[ti:Study: Dogs Can Recognize Heat with ‘Infrared Sensor’ in Their Nose] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Dogs have a kind of sensor on the end of their nose [00:05.84]that helps them recognize small changes in temperature, such as when other animals are nearby. [00:14.84]That information comes from scientists at Lund University in Sweden and Hungary's Eotvos Loránd University. [00:26.00]The scientists say the discovery can help researchers better understand how some animals identify their prey. [00:36.68]The findings appeared in Scientific Reports, a publication produced by Nature Research. [00:46.28]The scientists reported that the wet skin surface at the end of a dog's nose is full of nerve endings. [00:55.72]It works like a kind of infrared sensor, they said. [01:01.72]"Dogs are able to sense the thermal radiation coming from warm bodies or weak thermal radiation [01:10.08]and they can also direct their behavior according to this signal," said Anna Balint. [01:17.32]She was the lead author of the published report. [01:22.48]"We tested whether we can find an area in the brain that shows higher activity if they are exposed to a warmer ... object," she added. [01:33.64]Brain imaging tests showed increased brain activity when dogs were shown objects that were warmer than their surroundings. [01:43.88]The study involved two sets of experiments. [01:48.52]In one, Lund University researchers used weak thermal radiation to train three dogs. [01:57.04]The other, at the Eotvos Loránd University, involved 13 dogs. [02:04.72]They were given functional magnetic resonance imaging tests to see how the brain reacted if they recognized weak thermal radiation. [02:16.68]Researchers were careful to note that all the animals were privately owned. [02:22.96]Owners gave "informed consent for their dogs to be used in the study." [02:29.08]Among the dogs involved in the experiments were golden retrievers and border collies. [02:37.08]Ronald Kroger is a scientist at Lund University. [02:41.92]He noted "it is possible that other carnivorans possess a similar infrared sense [02:49.60]and that adds a new chapter to the story of prey-predator relationships." [02:56.68]The researchers wrote that in the grey wolf, the closest wild relative of domestic dogs, [03:04.52]"the ability to detect the radiation from warm bodies would be advantageous for such predators." [03:13.56]Kroger added, "Predator hunting strategies have to be re-evaluated and the biology of prey animals [03:22.88]has to be revisited with body heat sensing predators in mind." [03:28.80]I'm John Russell. [03:30.56]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM