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Why dogs eat poop, according to a dog cognition scientist

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Plenty of stuff divides us as people, but there's one thing we can all agree on: poop smells bad.

No matter what you eat, no matter how healthy you are, your excrement doesn't smell good. Sorry, Khloé Kardashian — even you

toilet paper going over

Jokes aside, there's a good reason for that human aversion to repulsive smells: It's evolutionary protection.

The perception of a "bad" smell is what keeps us from eating potential poisons. So the evolutionary logic goes: Ancestors of ours who were able to avoid death/sickness from eating poisonous material survived, while those who didn't have that trait... didn't survive. We are the product of their survival.

And yet, when it comes to dogs, that aversion to "bad" smells doesn't exist in the same way. To put it directly, dogs sometimes eat things that they shouldn't: chocolate, onions, and even waste (poop). 

A dog eating a hot dog at Barkfest 2015

This begs some questions:

  • Why would a dog eat something that could harm it?
  • Don't dogs have an incredible sense of smell?
  • Why would a dog eat poop, which isn't even food?

I know this problem well, as I have an adorable mutt who loves nothing more than to eat things he shouldn't. 

Dog

Dog cognition researcher Dr. Alexandra Horowitz is an expert in how dogs smell, and how that sense of smell affects how they see the world. She wrote an entire book about the subject, "Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell," published in October 2016.

And she's got answers.

"It's a little bit unsolved why they would eat feces, what the advantage would be when there are disadvantages," she told me in a phone interview earlier this year. But we do have some hints, and the first major hint has to do with how dogs experience the sense of smell comparatively with how we do as humans. 

"Smell is just information for them," Horowitz said. "The same way that we open our eyes and we see the world — it's visual information. We're not making judgments about everything we see. 'Is that good? Is that bad? Is that good? Is that bad?' We're just like, 'That's a plant. That's what that is.'"

Dog

For humans with sight, it is the primary sense in terms of experiencing life. For dogs with smell, it is the primary sense in terms of experiencing life. 

Or, as Horowitz put it: "A dog just smells things — they smell a plant, they smell a person — not that it's a good or bad smell." 

Dogs have eyes, of course, just as humans have noses — it's a question of primacy. Dogs "see" the world through smell, just as non-visually impaired humans "see" the world through their eyes. It's easy to understand why a dog doesn't smell poop (or potentially toxic foods, like onions and chocolate) and react with revulsion — it's information.

"Given that their primary sensory modality is olfaction [smell], they're experiencing smells merely as information," she said. "They're not identifying them and characterizing them as we identify smells." 

dog

That doesn't explain why a dog would then take the next step and eat something potentially dangerous. To understand that, we must first understand what gives dogs such an incredible sense of smell — and that requires a fancy science term (sorry!). 

In addition to the nose itself, dogs have an olfactory organ that humans lack: the "vomeronasal" organ. Think of it like an add-on to the nose, capable of detecting the pheromones and other chemical messages communicated within a particular animal species. And it goes a long way in explaining why dogs sniff the waste of other dogs.

"To get information [in the vomeronasal organ], you have to actually absorb some of the molecules," Horowitz told me. "Maybe what they do is consume the thing to get that information." 

Put more simply: Dogs could very well be eating poop in an effort to learn more about whatever animal excreted that waste. 

"If you were doing it like a scientist, you would just get a very small amount [of poop], put it on the roof your mouth, allow it to be absorbed into the vomeronasal organ, and then get the information about the hormones and so forth," she said. "But dogs don't have that equipment." 

Dog scientist

Sadly, we don't live in a world full of dog scientists. Not yet, anyway.

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NOW WATCH: No, a 'dog year' isn't equivalent to 7 human years


Famous last words of 19 famous people

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beethoven

Last words have always fascinated people.

Perhaps they hold an echo of wisdom or a biting witticism — or at least a hint about who's getting what in the will.

And so, Business Insider put together a list of the reported last words of 18 famous historical figures.

 

Bob Marley, musician:

"Money can't buy life."

