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It's Barking Mad! Study Finds Dogs Can Tell Languages Apart
For centuries, humans have wondered the same thing when talking to their pets.
“Do pets understand us?”
Laura Cuaya, a brain researcher and owner of two border collies (Kun Kun and Odín) at the Neuroethology of Communication Lab at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, set out to find the answer. She had moved to Hungary from Mexico, and wondered if her dogs would see a difference in the languages spoken in the two different countries.
Cuaya and her colleagues found a total of 18 volunteers (dogs), including her own. The team had them participate in an experiment of their creation, designed specifically for the purpose of seeing if the two languages could be differentiated.
The study took place at a lab, and researchers were looking to see specific regions of the brain show differences in activity for one language vs the other, depending on the dog’s “native” language.
While sitting in an MRI machine that would gather data on the dog’s brain, the dog would listen to an excerpt of the famed story, The Little Prince. One was read in Hungarian, and the other in Spanish. Using the data the MRI machine provided, the scientists analyzed the brain activity of the dogs.
Attila Andics, who led the lab at which the study was conducted, said, “We found a brain region — the secondary auditory cortex, which is a higher level processing region in the auditory hierarchy — which showed a different activity pattern for the familiar language and for the unfamiliar language,”.
These differences in brain activity suggest that dogs’ brains can indeed differentiate between varying languages. Interestingly enough, the older dogs showed an increase in difference compared to the younger ones, possibly due to their longer experience with the human language.
Motoko I.
Welcome to the White House, Willow!
A new furry friend has become a member of the White House: Willow the cat!
Willow is a female shorthaired grey tabby cat with green eyes who is about two years old.
President Joe Biden and his wife, the First Lady Jill Biden, first met Willow during a campaign event in 2020. During the event, Willow, to the surprise of everyone, jumped onto the stage and met the Bidens for the first time there. Willow and her soon-to-be owners formed a strong bond at that event, but it would be a while before Willow would begin to live in the White House. For a time, Willow was fostered by friends and acquaintances of the Bidens, and many months later she finally got to explore her new home at the White House for the first time!
The White House has not had a cat for years. The last cat that lived in the White House was a black American Shorthair cat named India, who was the pet of president George W. Bush. India passed away in 2009, leaving the White House without a cat for over a decade. Willow was named after the town of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, which was the hometown of the First Lady. She will be living in the White House with Commander, a young German Shepherd who was adopted in December 2021.
Currently, Willow seems to be enjoying her new home at the White House. "Willow is settling into the White House with her favorite toys, treats, and plenty of room to smell and explore," said Michael LaRosa, the first lady’s press secretary. According to Willow, her new home is just purrr-fect!
Liani R.
Disney's Encanto Soundtrack Breaks Records
Songs from Disney's Encanto became popular quickly, two of them being “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure.”
Recently, the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” broke Disney song records from the last 26 years, even eventually passing “Let It Go” from Frozen in 5th and reaching 4th on the charts.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and also the creator of Hamilton, said that he was shocked when “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” turned out to be a big success. He also says, "And I should have known this song was good, because my father-in-law was like, 'Lin, I normally don't say anything about what you do, but I haven't been able to stop singing that Bruno thing for like a week.'" (from an article on People.com).
Social Media played an important part in getting “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” onto top charts. TikTok and other social media apps spread the song, making it popular. The song got stuck in people’s heads and continued to spread.
Trixie B.
"We Don't Talk About Bruno"
"Surface Pressure"
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics took place in Beijing this year. In this year's games, there have been wonderful moments for the competing athletes.
These athletes include New Zealand snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, who won New Zealand’s first gold medal in snowboarding. The snowboarder also won silver in women's big air, behind gold medalist Anna Gasser of Austria.
Figure skater Wakaba Higuchi of Japan joins the few that have successfully landed a triple axel during the Olympics. She is only the fifth woman to do so.
American Figure Skater Nathan Chen won his first Olympic gold, and set the record for the highest score in the short program event — 113.97 points.
Skater Gao Tingyu wins China’s first ever Olympic gold in speed skating, in the 500m. On top of that, he set the new Olympic record, 34.32 seconds – 0.09 seconds faster than the previous record.
The United States ranked fifth in the total medal counts, with 25 medals. With 37 medals, Norway finished first, followed by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), with 32 medals. In third is Germany, with 27 medals, and following behind is Canada, having been awarded twenty-six medals.
Due to COVID-19, there have been many restrictions placed by the Chinese government. For one, there are no spectators allowed at the Olympics, apart from a small number of local fans. All athletes also had to be fully vaccinated two weeks prior, or quarantined for three weeks. It was also recommended that athletes get a booster shot before traveling to China. On top of this, all athletes, staff, and coaches had to receive a COVID test daily. There were buses designated to transport athletes from one place to another, to make sure that no athletes were in contact with anyone outside of Olympic Village. Everyone is also required to keep six feet away from all athletes, and any physical contact is discouraged. Masks are to be worn at all times, except when athletes are eating, drinking, training, competing, sleeping, alone, in an interview, stand-up, or live presentation.
The Paralympics are scheduled to take place from March 4th to March 13th, with athletes competing in six different sports: Para alpine skiing, para biathlon, para cross-country skiing, para snowboard, para ice hockey, and wheelchair curling.
The next Winter Olympics will be in Milano and Cortina, two Italian cities.
Caitlyn P.
New Species of Dinosaur Discovered by Scientists in Chile
On Wednesday, December 1, 2021, scientists in Chile made an amazing discovery: a new species of dinosaur!
The bones of a new dog-sized adult dinosaur with an unusually deadly weapon-like tail were found. The dinosaur had a tail with sharp “blades” on each side that it could use to attack enemies and predators with. “It’s a really unusual weapon,” says Alex Vargas when describing the bizarre tail of the new dinosaur. Alex Vargas is the lead writer of the study, who helped publish the findings of the new dinosaur in the Nature magazine. “It just looks crazy.”
When the fossil was first found, scientists believed that the dinosaur could possibly have belonged to a species of dinosaur called the stegosaurus. After all, the new dinosaur and the stegosaurus had a lot in common. They were both herbivores with dangerous tails. But after studying the dinosaur’s skull and DNA, the scientists came to the conclusion that the dinosaur was not a stegosaurus, but a new species of dinosaur! The new species was named stegouros, after the stegosaurus, which the stegouros shared a lot of similarities with.
The stegouros fossil is approximately 72 to 75 million years old. Researchers believe that the stegouros was alive during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
The stegorous is thought to be part of the ankylosaur family of dinosaurs, which could be found in North America 83.5 to 66 million years ago. Since the dinosaur was found in the Southern Hemisphere, it might have been one of the rare members of the ankylosaur family that lived in that area. It is “the lost family branch of the ankylosaur”, says Vargas. According to biologist Kristi Curry Rogers, “discoveries of that kind of animal have not been made in the area before.”
This new finding of a species of dinosaur shows us that even though so many dinosaur species have been found, there are still more out there, just waiting for us to discover them. Scientists have discovered so many new species of dinosaur, but when it comes to understanding them, they are still scratching at the surface. Rogers says that “Stegouros reminds us that if we look in the right places at the right times, there is so much more still to discover.”
Liani R.