Category: Science

Dogs ‘copy’ their owners

More evidence that shows there’s more to dogs than we realise.

Earlier on this year, a series of Posts was published on Learning from Dogs based on a science programme on the BBC (BBC Horizon) that revealed the degree of sophistication that is inherent in these clever animals.

This is the link to that article.  Unfortunately the YouTube videos have now been removed but there are some clips available on the BBC website here.  As the programme was introduced:

We have an extraordinary relationship with dogs – closer than with any other animal on the planet. But what makes the bond between us so special?

Research into dogs is gaining momentum, and scientists are investigating them like never before. From the latest fossil evidence, to the sequencing of the canine genome, to cognitive experiments, dogs are fast turning into the new chimps as a window into understanding ourselves.

Anyway, all this is a lead in to an item on the news today regarding a study into dogs by the University of Vienna.

Dogs “automatically imitate” the body movements of their owners, according to a study.

This automatic imitation is a crucial part of social learning in humans.

But Austrian researchers report that the phenomenon – where the sight of another’s body movement causes the observer to move in the same way – is evident in many other animals.

They say that it reveals clues about how this type of learning evolved.

The study, which was led by Dr Friederike Range from the University of Vienna in Austria, also suggests that the way in which people interact with and play with their dogs as they are growing up shapes their ability to imitate.

The phenomenon under investigation is known as "selective imitation" and implies that dogs -- like human infants -- do not simply copy an action they observe, but adjust the extent to which they imitate to the circumstances of the action. (Credit: iStockphoto/David Brimm)

There’s more to the news release on Science Daily from which is quoted:

New research by Friederike Range and Ludwig Huber, of the University of Vienna, and Zsofia Viranyi, of the Eötvös University in Budapest, reveals striking similarities between humans and dogs in the way they imitate the actions of others. The phenomenon under investigation is known as “selective imitation” and implies that dogs–like human infants–do not simply copy an action they observe, but adjust the extent to which they imitate to the circumstances of the action.

By Paul Handover

Night shining clouds

Better known as Noctilucent Clouds

(Hoping this link is still available on the BBC web site)

Just watch this and be inspired!

From that BBC link:

Each summer, high in the night skies of the far northern and southern hemispheres a unique phenonmenon occurs – noctilucent clouds. Little is known about them, but now an amateur astronomer from north Wales is trying to predict when they are likely to appear.

Here, John Rowlands, one of four finalists in the BBC’s search for the Amateur Scientist of the Year So You Want To Be A Scientist? – and his mentor, Professor Nick Mitchell from the University of Bath – take a closer look at these mysterious silver and blue waves at the edge of space.

John has his own Facebook page here with plenty more information.

And a quick Google images search found this:

Noctilucent clouds

And there’s still more. This delightful video on YouTube, courtesy of NASA.

Described thus:

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission will provide the first detailed exploration of Earth’s unique and elusive noctilucent or night shining clouds that are found literally on the “edge of space.” Located near the top of the Earth’s mesosphere (the region just above the stratosphere), very little is known about how these polar mesospheric clouds form or why they vary. They are being seen at lower latitudes than ever before and have been growing brighter and more frequent, leading some scientists to suggest that this recent increase may be the direct result of human-induced climate change. The mission is led by Dr. James Russell of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University.

By Paul Handover

(with thanks to the UK Flyer List for bringing this to my attention.)

Anniversary message from Paul

Learning from Dogs has been running for one year.

On July 15th, 2009 a post called Parenting lessons from Dogs started what has now become a bit of a ‘habit’.  But more reflections tomorrow.

Reach for the Skies

Today I want to voice something that has been running around my mind for some time.  It is whether we give in to the mounting doom and gloom at so many levels in our societies (and it can be a very compelling draw) or whether we see this as a painful but necessary period where slowly but surely the desires of ordinary people; for a fairer, more truthful, more integrous world are gaining power.

And I’m going to use Richard Branson to voice it for me!

(Now this is an unusually long Post so I’ve inserted the Read More divider to prevent the Post visually swamping your browser.)

Read the rest of this article

Integrity – aviation fashion!

The brilliance of fine engineering

The BBC have been started a series on how things are made!  The first episode was on the making of a nuclear submarine – perhaps not something that touches most of us!

Trent 900 on the A380

But the second episode was much more the ‘touch of the common man’ as it was about the building of a commercial jet engine, the Trent engine built by Rolls Royce of Derby, England.

