news 2014

Aggressive dogs represent a serious risk to human health, tragically causing fatalities in rare cases. The development of aggression can also impact on a dog's welfare, because of a breakdown of the human-pet bond, euthanasia or relinquishment. New research has estimated the prevalence of human-directed aggression in different situations, and examined the potential risk factors for dogs showing aggression towards people.

Despite the way that mobile technologies and social networking sites have made it easier to stay in touch with large numbers of acquaintances, a new study has shown that people still put most of their efforts into communicating with small numbers of close friends or relatives, often operating unconscious one-in, one-out policies so that communication patterns remain the same even when friendships change.

University of Washington Common advice to new parents is that the more words babies hear the faster their vocabulary grows. Now new findings show that what spurs early language development isn't so much the quantity of words as the style of speech and social context in which speech occurs. Researchers at the University of Washington and University of Connecticut examined thousands of 30-second snippets of verbal exchanges between parents and babies.

University of Washington Pine Island Glacier is one of the biggest routes for ice to flow from Antarctica into the sea. The floating ice shelf at the glacier's tip has been melting and thinning for the past four decades, causing the glacier to speed up and discharge more ice. Understanding this ice shelf is a key for predicting sea-level rise in a warming world.

Researchers from across the country gathered at a recent meeting of the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency (BITSS) in the Social Sciences discuss improving the caliber, credibility and impact of their work. On the far left is UC Berkeley economist Edward Miguel, lead author . On the far right is the University of Virginia's Brian Nosek.