Former guard dogs, strays in the city of Yekaterinburg have been spotted sporting green coats. Although some locals initially thought it was a prank, the police believe that illegal chemical dumping is responsible for these dogs of a different color. As a result of the startling discovery, the city council has been asked to clean up the toxic area.

It sounds like the color is probably the result of a chemical reaction with the dogs' fur, but it probably doesn't bode well for their overall health and well-being. Still, the folks responsible for the dumpng better hope they don't end up with a pack of canine Toxic Avengers on their hands.

Wild Dogs Turn Green From 'Toxic Waste' [Yahoo! News via Geekologie]

Though the domestication of dogs is still shrouded in mystery, one thing scientists agree on is that today's friendly pets are descended from the Eurasian grey wolf. About 15 to 40 thousand years ago, humans befriended these wolves, and over time these wolves branched into the diverse breeds we have today. The genetic diversity seen in Eurasian dogs led researchers to believe that these dogs were closest to their wolf foremothers, and therefore domestication had begun in the region.

But Cornell computational biologist Adam Boyko had a different theory. He believed that the DNA of African village dogs, if sequenced, would reveal a diversity comparable to the Eurasian types. So he asked his brother and sister-in-law, on honeymoon in Egypt, Uganda and Namibia, to collect DNA samples from hundreds of village dogs. Upon their return to the States, Boyko discovered that he had been right. The genetic diversity of African dogs rivaled that of their Eurasian counterparts. Now, he says, it seems likely that dog domestication started in Africa, though the grey wolves themselves are unarguably Eurasian in origin. Probably African village dogs are the descendants of Eurasian dogs that migrated to the continent tens of thousands of years ago.

Boyko told BBC News:

I think it means that the conclusion that was drawn before might have been premature. It's a consequence of having a lot of street dogs from East Asia that were sampled, compared to elsewhere.

"The reason that East Asia looked more diverse than elsewhere was not because East Asia as a continent had more diverse dogs than elsewhere but because non breed street and village dogs are more diverse than breed dogs.

He and an international team of researchers are now gathering DNA from village dogs across Europe and Asia to determine which area has the greatest genetic diversity - and is, by extension, is the most likely origin of the bond between human and canine.

via BBC News

Read the scientific paper by Boyko in PNAS.

Swazi village dog photo by Michael Tallman.

The canine six-pack, each named "Toppy" (short for "Tomorrow's Puppy"), were cloned from a Canadian sniffer named Chaser. Three of the dogs have reported for duty at Incheon International Airport, and the rest have been placed at customs offices in South Korean cities.

So why use clones, in lieu of dogs specially bred to sniff drugs? Customs spokesman Park Jeong-Heon said the clones simply proved superior:

They showed better performances in detecting illegal drugs during the training than other naturally-born sniffer dogs that we have.

No word yet on whether South Korea's glowing canine clone has similarly found employment.

South Korean customs deploy six cloned sniffer dogs [PhysOrg]

G-Dog
Price: $705
Features: Once assembled, G-Dog takes commands from a wireless remote to perform a basic set of canine commands.
Pros: Some assembly required, so the girls will learn a little something before they can play with their new mechanized pet.
Cons: G-Dog lacks the autonomy of a real dog. Plus, it’s pretty ugly.

Wrex the Dawg
Price: $149
Features: Built to look like a literal junkyard dog, Wrex is a cartoon dog brought to robotic life. He walks, talks, farts, and performs all manner of doggie tricks. His infrared sensors allow him to roam free, or he can be programmed too perform up to 80 operation steps using a remote control. His mood shifts between happy, angry, or crazy, which changes the way he interacts with his surroundings.
Pros: Wrex provides hours of fun, can stand guard outside Malia and Sasha’s rooms, and is unlikely to crash into the furniture.
Cons: Wrex’s toilet humor may not be appreciated by White House guests.

robuDOG
Price: €3200
Features: This French doggie bot can dance, play soccer, and take color photographs. It can also interface with Windows, allowing the girls to play with it in a virtual environment.
Pros: It will not only provide companionship, but also document those early White House years.
Cons: Obama uses a Mac.

BJ
Price: ¥600,000
Features: Aiming to be the successor to Sony’s discontinued AIBO, BJ is a fully programmable pooch with a movable jaw, neck, legs, and tail, and the ability to sense distances and the proximity of people and animals.
Pros: BJ runs on Linux and is tinker-friendly, showing support for the open source community.
Cons: Needs to be renamed.

