Living with humans has taught dogs morals, say scientists

Dogs are becoming more intelligent and are even learning morals from human contact, scientists claim.

They say the fact that dogs’ play rarely escalates into a fight shows the animals abide by social rules.

During one study, dogs which held up a paw were rewarded with a food treat.

When a lone dog was asked to raise its paw but received no treat, the researchers found it begged for up to 30 minutes.

But when they tested two dogs together but rewarded only one, the dog which missed out soon stopped playing the game.

Dr Friederike Range, of the University of Vienna, who led the study, said: ‘Dogs show a strong aversion to inequity. I would prefer not to call it a sense of fairness, but others might.’

Full Article

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on Living with humans has taught dogs morals, say scientists

Golden Girls Outdistance Michael Phelps

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Mark Spitz has been vanquished. But not so Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia.

Michael Phelps’ Spitz-sinking swim on Saturday elevated NBC to its best ratings on the once-mighty, now-dead night in about a generation.

Still, the golden boy of the Beijing Games couldn’t topple The Golden Girls, which held on to its title as NBC’s most-watched Saturday-night show of the last 18 years.

Full Article

Posted in Interesting, Pop Culture | 1 Comment

Bible in jury room was wrong, death sentence stands

HOUSTON (AP) — East Texas jurors wrongly used a Bible during deliberations in a capital murder case, but there isn’t enough evidence to show they were prejudiced when they decided to send the perpetrator to death row, a federal appeals court said.

The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes in the case of Khristian Oliver, who was condemned by a Nacogdoches County jury in 1999, a year after he and three companions were involved in a break-in in which Joe Collins, 64, was fatally shot and bludgeoned.

Oliver’s three accomplices received prison terms ranging from five to 99 years. He got the death penalty. In his appeals, his lawyers contended that jurors improperly consulted Bible verses that called for death as punishment for murder.

In its ruling posted Aug. 14, the New Orleans-based appeals court said that using the Bible “amounts to a type of private communication, contact or tampering that is outside the evidence and law.”

But the court said it didn’t see enough evidence to overturn decisions from the trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that upheld the jury verdict.

Full Article

Posted in Spiritual, Texas | Comments Off on Bible in jury room was wrong, death sentence stands

Compare hospitals on heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia

Welcome to a new era of openness in medical care.

In this interactive USA TODAY graphic, you’ll find medicine’s best-kept secret revealed: death rates for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia for every hospital in the nation.

USA TODAY created this graphic using data compiled by the federal government’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency also has supplied the information to the more than 4,000 hospitals included and posted them on a government website called Hospital Compare.

Link

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on Compare hospitals on heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia