canine
dr. dolittle | July 28, 2017
Image By Jackie - Flickr: Cliche, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24285298
Proteins are not normally found in the urine of healthy individuals as the filtering units of the kidney prevent the loss of large proteins and smaller ones are typically reabsorbed. A team of researchers at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and Ohio State University recently searched for biomarkers indicative of early stages of kidney disease in dogs. They discovered that the urine of dogs in stages 1 or 2 of chronic kidney disease…
oracknows | April 18, 2017If there's one thing about antivaxers, it's that they're single-minded beyond belief. No matter what the chronic health problem, it's always about the vaccines. To them, vaccines are always the cause. Autism? Vaccines must be the cause. Asthma? vaccines. Diabetes? Obviously vaccines. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)? What else could it be but the vaccines? (Never mind that there's plenty of evidence suggesting that vaccinated children have a lower risk of SIDS.) That's how antivaxers think. Monomania doesn't even begin to describe it.
I was reminded of this yesterday when I came across yet…
dr. dolittle | September 14, 2015Dr. Mark Mamula at Yale University has been working on developing a vaccine for cancer. Here is an interview featuring Dr. Mamula discussing how dogs are helping researchers test a vaccine that so far, has shown promise in fighting cancer growth.
Video Source:
NBC www.King5.com
dr. dolittle | August 18, 2015 By Noel Feans (originally posted to Flickr as Watch your back!) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
New research suggests that cats may have played a role in the extinction of about 40 species of wild dogs by simply out-hunting them and therefore consuming more food.
The study noted that dogs first appeared in North America around 40 million years ago and by 22 million years ago there were over 30 species of wild dogs. Cats arrived from Asia around 20 million years after dogs appeared. The arrival of cats was followed by decreased diversity of…
razib | January 20, 2010Sometimes scientists report on research which clarifies what we already know. 'Survival of the Cutest' Proves Darwin Right:
The study, published in The American Naturalist on January 20, 2010, compared the skull shapes of domestic dogs with those of different species across the order Carnivora, to which dogs belong along with cats, bears, weasels, civets and even seals and walruses.
It found that the skull shapes of domestic dogs varied as much as those of the whole order. It also showed that the extremes of diversity were farther apart in domestic dogs than in the rest of the order. This…
razib | January 17, 2010A friend pointed me to this fascinating article about stray dogs in Moscow:
... It has become a symbol for the 35,000 stray dogs that roam Russia's capital - about 84 dogs per square mile. You see them everywhere. They lie around in the courtyards of apartment complexes, wander near markets and kiosks, and sleep inside metro stations and pedestrian passageways. You can hear them barking and howling at night. And the strays on Moscow's streets do not look anything like the purebreds preferred by status-conscious Muscovites. They look like a breed apart.
...
They also acted differently. Every…
razib | January 11, 2010Tracking footprints of artificial selection in the dog genome:
The size, shape, and behavior of the modern domesticated dog has been sculpted by artificial selection for at least 14,000 years. The genetic substrates of selective breeding, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we describe a genome-wide scan for selection in 275 dogs from 10 phenotypically diverse breeds that were genotyped for over 21,000 autosomal SNPs. We identified 155 genomic regions that possess strong signatures of recent selection and contain candidate genes for phenotypes that vary most conspicuously among breeds,…
zooillogix | April 6, 2009I have had this picture for a while just waiting for groundbreaking news about Bat-eared foxes. Well it never came but I can't just stare at the little guys any longer and not post them.
Photo credit Floridapfe of South Korea's Everland Zoo
They aren't babies and therefore not ZooBorn's fodder, but they are pretty ridiculous. Insects make up 80% of the Bat-eared fox diet. The other 20% comprises rainbows and Hello Kitty memorabilia.
zooillogix | March 21, 2008Why are we posting so many videos these days you ask? I don't know!
Anyway this is both cool and somewhat off-putting/frightening but only because it is awesome.
From Slashdot:
"The US company Boston Dynamics has released an amazing new video of its quadruped robot BigDog. The highlight of the video (at 1:24) shows how the robot starts slipping on ice, almost falls several times, but finally regains its balance and continues walking. The video also shows the robot's ability to cope with different types of terrains, climb and descend steep slopes, and jump. Two years ago, the older version of…
laelaps | October 24, 2007
I have never heard sounds come out of a dog like the kind that I've heard out of a pack of excited African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus), the individual pictured above being a member of a large group kept at the WCS-run Bronx Zoo. While their species once ranged over 39 countries and their numbers were estimated as being as high as 500,000, today there are only 3,000-6,000 individuals left in a handful of countries, pressure from predator competition, disease, and killing by farmers/livestock owners make life very hard for these unique dogs. Indeed, they differ from all other known canids in…