Blogs / Discoblog

In the recent Pixar movie Up, a group of dogs wear collars that translates their barks into humans words. Such a device is no longer just the stuff of animation: One is about to be, er, unleashed by a Japanese company that claims its collar can give humans a glimpse into Fido’s emotions.

But although the device would certainly be useful—wouldn’t it be helpful to know how your pup is feeling?—most experts are skeptical about whether the collar, called Bowlingual Voice, actually works. ABC reports:

The device includes a microphone worn around a dog’s neck and a separate digital reader that — the company says — translates barks into one of six emotional states: happy, sad, frustrated, threatening, needy or assertive…. [The developers] provided “research and development and consulting as well as aiding speech, acoustics and radio waves” for the Bowlingual Voice’s creation….

“It’s a cute idea,” said [organismic and evolutionary biologist] Kathryn Lord… “But it’s hard to see the world or feel the world like [dogs] do. When we say a dog feels something, it’s probably not exactly that.”

A consensus of experts agrees that while many humans have long yearned for the ability to communicate with animals, the concept is a myth that is both “crude” and “simplistic.” Still, that likely won’t keep pet-lovers from trying…

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Image: flickr / TheGiantVermin

• When summer storms hit, beware of your XBOX or Wii—apparently an increasing number of people have faced injury while playing hardwired video games indoors when there’s lightning outside.

• Spoon that irresistible raw cookie dough into your mouth at the risk of kidney failure and bloody diarrhea: Toll House has recalled its dough due to possible E. Coli contamination.

• Snakes in a station! About 400 cobras were expelled from a Sierra Leone police station using attack rifles and power hoses after snakecharmers failed to lure the reptiles from the building.

•It’s been a rough week for pets: Just ask the the week-old puppy that was flushed down the toilet, the cat that was shot 50 times, and the kitten that was abandoned in a public mailbox in Boston. Those furballs survived, but the cats and dogs that ate pet food tainted with melamine weren’t so lucky. The manufacturing company and its owners pleaded guilty this week to selling the contaminated food.

•Remember the rap about the LHC? Now there’s another one by the same, er, artist, tackling the subject of rare isotopes.

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It’s only Monday, and there’s already a toss-up for worst science article of the week. Scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health seem not to have realized that when it comes to weight gain, we’ve got one thing figured out: The fewer calories you consume, the less weight you put on. So they spent time and resources on a study to reach the following conclusion: Drinking water is less likely to cause obesity in kids than drinking sugar-sweetened drinks like soda and juice.

Weirder yet, the researchers don’t even sound assertive, as if their hypothesis needs further testing—not drinking sugary beverages, they say, “can reduce” excess calorie consumption. Well, yes, it can—and it does.

But while there’s validity, however obvious, to the Columbia  study, the U.K.’s Bath Spa University has just published its own, er, breed of ludicrous research: a study concluding that pet owners look like their dogs.

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