Category Science

Which is the oldest dog in the world?

According to the Guinness World Records, the oldest dog on record was another Australian dog named Bluey, who was 29 years and five months. Bluey died in 1939.

Bluey – or, known by his full name as Bluey Les Hall – lived from 7 June 1910 to 14 November 1939. He was owned by Les and Esma Hall and is officially the oldest dog according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Bluey’s age is part of what urged a study to be conducted regarding the longevity of the lives of Australian cattle dogs. This study involved one hundred dogs and found that, on average, this breed of dog had the tendency to live about one year longer than other breeds. As such, Bluey’s case is still considered an outlier as he lived a full decade and a half more than the average life expectancy.

 

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How good is a dog’s sense of hearing than humans?

Dogs have a keen sense of hearing. In fact, they are capable of hearing sounds four times further away than the human ear can discern. Their ears are also better designed to gather more available sound waves. They have 15 different muscles that move their ears in all directions. Plus they can move one ear at a time, independently of the other, to absorb even more information.

They can also hear sounds four times further away — so what human ears can hear from 20 feet away; our dogs can hear from 80 feet away.

Even though our dogs can hear better than we can, do they understand what they’re hearing?

Two studies, one published in the journal Current Biology and the other in Science, conclude that the answer is yes! Your dog might not understand everything you say, but he listens and pays attention similar to the way humans do. The researchers discovered that dogs — like humans — respond not only to the words we say to them, but also to the emotional tone of our voices.

 

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Do Dogs Dream?

If you’ve ever watched your dog twitching, chattering or moving their paws while sleeping, you may have wondered if they are dreaming. The answer is yes. Dogs do dream.

While we know that humans regularly dream during their sleep, for many years it was unclear if animals did. So scientists monitored the brains of rats while awake and performing tasks such as running around tracks for food. They then compared their brain activity while asleep and discovered exactly the same. This indicated that rats were indeed dreaming. In fact it’s likely that all mammals dream. But why?

To understand dreaming, it helps to understand the process of sleep. Sleep is a natural state characterised by reduced consciousness along with reduced or paused sensory and voluntary muscular activity. In other words, you don’t eat, smell or walk during your sleep. We still do not know the reason that sleep is so important to animals but it appears to aid in growth and repair of our body systems. During sleep the brain also appears to process information and experiences gained during the day.

 

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Which is a small natural satellite orbiting a planet and a dwarf planet?

Moons — also called natural satellites — come in many shapes, sizes and types. They are generally solid bodies, and few have atmospheres. Most planetary moons probably formed from the discs of gas and dust circulating around planets in the early solar system.

There are hundreds of moons in our solar system — even a few asteroids have been found to have small companion moons. Moons that begin with a letter and a year are considered provisional moons. They will be given a proper name when their discoveries are confirmed by additional observations.

Earth’s Moon probably formed when a large body about the size of Mars collided with Earth, ejecting a lot of material from our planet into orbit. Debris from the early Earth and the impacting body accumulated to form the Moon approximately 4.5 billion years ago (the age of the oldest collected lunar rocks). Twelve American astronauts landed on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo program from 1969 to 1972, studying the Moon and bringing back rock samples.

 

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Which is first known interstellar object to visit the solar system in 2017?

The first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, was discovered Oct. 19, 2017 by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope, funded by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations (NEOO) Program, which finds and tracks asteroids and comets in Earth’s neighborhood.

The first confirmed object from another star to visit our solar system, this interstellar interloper appears to be a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a somewhat reddish hue. The object, named ‘Oumuamua by its discoverers, is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated—perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. While its elongated shape is quite surprising, and unlike objects seen in our solar system, it may provide new clues into how other solar systems formed.

The object was officially named 1I/2017 U1 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is responsible for granting official names to bodies in the solar system and beyond. In addition to the technical name, the Pan-STARRS team dubbed it ‘Oumuamua (pronounced oh MOO-uh MOO-uh), which is Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first.”

 

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Which is the brightest nebula in the sky and occupy an area twice the diameter of the full Moon?

The Orion Nebula, the brightest nebula in the sky and occupying an area twice the diameter of the full Moon, can be viewed with the naked eye but was missed by early astronomers.

The Orion Nebula’s position in our galaxy is well-known. If we could view the Milky Way from above, it would appear as a pinwheel with four spiral arms. The galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars and massive amounts of gas and dust. Our solar system resides in the Orion Spur, which sits between the Perseus and Sagittarius arms, about halfway out from the galactic center.

Our earthbound view is different. On a clear summer night in the Northern Hemisphere, the Milky Way’s glow stretches from Cassiopeia in the northeast to Scorpius in the south. From this vantage point, we’re looking along the galaxy’s rim. Toward Scorpius is the central part of the Milky Way. Rather than seeing a field of blazing stars, our view is obscured by huge clouds of dust and gas.

In the winter, we see the sky opposite the stellar traffic jam found toward the galaxy’s center. The winter Milky Way is there, but you need a dark sky to see it with unaided eyes. The winter sky is the brightest of the seasonal skies — it contains the highest concentration of bright stars — and its most famous representative is Orion.

 

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