THE TRUE REASON WHY DOGS CAN READ HUMANS!

Human mind's sick dog reader (by @sciencemug)

[The dog pic by Matthew Henry is a free one (source: Unsplash); adapted by @sciencemug]

Soo, dear reader, five researchers from different German universities (aka the Wonderful Fives aka the W5s), find out that dogs can "distinguish intentional [human] actions from unintentional behaviour" (Schünemann et al., 2021)(P).

The W5s study 51 dogs of different breeds, sex (27 females and 24 males), and age (1 - 15 years) that are not trained (e.g. they're not police or rescue dogs). The researchers and the animals are on opposite sides of two 1.45 m wide × 1.15 m high barriers (each consisting of "a wooden frame holding a sheet of transparent plastic" (P)), placed one aside the other, and separated (or not) by a 15 centimeters wide gap.

The Wonderful Fives test the dogs' reaction to three different situations: the unwilling-condition (UWC), the unable-clumsy condition (UCC), and the unable-blocked condition (UBC) (P). 

The UWC means the 15 cm gap is open, one scientist moves a treat towards the gap, but then quickly and intentionally pulls it away while saying, to the dog's face, “ha-ha!” (P).

The UCC is like the previous one, but this time the researcher pretend to accidentally drop the treat, and says "oops!" (P).

The UBC, finally, means one of the W5s closes the gap between the plastic barriers, then a second member of the W5s tries to give the treat to the dog, but, unable to do it, drop it in front of herself (the W5s are all women), and says "oh!" (P).

So, once performed the experiment, the W5s conclude that "[dogs] behaved differently depending on whether the actions of a human experimenter were intentional or unintentional" (P). Indeed, the animals wait significantly longer before going for the treat when such treat is intentionally withheld by the researcher (unwilling-condition (UWC)) than when the reward fails to get to their mouths because the human researcher is clumsy (unable-clumsy condition (UCC)) or because there's a physical obstacle (unable-blocked condition (UBC)). Moreover, the W5s observe that, in a similar manner, "the dogs that ceased to move their tail mainly did so in the unwilling-condition [(UWC)]" (P).

The W5s say that the dogs' reactions may have different explanations, but that they clearly indicate our four legged friends have the ability to "recognize the intentionality of human action in their spontaneous behaviour" (P).

Finally, the Wonderful Fives say that future research is needed to understand "whether dogs’ distinguishing reaction really reflect a capacity to read human intentions or only some form of behaviour reading based on learned associations" (P).

Aaaanyway, dear reader, this dumb blog, in the following cartoon, shows you the true reason why dogs evolved this "human reading" ability.

Dogs can read humans (and probably play poker) (by @sciencemug)

[The poker table pic by slgckgc, is licensed under the Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license (source: flickr); the dog pic is licensed under the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license (source: pxhere); all pics adapted by @sciencemug]

 
 

 The paper this mini-post is about (P) 

- Schünemann, B., Keller, J., Rakoczy, H., Behne, T., and Bräuer, J. (2021). Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action. Sci Rep 11, 14967.

THE USEFULNESS OF THE NEW SCIENTIFIC FORMULA TO CALCULATE THE ACTUAL HUMAN EQUIVALENT OF DOGS AGE!

Soooo, dear reader, apparently a team of scientists used epigenetics to find out a scientific way to calculate the actual human equivalent of dogs age (P). The formula the brains came up with is "human-age=16ln(dog's-age)+31". That is if a dog, for instance, is 3 years old, then its human equivalent age is 16xln3+31, meaning 16x1.01+31, meaning about 47.

What was the true goal of this research, are you asking yourself, dear reader? Well, the following cartoon is the answer this dumb blog has for you, pal...

Chef dog [dog sketch is a public domain img by drunken_duck (source: freestockphotos.biz); chef hat is a img under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license by Omondi (source: Wikimedia Commons)] adapted by @sciencemug

Paper (P)

Wang, T., Ma, J., Hogan, A.N., Fong, S., Licon, K., Tsui, B., Kreisberg, J.F., Adams, P.D., Carvunis, A.-R., Bannasch, D.L., et al. (2019). Quantitative translation of dog-to-human aging by conserved remodeling of epigenetic networks. BioRxiv 829192.

THE PIG'S "SCENT" AND THE BARKING DOGS

Ohhh, well well, dear English thinking-speaking-hearing listener, welcome back to me, sciencemug, the blog which tells 'bout science and, at the same time, chats with that tickle of yours, that one yeah, right there, under the thin skin of your wonder. And that do all this in Eng?ish, a language that is to real English what the '80s have been to a decent haircut. 

Soo, now, dear visitor, let’s talk about bacon, soppressa and speck, ok*? And of how the scent of sizzling pork can trigger a wide range of dopaminergic deliciousnergic gnamgnamminergic effects on humans’ brains. And lead you munching bipeds to mechanically gulp chunks of meat and emit various modulated and complex more or less loud sounds which are used to communicate, to your same species pals: satisfaction, emotion, the culinary equivalent of the Stendhal’s Syndrome aaand, at the same time (ah, the utterly fascinating complexity & plasticity of animals’ vocalizations!) an awfully original scary threat of whatever sort against everyone only give a sign of entering your present biting territory.
 
Ok? Weeell, nope. Eheh, sorry. The post ain’t about this. Pigs are still involved in the plot though. Today’s post is in fact about pigs, aaand pheromones aaaand barking dogs. 

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 The pigs’ and dogs’ sounds are under Creative Commons license.
They have all been modified by sciencemug.com.
The original sound files have been downloaded from freesound.org.
The sound files have been created by:

(in order of usage)

 JarredGibb
praesius
Jace
JarredGibb

A pig’s pheromone, the androstenone, can calm excessively anxious dogs when sprayed on them. The discovery, made by a group of researchers of the Texas Tech University, has been published in the journal The Professional Animal Scientist.

by sciencemug

[The dog image is a Public Domain pic adapted by sciencemug (source: wikia.com)]

John J. McGlone and other two researchers study dogs affected by the “barking and jumpin jack flash syndrome”, meaning that the McGlones study dogs that think to be Mick Jagger with an awful laryngitis… Ok, ok, just kidding, there’s not such a syndrome (which I’m sure would be the coolest to diagnose for the vets though). Indeed the actual syndrome is the “barking and jumping syndrome”(McGlone et al., 2014, aka P), meaning that the McGlones study dogs that are hyper anxious and excitable, jump and bark as hell, and are as pleasant to deal with as a giant pneumatic drill that sings A-aloud the Slipknot’s top fifty hits to your worst-hangover-of-the-Saros**’s ears can be.

So the happy researchers do an experiment