Brian Hare, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology, is opening the Duke Canine Cognition Center within the next two weeks. Hare and his team will test hundreds of dogs brought in by eager owners. Time magazine featured the team this week. The Chronicle’s Emily Stern sat down with him to discuss his inspiration for the project.
The Chronicle: How did you get involved studying dogs?
Brian Hare: The short version is that I had dogs as a kid. When I was growing up, my dog’s name was Oreo, and Oreo used to love to play fetch - and he could get three balls in his mouth, and so what that meant was that he would put all his balls on the ground - his slobbery balls on the ground, he would want you to throw all the balls, but sometimes you would throw them in different directions and they would get lost. I had seen that when his balls got lost when you were playing fetch with him that you could tell him where they were and he could go find them.
Later, when I was studying as an undergraduate, I realized together with my adviser that studying dogs would be really interesting because it ends up that they were doing some stuff that primates aren’t doing in terms of using human’s social cues, for instance, paying attention to pointing gestures that I’d seen my dog as a kid doing.
TC: What can canine behavior tell us about human behavior and evolution?
BH: What’s neat about dogs is that they’re all the same species and they’re very closely related genetically, but then they’re very, very different - each breed is very, very different. And so, that’s really fun and interesting because you can compare different breeds and try to understand why they’re different and why they’re similar than other breeds. And if by doing breed comparisons you can try and get an idea of why it is that some dogs can solve problems that other dogs can’t.
Ultimately, what I’m trying to study, as an evolutionary anthropologist, is human evolution, but there are not that many good models, there’s not that many good ways to study animals and understand how evolution changes cognition. So you can study an animal - I studied Chimpanzees and I studied Bonobos, and we study Great Apes, and Great Apes are really interesting and good because they can teach you how were similar and different from them and you can figure out how we changed, meaning what changed. But dogs are really useful because they can tell you how cognition changed, like what’s the process because you can compare lots of different breeds and figure out why it is that they became the way they were because there are so many of them but they’re all so closely related. So, it’s a really nice model for studying behavioral evolution, cognitive evolution, and they’re very unique that way. So it’s very useful, actually.
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The second of Duke’s two sessions of the Talent Identification Program has been canceled, officials announced Wednesday. The early termination results from more than 25 of the 260 students exhibiting flu symptoms.
All cases are consistent with the seasonal flu and are mild to moderate, according to a Wednesday news release. This is the first time in the program’s almost three-decade history that it has been canceled prematurely. The second session was scheduled to end Aug. 1
Officials were not clear whether the affected students carried the new H1N1 flu virus, commonly known as swine flu. The first cases of swine flu at Duke surfaced on East Campus last month among students participating in TIP, the American Dance Festival and writing programs held on East.
“Although none of the students seems to be in any serious danger, we decided to err on the side of caution and cancel the program to reduce the accelerating risk of infection among the other participants,” Martha Putallaz, Duke TIP’s executive director, said in the statement Wednesday. “We made this decision in close consultation with Duke experts on infectious disease and student health, as well as with campus officials. The health and safety of our students is our highest priority.”
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Talent Identificat Program
TerriblyClever Design, the Stanford-based Web company that helped to design DukeMobile, has been bought out by Blackboard, Inc. for about $4 million, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The sale makes millionaires of Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein, the two Stanford University students who founded the company in 2007.
Blackboard’s chief business officer Matthew Small explained his company’s decision to buy TerriblyClever in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education:
“Every single school is going to have an iPhone application,” said Mr. Small, in an interview. “For Blackboard, the question is, How do we bring teaching and learning to where students are, which is on mobile devices?”
The DukeMobile application, originally launched in March, can be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It includes a variety of features, and the application has been very popular on campus, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations.
Duke’s foray into the world of mobile application began last Spring and was largely based off of iStanford, a set of iPhone applications introduced by Stanford University in January.
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The University’s International Travel Oversight Committee, a body comprising faculty and administrators to set travel policy, voted Friday to remove Mexico from the Restricted Regions list.
Though this decision clears the path for student travel, the call did not come in time to reverse the decision to move the Duke in Mexico study abroad program, according to a news release. The program has already begun in Durham. DukeEngage in Tucson, which features stints in Mexico for service work, will proceed as planned.
