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Can you hear dog whistles?
If so, you and your favorite canine would have enjoyed the Sydney Opera House’s recent outdoor concert for dogs.
At the VIVID Live Festival of Music and Ideas, which runs through June 21th, musician Laurie Anderson put on a 20-minute high-frequency show for 1,000 dogs and their owners, which featured a variety of sounds — from violin to whale screams to high-pitched electronic notes meant especially for the canine ear (and inaudible to humans).
The animal kingdom has had it pretty rough ever since man wandered onto the scene. During the late Pleistocene, for example, several species went extinct in North America. While experts don’t agree 100 percent (they never do!), the fact that people had recently hopped across the land bridge hardly seems like a coincidence in hindsight. Recently, however, I was made aware of a much more modern form of animal malpractice that has snuck onto the scene in the past sixty years or so: namely, puppy mills.
Moscow’s Stray Dogs Use Public Transit
by Amanda Arnold | April 22, 2010
A lot of people visit Moscow for the Kremlin, but I’d like to visit Moscow for the stray dogs.
There are 500 stray dogs that live in Moscow’s subway system, and about 20 of the most intelligent have learned how to ride the trains to get from place to place. So, if you’re touring Moscow and you line up to catch the metro, don’t be surprised if a dog boards the train with everyone else, curls up on a seat beside you and then exits at a particular station — as if he/she has some important place to be. ‘Cause maybe he/she does.
Where are the friendliest people on the planet?
by Amanda Arnold | February 26, 2010
I like my people like I like my mittens — warm. So where should I (and you) go to meet the warmest people on the planet?
Well, according to a 2003 study, the friendliest cities were Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, San Jose, Costa Rica and Madrid. Researchers gathered their data quite scientifically — they dropped pens on sidewalks to see if anybody would pick them up, and they feigned blindness or an injury to see if anyone would help them.
Recently, a friend and I were swapping stories of teen antics, and he recalled when his best friend snuck out of the house and took the family German shepherd in the car with him for fear of it barking and alerting his parents. The scheme worked – almost; while the dog didn’t wake up the parents, it devoured the interior of the getaway car.
These days, I have a different sort of barking dog issue to worry about. My neighbors’ pup yaps incessantly in their yard whenever anyone is outside. The high-pitched, piercing bark has awakened me on countless mornings, and makes it nearly impossible to lounge peacefully in my backyard.
Podcast Goodness: Health Care Part I and Dogs Stuck in Time
by Charles W. Bryant | September 18, 2009
Helllllooooo there, friends and neighbors! Welcome to the Friday podcast goodness roundup. Weather report at SYSK HQ — RAIN. Lots of it. My basement is flooded and my dogs refuse to go out to use the bathroom.
This week on SYSK, we tackled a couple of interesting topics. Tuesday was part one of our four-part health care suite. We started with how things work right now.
In 2004 the smallest dog in the world was Danka, a chihuahua measuring 7.4 inches: In 2005 it was Brandy, another chihuahua: In 2007 it was another chihuahua named Boo Boo – Boo Boo, the smallest dog in the world In 2009 there are some new contenders for the crown: – Tom Thumb – a [...]
Thanks to newslite for this article about cats and how smart they may or may not be. They tested kittehs by placing a fishy treat on one end of a string to see if they would realize that pulling the string closer to them meant it was treat-time. They passed! Then the researchers placed a second, unfishy string in beside the first one and found that the cats were just flat out confused.
They did previous tests on dogs and they worked it out no problem. I think this clearly shows that cats are the stupidest stupid heads that ever walked the earth.
OK – so now for my real opinion on the matter. Why are researchers at Canterbury Christ Church University messing around with this kind of “study?”
If you’re planning to hit any raves this summer, then a fluorescent puppy may sound like the perfect fashion accessory to go along with your giant polyester pants, purple fur bikini top and glow stick necklace. Imagine throwing some shapes to The Prodigy with a couple of these guys in your hands, eh?
Of course, for many that may sound as ridiculous and irresponsible as, well, cloning transgenic dogs to produce a fluorescent protein that glows under UV lighting. But that’s exactly what Byeong-Chun Lee’s team at South Korea’s Seoul National University did. According to an article on New Scientist, they pulled this off by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones. That also means they’re not available in purple yet.
We’ve been snickering at our wiener dogs and their short little legs since the 15th century and yet genetic science has only recently allowed us to understand exactly why they’re so cute.
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