 

Source: The Guardian



Archimedes, mathematician:

"Stand away, fellow, from my diagram!"

Archimedes was killed during the Second Punic War. According to the historian Plutarch, a soldier came up to the mathematician and told him to go with him to Marcellus.

Archimedes, however, refused to do so until he finished the problem he was working on. Enraged, the soldier killed him.

 

Sources: "The Parallel Lives" by Plutarch, "Famous Last Words" by Laura Ward



Karl Marx, philosopher:

"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough." 

 

Source: International Business Times



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Politicians are using their shoes as a secret weapon to appear more powerful

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Marco Rubio shoes

A successful politician needs a few things: good ideas, a strong voter base, and above-average height.

In any competitive environment where opinions and egos clash — as they often do in politics — an inch or two of height is no small advantage. Keeping that in mind, it's understandable that a politician would want to wear boots or other slightly heeled shoes to appear taller.

There's more to this desire to appear taller than just ego, however. Sociological studies and historical evidence have shown that taller men often enjoy more social success, partly because others tend to have a more positive perception of them.

"We conclude that human height is positively related to interpersonal dominance, and may well contribute to the widely observed positive association between height and social status," write the authors of one peer-reviewed study that was published in 2015 by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

According to The New York Times, the taller of the two major candidates has won the US presidential election twice as often as the shorter candidate. 

And all this time you thought Texas politicians wore cowboy boots just for their folksy charm.

Politicians from Florida Senator Marco Rubio to Russian President Vladimir Putin have visibly employed the heeled-shoe technique. It's difficult to pin down a man's actual height after all, as there is often a discrepancy between the official statement of a leader's height and how tall they stand in real life.

putin heels

There was some speculation that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's shoes had lifts during his visit to the White House this week, as the 6'2" PM appeared to be at eye level with the 6'3" President Trump. There is some debate about Trump's height, as Politico obtained one of his old driver's licenses that listed his height as 6'2".

It's safe to say that other politicians, especially if they're on the shorter side, would want to exaggerate their height in a similar way.

Trudeau and Trump

Taking the Florida senator as another example: Rubio's height is listed as 5'10" on official documents, though it's rumored he's closer to 5'8". At his unofficial height, Rubio would've been the shortest president since William McKinley, who stood at 5'7". So it's no surprise that he was caught with some wickedly heeled boots when he was running for president, though he was mercilesslymocked for the shoe choice.

Even if it is a politician's goal to be a man of the people, there seem to be plenty of reasons to strap on some stacked heel boots.

SEE ALSO: Trump's longtime doctor offers an explanation for what's going on with his hair

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's why people love these L.L.Bean boots that sell out every winter

Here's exactly what to say when you’re running really late to a first date

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woman hailing a cab in nyc

The only thing worse than being stuck in gridlock and imagining your date waiting awkwardly outside a bar is figuring out how to tell said date that they may be waiting even longer.

Which is why a natural impulse here is to avoid texting or calling at all to say that you're running super late.

This is a great idea — if you want to make the situation even more uncomfortable than it needs to be. 

That's according to relationship expert Andrea Syrtash, author of "He's Just Not Your Type (And That's A Good Thing): How to Find Love Where You Least Expect It," who says that she often sees people "procrastinate" on admitting that they're running late. 

"The irony," Syrtash said, "is that the more we try to avoid an awkward situation, the worse it is."

Here's an example of what you should tell the person waiting for you:

"I'm stuck in traffic. I'm so sorry. Please feel free to order an appetizer or a drink and I'm excited to see you soon!"

Syrtash recommends sending your date a heads-up text as soon as you know you're going to be late. 

If you realize in the afternoon that you might get stuck at work this evening, let the person know so you two can move your date later. On the other hand, if it looks like there's traffic or train trouble ahead and your date is already on their way, at least tell the person so they don't think they've been stood up. 

Above all, don't freak out. Yes, first impressions matter, but your date is (presumably) a human being just like you and has been in a similar situation. Apologize when you get there and move on.

