My Science School

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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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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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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Squids and octopuses are cephalopods, members that fall under the Cephalopoda. But unlike mollusks, they do not have shells. Their blood is blue due to the presence of copper in it, and they also have three hearts each. But octopuses and squids differ in their physical characteristics, habitat, and behaviour.

An octopus has a round head, while a squid's head is triangular in shape. Octopuses do not have any bone in their body, while squids possess a structure known as a pen that acts as a flexible backbone. Octopuses do not have fins, while squids have two on their heads. Both have eight arms, but squids have two specialised tentacles in addition which are used to catch prey. While octopuses live close to the ocean floor, squids live in the open sea at various depths depending on the species.

Octopuses feed on crustaceans, while squids feed on shrimps and fishes. Usually, squids are larger than octopuses.

 

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