Pleo
Price: $349
Features: Pleo is an autonomous robotic dinosaur with the ability to recognize sounds, sights, and touch. It expresses hunger, craves affection, explores its environment, and displays a wide range of emotions.
Pros: More pet-like in its ability to react to sensory information and interact with its owner.
Cons: Not actually a dog.

Paro
Price: $5,531
Features: Paro is a baby harp seal that responds to petting by moving its tail, opening and closing its eyes, and making seal-like noises. It can also respond to sounds, learn a name, and show emotions. All of these features are designed to have a calming effect on humans.
Pros: Has been deemed the world’s most therapeutic robot.
Cons: It may be possible for children to get too attached to a robotic pet. Also, it’s still not a dog.

Mio Pup
Price: $49.99
Features: Mio Pup is an interactive toy that accepts petting, plays music, and flashes emoticons in its eyes to signal its mood.
Pros: Considerably less expensive than most robotic dogs.
Cons: Essentially the canine equivalent of a Furby.

Robopet
Price: $99.99
Features: The biomechanical pup performs the full array of canine tricks, responds to sound and human movement, and can be trained to perform tricks on command through positive and negative reinforcement.
Pros: Easier to train than a real dog.
Cons: For some reason, it has the capacity to become depressed.

Dacky the Healing Partner
Price: $149.99
Features: Dacky reacts to petting thanks to its internal sensors. It also asks about your day, sings karaoke, and appears to learn up to 650 words of Japanese.
Pros: Not only is Dacky furrier than most robotic pets, it could encourage the girls to learn a foreign language.
Cons: Only comes in elitist purebred retriever.

Sakadachi-Lucky
Price: $129.99
Features: Sakadachi is another furry bot who responds to voice commands. It can recognize its name, do a headstand, and play tug of war with its rope.
Pros: Unlike Dacky, Sakadachi is of indeterminate breed.
Cons: Also unlike Dacky, it only knows 13 words of Japanese.

BigDog
Price: $10 million (at least that’s what DARPA paid)
Features: Billed as “the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth,” BigDog can maneuver all manner of terrain, run, jump, climb stairs, and recover from a fall.
Pros: Malia and Sasha could spend countless hours exploring the White House on BigDog's back.
Cons: It’s not commercially available.

In 2004 and 2005 Hwang was regarded as top mind in human cloning. His research seemed to show that he'd been able to clone human embryonic stem cells, a huge accomplishment that would open the door to a new era in cloning and medicine.

That all changed in 2006 when news surfaced that he had fabricated his data and unethically obtained eggs from female researchers working in his lab. Disgraced, he left his prestigious position in academia to go work in animal cloning.

And now he's back, promising to keep your beloved K-9 around in cloned perpetuity for nothing more than a huge outlay of cash. Nevermind that he's already shown himself to be an utterly unethical scientist who will stop at nothing for personal gain (that says something abut the BioArts International's CEO Lou Hawthorne, too, who's got three copies of his dog Missy, pictured). Nevermind the valuable lessons Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to teach us all about the evils of cloning pets in the movie "The Sixth Day."

What's important, Hwang and Hawthorne are telling us, is that instead of saying goodbye to our pets, they can effectively live forever. Profit motive aside, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Source: Associated Press

Christensen writes:

Science fiction fans might consider this to be a commercial business use of the RePet technology used in the film The Sixth Day. The cloning research and work was done by a team of Seoul National University scientists led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun. Now, if only they could master syncording, which is the fictional technology in The Sixth Day that assured that your new RePet was behaviorally identical to your old pet, they wouldn't even need to train them!

Given the black market in imitation pharmaceuticals, it might also be useful to have a dog that could sniff out cloned drugs, too. Imagine a dog that could tell the difference between Pfizer's Viagra, and Bob's black market V1agr@.

Korean Cloned Drug-Sniffing Dogs [Technovelgy]

Something about this video made me think of nice black metal, perhaps from Sweden. I'm not sure why. So I made a little snippet with a new soundtrack.

New Video of BDI's Robot [IEEE Automaton]

The owners of this facility already have about 20 oxygen bars for humans, but decided that our dog friends could benefit from clean air unattainable in cities like Tokyo. The dogs are placed in this glass cylinder and blasted with air for 30 minutes. Then, supposedly, they feel better. Image by AP

Tokyo oxygen bar offers pick-me-up for pooped pups [Reuters]