SEE ALSO: Here's exactly what to say when you're not sure who should pay on a first date

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What you should talk about on a first date, according to research

How a 60-year-old Canadian sportswear manufacturer convinced regular people to wear $900 arctic parkas

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Canada Goose

Luxury outerwear maker Canada Goose has filed for its expected IPO Wednesday. It will be listed on both the New York and Toronto stock exchanges.

Chances are, if you live in a major American city that gets snow in the winter, you've seen a Canada Goose jacket at one point or another. The red, white, and blue patch is unmistakable.

If you ask the owners of these jackets — which typically retail between $600 and $950 — why they own one, they will reply simply and matter-of-factly: they are the warmest jacket you can buy.

Indeed, parkas made by the company have become standard issue for scientists at Antarctica's McMurdo Station, have kept Iditarod racer Lance Mackey warm, and even helped Laurie Skreslet become the first Canadian to summit Mt. Everest.

The Canada Goose jacket, which has been made in Canada since its inception as Metro Sportswear in 1957 by entrepreneur Sam Tick, clearly has the technical chops to back up the claims of its warmth.

So how did it make the transition to the streets of New York City, where a luxury coat made with real coyote fur and "Hutterite" goose down would be seen by most people as overkill?

canada goose 1

The answer is simple: Hollywood cachet.

Canada Goose is the unofficial parka for film crews working in colder environments, and have been used off-camera for everything from "Game of Thrones" to "The Danish Girl."

From there, it made the short jump on-screen in the 2004 movies "The Day After Tomorrow" and "National Treasure." Celebrities like David Beckham and Claire Danes were then spotted by paparazzi wearing the heavy coats.

Though the company says it does not sponsor endorsements, they do hand out jackets for free at festivals they now sponsor, like Sundance or the Toronto International Film Festival, according to the Cut.

Model Kate Upton even wore a Canada Goose jacket on the cover of the 2013 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Spectre photocall canada goose

The brand caught on in European markets first, where the fact that the product was made in Canada seemed to matter more, according to Entrepreneur magazine.

It has since remained a mainstay of cold-weather gear in cities around the US and the world. Sales have increased dramatically, rising from $3 million in 2001 to $200 million in 2014, according to Entrepreneur. In 2016, Boston University faced an epidemic of thefts of the premium down.

Canada Goose was recently forced to opened a larger factory in Winnipeg, Canada and another in Scarborough, Canada, to aid in production. The federal government of Canada has since certified the company as producing 6% of all cut-and-sew manufacturing in the entire country. 

Canada Goose

A majority stock purchase by Bain Capital for $250 million is 2013 has fueled the company's rapid growth, which they predicted would surpass $300 by the end of 2015. Bain has supercharged the company's marketing efforts, which had never really existed before, including an advertisement series called "Out There" with filmmaker Paul Haggis, showcasing the true stories of Canada Goose's most extreme wearers, including Skreslet, the first Canadian to climb Mt. Everest, and Paddy Doyle, the first pilot to land a plane on an ice flow.

SEE ALSO: Luxury shoppers have a completely new attitude, and it's killing traditional retail

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen

Amazing images of London show the city's evolution over nearly 2,000 years

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London in the 19th century

Like all living things, cities have lifespans. 

London started as a small Roman settlement along the Thames River. But today, more than 8.6 million people call the place home.

Here are 15 maps, paintings, and old-time photographs that show the journey of the British capital.

SEE ALSO: Amazing images of Tokyo before it was a city

The Romans founded Londinium (now called London) in 43 AD. This artist's illustration of Londinium in 200 AD shows the city's first bridge over the Thames River.



Westminster Abbey, built in the 10th century, is a World Heritage Site and one of London's oldest and most important buildings. Here it is in a 1749 painting.

William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England there on Christmas Day, 1066 — just after it was completed.



By the 11th century, London had the largest port in England.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Take a look inside 10 of the most luxurious superyachts on sale at Miami's premier yacht show

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Axioma yacht

One of Miami's biggest yacht shows is about to kick off. 

Yachts Miami Beach begins Thursday and runs until February 20. The in-water yacht display will cover more than 1.2 million square feet of space.

