Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 1, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba A16 science Winnipeg free press wednesday november 1, 2006 mans Best Friend Don to count on it Experiment found no dog seeking help the Way Lassie did away Back when reactions. By Shannon Proudfoot a few of the dogs barked at or nuzzled their own d ers but none other than the toy poodle touched the on to expect your Loyal canine to stage a bystander or did anything to demand help. Lassie style Rescue if you Are Ever injured in the second Experiment the owners simulator in trouble. De being pinned under a collapsed Bookcase and researchers at the University of Western crying out for help while a bystander waited in an Ontario devised an Experiment to test whether dogs adjacent room. Can understand emergencies and react a Propri in that scenario dogs in the Experiment group lately and not one of the dogs sought hovered around their injured own help. A toy poodle was the Only pet to ers More than a control group whose dogs in the even touch a bystander and that Pup owners simply stood in the room but simply curled up in the persons Lap Experiment none went to fetch help. Apparently seeking Comfort for him Roberts speculates that widespread self rather than help for his owner. Group hovered tales of dog heroics Are simply Coin i thought it would be quite inter cadences in which pets did the right Esting if the dogs helped but i want around their thing but those idealized instances surprised that they did to says pay have come to overshadow the Hun cology professor Bill Roberts co injured owners dress of others that Don tend so poet author of the study that appeared Mically. More than a recently in the journal of compare there is a tendency to Bond with Tive psychology. Control group our animals and to believe or want to psychologists traditionally study believe that they Are highly Intelli the communication and understand whose owners gent that they understand when ing of apes and monkeys because they we re talking to them or when we re Are humans closest genetic relatives simply stood in gesturing to them Roberts says. I Roberts says. But he and co author think that a probably the Root of peo Krista Macpherson have turned to the room but ple believing animals Are More Intel dogs because 10,000 years of Selec Wigent than they actually none went to Tive Breeding should have produced nevertheless the Purina animal animals that Are uniquely receptive fetch help Hall of Fame has honoured 106 dogs to humans. 22 cats and one horse credited with its still quite possible that dogs Are bonded to heroic acts Over the last 38 years and Purina or humans in the sense that they Are responsive to All communications specialist Jenine Lafayette says kinds of human cues he says. But it appears that it is that Loving relationship that is the real Point. They Don to understand when an emergency has its just a great demonstration of the animals occurred or what to do about Way of being there for the owner in time of need in the first Experiment a dozen dogs of different whether its something that a instinctual or not Breeds walked with their owners through a Field she says. The important part for us is just Cele and the owners faked a heart attack and collapsed Brating that Bond that people have with their on the ground. A bystander was stationed near by and a hidden video camera recorded the dogs ? can West news service mysteriously is becomes a disease of women by Martin Mittelstaedt Toronto ? researchers combing Over Canadian data on people with multiple sclerosis have discovered that women with the disease have inexplicably started to outnumber men by a ratio of More than three to one. The researchers have also found that the gender ratio rather than being stable As has been commonly thought has been rising almost constantly for at least 50 years. It has jumped from about 1.9 women for every Man for those born in the 1930s, to 3.2 women for every Man for those born around 1980. Female dominated disease the Rise Over this Long period has been so pronounced that it has made multiple sclerosis an overwhelmingly female dominated disease even though it want originally. Until the 1940s most doctors believed there was no difference in the incidence rate based on gender and it was Only in the 1950s and 1960s that doctors began to notice that the disease was More com Mon in women. A paper on the new findings appears in the november edition of the journal lancet neurology. The researchers who conducted the study of the Canadian multiple sclerosis data speculate that something new has Arisen in the environment in the past half Century to make women far More Likely to develop the disease. They Don to know Why the Factor does it seem to affect men. If multiple sclerosis rates Are rising because of an environmentally induced cause among women the discovery of what this might be would suggest a pos sible Avenue for preventing the often disabling disease. What is going on Here is something presumably that is preventable said George Ebers a professor in the depart ment of clinical neurology at the University of Oxford in the United kingdom and Lead author of the study. We just need to find out what it is in the environment because it has to be Environ mental. Your genes Don to change Over two generations three wealthy countries scientists do not know what causes multiple sclerosis although the disease is More prevalent in wealthy countries. Canada has one of the highest rates in the world As do Many nations in North Ern Europe which has led to speculation the cause May have something to do with Vitamin d. Levels of the Vitamin fall off in Northern countries during the Winter months because sunlight in to intense enough to allow people to make it in their skin. Among the possible factors that could be causing the trend the paper cited the changing role of women in the work Force dietary habits changes in the Tim ing of childbearing years the falling age at which girls have their first period and changes in outdoor activity Levels. ? Globe and mail ;