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If there’s one thing I’ve learned about dogs, it’s that praise is super effective for training; a new Hungarian study confirms these anecdotal findings and reinforces the idea that praise is more effective as a pedagogical approach than, for example, scolding or criticism or deliberately placing one infraclass of mammals above another with a childish insult like this:

Placental mammals rule, marsupials drool

Brown adipose tissue, unlike white adipose tissue, burns calories instead of storing them. It’s essentially the body’s heating organ, which researchers believe evolved in mammals to allow them to survive and diversify in colder environments. Its calorie-burning feature has also inspired YouTube influencers of the keto-stoic and deadlift variety to take a daily dip in ice water, a “chukka”-like activity designed to shed excess body fat, leading to the discovery that the metabolic effects of cold water immersion include making you ravenously hungry. Life, ah, will find a way.

However, a new study from Stockholm University shows that brown fat has evolved exclusively in modern placental mammals. The researchers found that marsupials have a form of brown fat that hasn’t evolved to the degree of sophistication enjoyed by winter-sporting placental mammals like humans and killer whales. After the divergence of placental and marsupial mammals, a heat-producing protein called UCP1 became active.

Many but not all genes expressed in brown fat are present in the opossum UCP1 transcript, indicating that marsupials have not fully developed the evolved form that warms placental mammals. Furthermore, the protoform of brown fat in marsupials is not thermogenic. The researchers hope that their findings can contribute to a better understanding of mammalian evolution and medical applications related to metabolic disorders.

Effective praise

A study by researchers from ELTE Eötvös Loránd University found that dogs were more successful in a training scenario if, in addition to food rewards, they were rewarded with petting and praise. Researchers have investigated the relationship between learning, emotions and sleep, and the results of the study show that teaching style and sleep influence both behavior and learning success.

In two experimental sessions conducted in the presence of the dogs’ owners, the dog trainers taught the dogs new commands for tricks that the dogs already knew. One was conducted in a “permissive” style where trainers praised and petted the dogs in addition to the food reward; the dogs have never been driven. In the second session, dogs received only a treat, no verbal praise, and were reprimanded for unwanted behavior. After these sessions, the dogs slept in a sleep laboratory while being monitored by EEG scanning.

Training in a “controlling” style causes higher stress in dogs; they tended to sleep longer after control-style training, reinforcing previous findings that sleep is important for emotional processing. Dr. Márta Gácsi, senior researcher at the HUN-REN-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group, said: “The most exciting result is that sleep improves learning in dogs only in one particular case, when the group that received ” controlling “the first-time trainees were expected to receive similar training the second time, but then we trained them in a ‘permissive’ style. We believe that the combined effect of the positive surprise and sleep improved their training success.”

A rare mistake for Boeing

Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule was delayed by last-minute engine problems as it prepared to dock with the International Space Station on Thursday. The capsule was already leaking helium when it reached orbit, and two more leaks occurred hours into its flight. Then four of the Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed. After recovering three of them and orbiting Earth for additional time after missing the first docking window, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams were able to jump ship with the space station.

Pills explained

How do antidepressants work? Is it a placebo effect? Do they really affect serotonin? Is it witchcraft? Classic selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors increase serotonin levels in the brain, and for a while researchers thought that maybe antidepressants restored the neurochemical imbalance. But later research did not show reduced serotonin levels in people with major depressive disorder.

So SSRIs are basically witchcraft, but researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have published a new framework for understanding how classic SSRIs work; it clarifies the benefits of antidepressants even if MDD is not characterized by low serotonin. The researchers explain that current evidence suggests that MDD is linked to areas of the brain that fail to communicate properly.

Scott Thompson, MD, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and senior author, said, “When the parts of the brain responsible for reward, happiness, mood, self-esteem, even problem solving in some cases don’t communicate with each other right, then they can’t do their job right. There is good evidence that antidepressants that increase serotonin, such as SSRIs, work by restoring the strength of connections between these areas of the brain. .”