We rounded up the 10 most impressive luxury yachts coming to this year's show — scroll down for a closer look:

SEE ALSO: Here's how the super rich buy mega-yachts

1. The 11.11 yacht: The 206-foot yacht fits 12 guests and is priced at roughly $70 million.



It has six cabins, including a master and VIP suite. The master bedroom has its own private sundeck.



The upper deck comes with a plunge pool and plenty of room for sunbathing.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

These are the best and worst places to retire in the US

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We spend most of our lives working and planning for retirement. When it's finally time to retire, finding the right place to live is key. WalletHub ranked the 50 states and Washington, DC. in order of best and worst places to retire. Analysts compared the states based on affordability, quality of life and health care. Within those three main categories, there were 31 additional metrics to rank the states

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Here's what tech millionaires are doing to prepare for the end of the world

9 at-home remedies that actually work

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BI Graphics_9 at home remedies that actually work LEAD

Turns out mom was right. Chicken soup is good for a cold.

But it's not the only old-school remedy that scientists have actually found to be helpful.

Here are nine weird household tricks that you can really use to ward off pain, soothe a cold, calm a headache, and brighten your smile.

SEE ALSO: Most vitamins are useless, but here are the ones you should take

DON'T MISS: Not all headaches hurt the same — here's how to know what type of pain you're having

Feeling a cold coming on? Try gargling with plain water. A study of close to 400 healthy volunteers found that those who gargled with plain water were significantly less likely to come down with upper-respiratory-tract infections (URTIs) — a type of infection often linked with colds and the flu — during the study period than those who didn't gargle. The researchers concluded that, "Simple water gargling was effective to prevent URTIs among healthy people."



So long as you don't have a punctured eardrum, you use this easy recipe from the Mayo Clinic to stop ear infections before they start. Simply combine one part white vinegar with one part rubbing alcohol, pour a teaspoon into each ear and let it drain back out. The mixture is designed to help stop the growth of bacteria and fungi that cause swimmer's ear.



If you tend to get motion sick on trips, try packing along a couple pieces of ginger candy. One study comparing people taking a placebo with those taking ginger found that just one gram of the root was helpful in alleviating symptoms of seasickness, morning sickness, and nausea induced by chemotherapy.

In general, ginger may also be helpful for relieving gas and indigestion, Stephen Hanauer, MD, a professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told Prevention.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The 27 best new restaurants in America

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kyu miami

The semifinalists for the James Beard Foundation restaurant and chef awards have been announced.

With more than 20,000 entries this year, the 27 semifinalists in the "Best New Restaurant" category are truly some of the country's best. Those named to this category opened in the calendar year before and display excellence in food, beverage, and service. The panel of judges expects these restaurants to "make a significant impact in years to come."

From creative Asian fusion cuisine in California to wood-fired pizzas in Mississippi, this list has it all. 

SEE ALSO: The 25 best Caribbean islands, ranked

Bastion (Nashville)

434 Houston Street, Nashville, Tennessee



Drifters Wife (Portland, Maine)

63 Washington Avenue, Portland, Maine



Esker Grove at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis)

723 Vineland Place, Minneapolis, Minnesota



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A new book tells the story of what it's like to lose your short-term memory at the age of 33

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Christine Hyung-Oak Lee's

In the 2000 film "Memento," the lead character Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, suffers from anterograde amnesia: He can't form new memories, and therefore has no short-term memory.

Throughout the film, Leonard tattoos instructions and directions for himself onto his body as a way of keeping track of his life.

That sort of story sounds too strange to be real, but we do know of real cases of anterograde amnesia — cases like the story of Patient H.M., Henry Molaison. In Molaison's case, part of his brain was removed in a lobotomy intended to treat his epilepsy.

But as Christine Hyung-Oak Lee explains in her newly published memoir, "Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life," it doesn't take a dramatic car crash or the surgical removal of brain tissue for an inability to form memories to occur. It can come on suddenly, without warning or an immediately apparent cause.

On New Year's Eve of 2006, Lee suffered her fateful stroke at the age of 33. A blood clot had traveled up into her left thalamus, suffocating and killing a part of her brain. It would be several days before an MRI revealed what had happened. As a result, she lost not only her short-term memory, but also her ability to access much of the meaning in or connection between types of long-term memories.

"I could no longer retrieve memories, even ones from long ago," Lee writes in her book. "I could not transform short-term memories into long-term memories."

In an excerpt from the book that's currently on Longreads, Lee describes how dramatically this affected every aspect of her life. Even cooking — making a simple dish of pasta with tomatoes — became an impossible task:

"I put the water on to boil. I heat up the oil in the sauté pan. I chop the onions and then wonder for what it was that I chopped the onions. What might it be? I wash my hands, because I might as well—my hands are covered in onion juice, and my eyes are tearing. I return to the stove, where the oil is now scorching hot. I wonder what on earth it was I was cooking, why the sauté pan was left this way. I turn off the heat under the oil. I sigh and go upstairs. I forget everything I just did like a trail of dust in wind. Two hours later, after a nap, I return to the kitchen to a pile of chopped onions on the chopping block. The pan is cool but scorched. And I again wonder why. But mostly, my eyes turn to an empty stockpot on the stove, the burner turned on high. There is nothing in the stockpot, not even water. This happened over and over again in the months following my stroke. So I stopped cooking for a year."

Over a number of years, Lee's brain would reform connections, restoring an ability to remember what happened from one minute to the next, giving her — a writer before it happened — the ability to again read a paragraph and remember the first sentence by the time she finished.

TellMeEverything hc c.JPG

But in the meantime, she had to document everything that happened in a Moleskine notebook, keeping a record of the people she spoke to and of what happened as things started to come together again.

It's a fascinating exploration of how memory works. Different types of memories are stored in different ways, and after the stroke injured her brain, only fragments or images of certain memories were available.

But for Lee, chronicling everything was also a way of understanding her transformation. It's a document that shows how she moved on from that experience, and lessons that can be taken forward. In an interview with NPR's Scott Simon earlier in February, Lee explained how reading from her journal to reconstruct the story for her memoir helped her get through postpartum depression and the end of her marriage.

She told him:

"I think at any other time, reading that journal would have had an incredible emotional wallop on me — to have — to be reliving it in that way. And it would have felt more immediate. But at that time, it was a way to figure out additional lessons from that experience to get me through both the memoir and my life at that time, and it was very gratifying. And it was as if my old me was speaking to the new me and telling me that things would be OK."

SEE ALSO: Depression may be our brain's way of telling us to stop and solve a problem

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how you can test if someone's a narcissist

Here's exactly what to say to turn down a date without hurting the person's feelings

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notting hill screenshot

If you don't want to go on a date with someone who asks, you're going to have to reject them.

You'll feel bad; they'll feel bad; it won't be a great situation.

That said, there are definitely ways to make the situation go much more smoothly and to avoid crushing the person for life.

According to relationship expert Andrea Syrtash, author of "He's Just Not Your Type (And That's A Good Thing): How to Find Love Where You Least Expect It," the best approach depends on whether you know the person well or not. 

If you don't know the person well, Syrtash said it's fine to tell a white lie: "I'm flattered, but I'm not available." (If you really are in a relationship, then obviously you won't be lying.) 

That way, they won't be as inclined to personalize your rejection.

If you do know the person well and they're aware that you're not in a relationship, Syrtash said you can say something like: "I'm so flattered; thank you. But I feel like we're more suitable as friends" or, "I'm not in that place right now.

Again, the person who asked you out will probably still feel hurt, but this is the most elegant way to go about it. Plus, they'd probably feel worse if you got their hopes up by agreeing to a date and then broke it off. 

And remember: It's best to deliver the blow in person and by yourself. That means no texting and no sending your friend to do it for you. As Gail Gross, a human behavior, parenting, and education expert, writes on The Huffington Post, "A clean break can only happen in person, eyeball-to-eyeball."