Officials announced April 29–at the height of news about the H1N1 virus–that they would relocate Duke in Mexico to Durham.
Students had until last week to decide whether or not they would participate despite the change of scene, and an intermediate-level program began May 15. Perhaps unsurprisingly, of the 19 students who had planned to go to Mexico, only five chose to pursue the project in the Bull City, according to the release. Two transferred to other study abroad programs.
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Duke has limited travel to Mexico due to the swine flu outbreak.
The University added Mexico to its Restricted Regions List Tuesday in response to Centers for Disease Control guidelines recommending that individuals avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.
Among the programs affected by the declaration are the Duke in Mexico summer program and the Mexico portion of the DukeEngage in Tucson program.
The Duke in Mexico program was canceled Wednesday, the Durham Herald-Sun reported (Registration required).
Students who were planning to study Spanish in Mexico will now learn language and culture from afar—the program has been moved to Duke’s campus in Durham, according to Duke’s Preparing for Pandemic Flu Web site.
The DukeEngage program in Tucson will still be held, but students will not travel to Mexico during the program, DukeEngage Director Eric Mlyn wrote in an e-mail to students signed up for DukeEngage programs and their parents.
“We will continue to monitor this situation closely and will be in touch if any significant changes in programs or schedules occur,” Mlyn wrote. “Please be assured that all decisions will be guided by the latest recommendations of public health officials and by our concern for the health and safety of our participants.”
Several other universities have canceled Mexico programs in response to swine flu as well, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. In the Triangle, North Carolina State University canceled its summer study abroad program in Mexico, News14 reported.
There are now 141 confirmed cases of swine flu, also known as H1N1, and one death from the virus in the United States, the CDC reported Friday morning. Worldwide, there are at least 331 cases, according to the World Health Organization’s Web site.
For more information about the University’s response to swine flu, visit the Preparing for Pandemic Flu Web site the University has set up.
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Updated 11:00 p.m. Monday
University officials met today to discuss plans related to the outbreak of swine flu. Among those present at the 30-person meeting were Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta and Dr. Bill Purdy, executive director of Student Health.
Moneta said the meeting allowed University officials to begin to coordinate their plans should the flu spread to North Carolina. Experts from the Medical Center also provided background on swine flu.
“We all agreed that the University’s position is to be guided by county health officials and the CDC,” he said.
After the meeting, Moneta sent an e-mail to the Duke community detailing precautions individuals can take to avoid the flu and directing students to the Centers for Disease Control Web site for further information.
The e-mail read in part:
We have engaged a comprehensive internal team with representatives from across the University and Health System that will meet regularly to assess new information and provide updates to you regarding any new developments.
At this point, there are no changes to any campus or Health System activities, class schedules or work schedules.
Study Abroad has begun discussing contingency plans for the Duke in Mexico summer program, Margaret Riley, associate dean and director of Study Abroad, confirmed in an e-mail. No students are currently studying in Mexico, which has been most heavily affected by swine flu.
“The outbreak emerged late last week,” Riley wrote. “The University is still developing its response to the situation, but [Study Abroad] will be communicating with students planning on going on the Mexico program, and their parents, specifically, and others more generally.”
Riley said no timeline has been established for when any decisions will be made regarding the program. She declined to discuss what plans the University is considering.
“We understand time is of the essence, but want to be sure we consider the various aspects and options before making any decisions,” she wrote.
The CDC issued a travel health warning Monday night urging Americans to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico due to the swine flu.
“CDC is concerned that continued travel by U.S. travelers to Mexico presents a serious risk for further outbreaks of swine flu in the United States,” the warning says.
Forty people in the United States now have swine flu, the CDC reported Monday afternoon. The (Raleigh) New & Observer reported Monday evening that there are now some suspected cases of swine flu in North Carolina.
The outbreak began in Mexico, where at least 149 people have died from the flu, the New York Times reported today.
Meanwhile, the European Union’s health commissioner said Europeans should avoid traveling to the United States and Mexico because of the flu, the New York Times reported.
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