Dogs Caught Coronavirus From Their Owners, Genetic Analysis Suggests

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May 15, 2020

Dear Reader, Two dogs reported to have coronavirus likely caught it from their owners, according to researchers who studied the animals and members of the infected households. The analysis, covered in our main story, showed no evidence that dogs can pass the infection to other dogs or people. Bats on the other hand have been the source of an eyebrow-raising number of disease outbreaks. But the authors of an op-ed featured in today's roundup say bats get a bad rap. They argue that hostile attitudes toward the mammal make it harder to conserve them. Also, there are many critical benefits they provide us, which you can read about below. Then, for some more animal news, check out the latest episode of our podcast "60-Second Science" to learn about how baby barn owls share their food.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Public Health Dogs Caught Coronavirus From Their Owners, Genetic Analysis Suggests There is no evidence that dogs can pass the virus to people, however By Smriti Mallapaty,Nature magazine

Conservation Bats Are Not Our Enemies The viruses they carry spill over into humans mostly when we encroach on their territory or drag them into ours—and bats do great good as well By Timothy Treuer,Ricardo Rocha,Cara Brook

Expanding Paved Areas Has an Outsize Effect on Urban Flooding Researchers have finally been able to pinpoint just how much impervious surfaces exacerbate flood levels By Erica Gies

Barn Owl Babies Can Be Helpful Hatch Mates Food sharing is mainly found in adult animals as a part of social bonding. But in a rarely observed behavior in birds, older barn owl chicks will share food with younger ones. By Jason G. Goldman

Behavior & Society The Surprising Power of Social Outreach Many of us underestimate how positively others will respond when we try it By Nicholas Epley

We're Being Tested President Trump pointed out yesterday that if we didn't do any testing for the virus we would have very few cases, which forces us to confront the issues posed by testing in general. By Steve Mirsky

FROM THE STORE Ask the Experts: Astronomy This second eBook in our Ask the Experts series – Astronomy – looks skyward and explains a variety of universal phenomena and theories. Questions on stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies, black holes, space exploration and more are answered in this collection.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Electric Street Cars Are More Efficient than Horses Originally published in June 1899 | May 2020

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The virus seems to have a fairly broad host range. Dogs, cats and other closely related mammalian species could be susceptible and form a bridge between bats and humans." Malik Peiris, virologist at the University of Hong Kong

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