SEE ALSO: Here's exactly what to do when you're not sure if it's a date

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How a 'sex schedule' could save your relationship

Loads of Americans are moving to these 10 cities

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penske truck moving out

Americans prefer to flock to the South when they want a change of scenery. 

The truck-rental company Penske found that Atlanta was again the top city that people moved to in 2016. Florida and Texas were the only two states that had multiple cities on the list.  

While some of the moves would have been to rented properties, new home sales in the South have outpaced the rest of the country since 2010, as land is cheaper. 

Penske compiled the list based on one-way rental reservations. 

Here's the full list in ascending order:

 







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This fast-food chain you've probably never heard of is making a killing selling $8 burgers

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super duper burger review 1398

"Burgers shouldn't cost $3," the website for Super Duper Burgers proudly declares.

The San Francisco Bay Area fast-food burger chain has garnered a cult following for its extra juicy, double-patty burgers that cost $8.50 with cheese. The company says it sources ingredients within miles of its restaurants.

The chain is now looking to grow its fan base by expanding from 10 locations to 13 by early 2018. Super Duper Burgers also said in a recent statement that it was in preliminary talks to launch international outposts, though we don't know where yet.

Here's what it's like to eat at Super Duper Burgers, a favorite Bay Area fast-food chain.

SEE ALSO: A Facebook executive says fasting for 15 hours a day changed his life — here's his daily routine

You've probably never heard of Super Duper Burgers, but San Franciscans named the regional fast-food chain their "Tastiest Cheap Eat" in a 2016 Reader's Choice awards.

Source: 7x7



"Cheap" is relative. On a rainy weekday afternoon, I stopped by one of the chain's 10 locations in the Bay Area to see whether its $8 burger lives up to the hype.



The menu is pretty straightforward. There's a burger (that comes in two different sizes), a chicken sandwich, a veggie burger, and fries served plain or topped with garlic and cheese.



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That 'guilty' look that your dog is giving you isn't actually guilt — they're scared

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Every dog owner knows the telltale look of a dog who did something it wasn't supposed to do.

Guilty Dog

Maybe she pooped on the floor. Maybe she chewed through your favorite couch cushion, or the carpet on the stairs.

You know she did something she shouldn't have done and, seemingly, she does too. Since you're a human being, you see that look and ascribe a common human emotion to it: guilt.

All the logic lines up: Your dog was left alone, did something they weren't supposed to do (that they know better than to do), and when they're called on it, their face says it all. Perhaps you're already saying "No! Bad dog! Bad dog!" or some variation thereof.

The truth is, despite your logical summation, the dog isn't feeling guilt. Instead, they're expressing a much more common, less complex emotion: fear

Scared dog

Don't just take my word for it: That assertion is based on a 2009 study conducted by dog cognition scientist Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, author of 2009's "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know" and 2016's "Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell." 

Dr. Horowitz's 2009 study, "Disambiguating the 'guilty look': salient prompts to a familiar dog behavior," specifically focuses on the concept of how humans interpret dog emotions through the scope of human emotion. More simply: Humans tend to misattribute dog emotions based on human emotions. The "guilty" look is a prime example of this.

"I look at a dog showing the guilty look and it feels guilty to me. It does! We're kind of wired to see it this way, so it's nobody's fault," Dr. Horowitz told me in a recent interview.  

The look is distinct: The dog cowers, showing the whites of its eyes while looking up at you. Maybe it pins its ears back to its head, yawns, or licks the air. These are all characteristic signs of fear in a dog — signs that us humans tend to misattribute as guilt.

Guilty dog

Horowitz's 2009 study is a clear demonstration of how humans tend to anthropomorphize their dogs. Here's how the study went, and what it revealed, based on the abstract:

  • "Trials varied the opportunity for dogs to disobey an owner's command to not eat a desirable treat while the owner was out of the room, and varied the owners' knowledge of what their dogs did in their absence."
  • "The results revealed no difference in behaviors associated with the guilty look. By contrast, more such behaviors were seen in trials when owners scolded their dogs. The effect of scolding was more pronounced when the dogs were obedient, not disobedient."
  • "These results indicate that a better description of the so-called guilty look is that it is a response to owner cues, rather than that it shows an appreciation of a misdeed."

