Blog Explanation

This blog brings together content that is noticeable, important or otherwise interesting from a human givens point of view.

Sunday 20 May 2012

Slow Ride to Turin

Please take a look at this website of Maddy Corbin's - http://www.slowridetoturin.co.uk/index.html . Her daughter, Philippa, sadly took her own life at the age of 27 after becoming profoundly depressed.
Maddy's feeling is that Philippa might still be here if there was better treatment for the illness more widely available. The ride she and her team are doing is to raise money for two charities, the HGF being one, and the other is The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust ( http://www.cwmt.org.uk/ ) that is concerned with raising awareness about depression and provides training and information.

http://www.slowridetoturin.co.uk/index.html

http://www.cwmt.org.uk/

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Rapport goes further than we think

Dogs copy their owners' yawns

Yawning dog /PA
Dogs are compelled to yawn if they hear their owners do the same, according to a new study.
Researchers claimed that dogs responded to an audio cue such as a yawn even if they didn't see the action taking place.
The study found this was particularly noticeable when the dogs were listening to the yawns of people they knew.
Scientists suggested the findings, presented at the National Ethology Congress in Lisbon, showed canines had empathy to human behaviours.
"These results suggest that dogs have the capacity to empathise with humans," said lead author Karine Silva, from the University of Porto, Portugal.
For their study, researchers selected 29 dogs that had lived with their owners for at least six months.
They recorded the owners yawning before playing it back to the pets, along with recordings of the yawn of a stranger.
The study said nearly half of all dogs yawned when they heard a recording of a human being making a yawning noise
But the results also found the dogs were five times more likely to yawn when they heard their owners' voices played back.