Anyway, I’m not going to natter on other than to say that not all regulatory bodies are bad in this world.  Indeed, the aviation industry has shown how splendid both engineering and the certification processes can be in giving us a incredibly safe form of transport.

There are plenty of YouTube videos on the Trent engine but here are two that I found of great interest. (Thanks to Simon H for the pointers.)

Rolls Royce Trent Engine Certification video

A380 Loss of Blade test

By Paul Handover

That oil spill

Visualisation of data

I can’t recall how but I came across a web site that focuses on ‘translating’ data into pictures.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  The web site is called Information is Beautiful.

Anyhow, they have attempted to graphically portray the scale of the BP oil spill. (A thumbnail is below but please click on the link, or here, to see this as it was meant to be shown.)

Ouch!

But this image is an update of an earlier one here that is really powerful.  Because it attempts to put the scale of the oil spill into context with global oil consumption.

If the Purdue University estimate of the oil spill is correct at 48,500 barrels a day (a barrel is approximately the equivalent of two car tankfuls of gas/petrol) and the spill is contained in 90 days then the total oil spilled will be:

90 x 48,500 = 4,365,000 barrels

That is an enormous quantity.

But have a guess as to how much that would represent in terms of hourly global oil consumption?

Any idea?

Well global oil consumption is 3,500,000 barrels an hour.

So 90 days at 48,500 barrels a day represents just 1 hour 15 minutes worth of global consumption!

If there was ever an argument for the world to wean itself off oil then this would appear to be it.

What has happened so far is tragic – tragic beyond measure.  But if it turns out to be a ‘tipping point’ for nations to reconsider how we find and use energy then, perhaps, it will have been a horrible lesson that we all had to take.

And if the USA puts all it’s collective back into leading the world out of our addiction to oil then the damage and hardship will not have been in vain.

By Paul Handover

Happiness

That pre-frontal cortex is at it again.

Prof Gilbert

There’s a fascinating video on the http://www.TED.com website given by Prof Dan Gilbert.  Prof Dan is Professor of Psychology at Havard and there’s a good resume on WikiPedia.

Here’s how John Brockman describes Dan Gilbert.

Dan Gilbert doesn’t have an instruction manual that tells you how to be happy in four easy steps and one hard one. Nor is he the kind of thinker who needs Freud, Marx, and Modernism to explain the human condition.

Gilbert, the Director of Harvard’s Hedonic Psychology Laboratory, is a scientist who explores what philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics have to teach us about how, and how well the human brain can imagine its own future, and about how, and how well it can predict which of those futures it will most enjoy.

There can’t be a human that hasn’t pondered on what makes them happy. Gilbert sets out some fascinating and possibly counter-intuitive ideas. Here’s the video

By Paul Handover

Watch, and learn! Concluding parts

Growth is good?  Good for what?

[Apologies to our readers but a consistent error in all the links to previous posts within this and earlier posts has now been corrected.  You can view all the previous sections of his lecture by clicking the links in this Post. Ed.]

We live on a finite Earth.  But really understanding what that means is difficult.  I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?

Al Bartlet, University of Colorado

Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic!  And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”

Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”?  Well you can.

The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube.  The first two instalments are here , Part Three and Four here

Parts Five and Six were in this post. These are the concluding two parts.

Part Seven

Part Eight

By Paul Handover

Watch, and learn, Part Three

Growth is good?  Good for what?

We live on a finite Earth.  But really understanding what that means is difficult.  I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?

Al Bartlet, University of Colorado

Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic!  And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”

Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”?  Well you can.

The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube.  The first two instalments are here , Part Three and Four here and Parts Five and Six in this post. The concluding two parts are tomorrow.
Part Five

Part Six

By Paul Handover

Watch, and learn, Part Two

Growth is good?  Good for what?

We live on a finite Earth.  But really understanding what that means is difficult.  I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?

Al Bartlet, University of Colorado

Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic!  And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”

Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”?  Well you can.

The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube.  The first two instalments are here with Part Three and Four in this post. The remaining four parts over the next two days.

Part Three

Part Four

By Paul Handover

Watch, and learn about growth!

Growth is good?  Good for what?

We live on a finite Earth.  But really understanding what that means is difficult.  I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?

Al Bartlet, University of Colorado

Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic!  And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”

Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101”?  Well you can.

The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube.  The first two instalments are in this post with each of the following three days having the next two.

Part One

Part Two

By Paul Handover