’t smell them coming.

It’s what dogs do. Everyone knows things are made of atoms. What’s inside atoms?

Skipped a few science classes in school, did we?

Atoms are made up mostly of empty space, but they also have protons, electrons and neutrons.

Protons carry a positive electrical charge, electrons carry a negative electrical charge and neutrons carry no electrical charge at all.

The protons and neutrons cluster together in the central part of the atom, called the nucleus, and the electrons spin around the nucleus.

And protons and neutrons are composed of other particles called quarks and gluons. Gluons bind quarks to each other.

Things can get kind of weird when we get down to the level of quarks and gluons, weirder than I care to get into in this limited space.