Last week, just as I was drifting off to sleep, my dog Rowdy made a weird noise. He was almost barking, but not quite. It startled me awake and, adrenaline slightly pumping, I was more alert when he then did it a second time. It was a weird noise, something like "berf." Like he was trying to bark without opening his mouth. I realized that he wasn't dying, nor had he heard an intruder downstairs. He was barking in his sleep.
Any of you who have pets, dogs especially, have probably noticed something like this. Dogs pretty regularly start twitching their legs while they sleep, or even moving them as if they're running. Our reaction is always "Aww, he's dreaming!" Well, that was my reaction the night of the berfs. But it got me wondering: do we really know if dogs dream? And how much do we know about it if they do?
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Every era has its diseases. The medieval world was hit by wave after wave of bubonic plague, the most famous of which killed half or more of the entire population of Europe. During the American colonial period, the Native Americans were ravaged by smallpox, transmitted to them (sometimes purposefully) by a bunch of filthy, dirty Europeans. The first half of the 20th century was scourged by polio, killing and crippling children by the thousands before Jonas Salk finished development on his killed-virus polio vaccine in 1955.
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311,000,000 miles from home the Philae lander is gently slumbering. After an…interesting landing scientists have gleaned as much data from the craft as possible before it’s primary battery ran down. So what happened and what does this mean for Philae’s eventual fate? Join Aaron as he celebrates getting his hands on a webcam made in the current millennium by bringing you up to date on the Rosetta mission.
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