To put that a bit more succinctly, the study found that dogs demonstrating a "guilty" look were actually demonstrating fear of scolding ("owner cues") rather than guilt ("an appreciation of a misdeed"). 

So, do dogs experience guilt? Maybe, maybe not.

Dog Shaming

"It seems unlikely that they have the same types of thinking about thinking that we do, because of their really different brains, but in most ways dogs brains are more similar to ours than dissimilar," Dr. Horowitz told me.

That first bit is especially important — the concept of "thinking about thinking," sometimes known as "executive function" — because it means dogs aren't likely to reflect on their past actions and decide they've done something wrong.

"There is some work showing that some animals are planning for the future and remember specific episodes in the past," Horowitz said. "With dogs, there's not as much evidence yet. Which isn't to say that they don't, but it's to say that it's really hard to design experiments around it."

Dogs have memories, of course, but thinking about those memories in the same way human memories work is likely wrong.

"They're not remembering it in language," Horowitz said. "They don't talk about it. Do they think about it, when they're lying on the couch waiting for you to get home? We don't know. We would love to know that, but we don't know."

dog pet loyalty friendship dalmatian

Lacking the scientific studies to explain how dogs experience emotion and memory, we instead turn to our own anthropomorphisms.

"When you adopted your dog, and suddenly you're living with a dog, within a week we have opinions about the dog's personality, what they're like and what they're thinking. It's a way to try to predict what's gonna happen next with an organism that we don't really know," Horowitz said. "So we use the language of human explanation, and we just put it on the dog."

SEE ALSO: You probably shouldn't hug your dogs, regardless of how adorable they are

DON'T MISS: Why dogs eat poop, according to a dog cognition scientist

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The 'alpha dog' myth is leading countless owners to mistreat their dogs

Why guys still hate buying clothes for themselves

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For many men, the intricacies of what they should wear every day still remain a mystery.

And according to menswear designerTodd Snyder, many of those guys aren't putting much thought into their clothes because they're at a loss for where to start.

"They use every excuse in the book. I don't get it," Snyder recently said to Business Insider. "Quite frankly, I think guys look at fashion as a four-letter word."

Snyder says that guys "aren't always comfortable" buying clothing for themselves because "there's so much information coming at you, you don't know what's cool and uncool."

Most guys are intimidated by this amount of information, which Snyder says is not too surprising. 

"It's hard for guys to see a sneaker on a guy and say, 'Oh, sneakers are in. I can wear sneakers.' They'll dig in their closet and dig up an old, crunchy pair of sneakers. Well, that's not what's cool," Snyder said. "Guys need that guidance."

That's why he decided to open a brick-and-mortar store for his eponymous brand in New York, calling it a one-stop shop for guys to learn about fashion. There's also an area where you can get pieces tailored, and a barbershop and bar area are coming son. 

"It was important for me to tear down the barriers for guys," Snyder said. "The brand kind of is a window into that, in showing a guy how to dress better and to always look his best."

Snyder formerly designed menswear at Ralph Lauren, Gap, and J.Crew, where he eventually became a senior vice president.

SEE ALSO: A former J.Crew exec just opened a menswear paradise for the modern guy who 'wants to look American'

DON'T MISS: Luxury shoppers have a completely new attitude, and it's killing traditional retail

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15 of the most fun American cities that are actually affordable

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party

Whether you're looking for a celebratory weekend getaway or planning to relocate permanently, it's likely that you'll want to find a city that offers plenty of fun activities, but doesn't break the bank.

With the help of WalletHub's 2016 Most fun cities in America ranking, we've come up with a list of 15 cities that are both fun and affordable.

To determine it's original ranking, WalletHub compared the 150 largest US cities based on 51 key metrics, ranging from number of fitness centers per capita to movie costs to number of music venues per capita. Each city was scored on three categories: entertainment and recreation, nightlife and parties, and costs. (Read more about their methodology here.)

