dogs

According to a new study by William Helton of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, bigger dogs are better at following pointing cues from humans than their smaller counterparts.

Researchers believe that larger fidos have a wide set of eyes which gives them better depth perception. As a result, they can more easily discern the direction a person is pointing, the Discovery News reports.

104 dogs studied

Babies, show no signs of succumbing to this well-known phenomenon called contagious yawning which is catching among people, dogs, and also chimpanzees, claims a new study.

According to researchers, yawning in toddlers and babies is spontaneous, and they almost never yawn back until the age of five when contagious yawning starts triggering a chain reaction.

Given that contagious yawning may be a sign of empathy, researchers theorize that empathy and the mimicry that may underlie it develops slowly over the first few years of life.

The international research team that initiated the present study termed the gene as a first step towards identifying a similar gene to detect the NCL disorder in humans too.

In the past, the researchers have been of the view that NCL is caused by a recessive gene mutation. Anyone having one copy of the gene is called a carrier, who can transmit the disease to their offspring, but having two copies of the mutation can cause the fatal disease.