To compile our ranking, we averaged the cities' overall score and costs score — a category made up of 10 metrics, including average beer price, average food price, movie costs, and bowling costs. The cities with the lowest averages made it to the top of our list.

Below, check out 15 US cities where you can have a blast on the cheap.

SEE ALSO: The 25 cities with the best quality of life in the US

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14. Kansas City, Missouri

Average beer price (6-pack): $8.04

Average pizza price: $8.16

Average movie ticket: $9.15

Price for a 3-star hotel room: $60



(TIE) 13. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Average beer price (6-pack): $8

Average pizza price: $9

Average movie ticket: $10.18

Price for a 3-star hotel room: $82



(TIE) 13. Buffalo, New York

Average beer price (6-pack): $7.99

Average pizza price: $8.66

Average movie ticket: $10.16

Price for a 3-star hotel room: $93



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Inside the farm where a Silicon Valley couple saves animals from slaughter

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Many Silicon Valley transplants leave their hacker houses or shoe-box apartments in the morning and climb aboard shuttle buses to work. Anna Sweet, a Facebook employee, and her husband Nate Salpeter, a nuclear energy engineer, commute from their farm.

The prospect of juggling careers in tech and farming didn't faze the husband-wife team when they opened Sweet Farm, an animal sanctuary and non-profit organization, in 2016. The farm promotes the humane treatment of animals by providing a loving home for livestock saved from meat markets. Sweet and Salpeter also work to educate visitors about the many places from which their food comes and encourage them to lead more livestock-friendly lifestyles.

We visited the Half Moon Bay, California, sanctuary to see what life is like there.

SEE ALSO: Inside the Bill Gates-backed startup on a mission to reinvent meat

Anna Sweet develops content partnerships for Facebook's social virtual reality team. Before she heads to the tech giant's campus in the morning, she joins Nate in their front yard.



Around 6:30, it's breakfast time for their animals. The couple owns about four dozen chickens, three goats, three dogs, three sheep, a cow, a horse, and several feral cats.



Walking around the 12-acre farm, they introduce their fuzzy and feathered friends by name.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

An HGTV star who's invested in over 100 properties explains how to tell if a fixer-upper is a great deal — or a money pit

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HGTV Scott McGillvray red carpet

If you're ready to buy a house, putting in the work on a fixer-upper instead of choosing a home with more amenities can save you a solid chunk of change.

But it can be tricky to tell if a property is worth the investment or will end up costing more than it's worth.

To figure out if a fixer-upper is a good deal, Scott McGillivray, the host of HGTV's "Income Property" and a real estate expert who's invested in over 100 properties, recommends figuring out how much the property would be worth post-renovations and comparing that to the sale prices of other similarly sized homes in the area.

"You have to determine what the after-repair value of your home is going to be," McGillivray told Business Insider. "Looking at similar homes that have sold that are in good condition, what are they selling for? What is the actual fixed-up value of that home?"

McGillivray shares an example: If you score a home for $200,000 and comparable properties in the area are going for $300,000, you need to invest less than $100,000 in renovations or you're over-paying.

"Ideally, I would try to make sure there's a really significant margin, like $50,000-plus, that's going to give me equity there," he said.

McGillivray says that choosing a fixer-upper over a more updated home is a "win-win" for two reasons: You get to customize it to your exact taste and you're building equity it, and thus into your portfolio.

Fellow HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines of "Fixer Upper" also know a thing or two about updating less-than-perfect homes. For the Gaines, choosing the right property to flip comes down to one question: "Is this asset going to depreciate in value?"

If that's a yes, it's probably not worth your time. "In the housing universe, if you're confident or nearly positive that these assets are going to appreciate in value, it's a no-brainer to buy," Chip previously told Business Insider. "If you get into complicated markets to where you're not confident, rent for a season, or rent for a year or two, and let the market sort of calm itself down before you jump in with both feet."

SEE ALSO: An HGTV star who's invested in over 100 properties reveals the simple trick any homebuyer can use to win a bidding war

DON'T MISS: If you're planning to buy a house this year, here's how the Trump administration could affect you

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