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In the iconic painting "His Master's Voice(opens in new tab)," a terrier cocks his head as he listens to his owner's voice coming from a gramophone. This gesture is one many dog owners will be familiar with, but why do dogs tilt their heads?

In a 2021 study in the journal Animal Cognition(opens in new tab), researchers in Hungary conducted the first scientific investigation of head-tilting in pooches. They found that dogs may incline their heads as they are remembering details they find meaningful.

"Head tilts in dogs are a fairly known behavior, but the most surprising thing for me was that no one before us investigated it," study lead author Andrea Sommese(opens in new tab), an ethologist (a scientist who studies natural animal behavior) at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, told Live Science.In an earlier 2021 study in the journal Scientific Reports(opens in new tab), Sommese and his colleagues analyzed videos from around the globe in which dog owners asked their pets to fetch them a toy by saying its name. Although 33 pooches were not able to learn the names of any new toys after three months of practice, seven gifted dogs were able to learn more than 10 names during that time, with one female border collie, Whisky, correctly identifying 54 toys.

While conducting the study that appeared in Scientific Reports, the researchers noticed that all 40 of the dogs cocked their heads during the tests. The scientists next investigated when the canines performed these tilts.

In the following Animal Cognition study, the scientists found that the gifted dogs tilted their heads 43% of the time when asked to retrieve a toy by name. The other pooches tilted their heads in only 2% of these cases.

"We are not claiming that only gifted dogs tilt their heads while typical dogs never do it," Sommese said. "Typical dogs also do that, some more often than others, but in this specific situation, when the owner asks for a toy by its name, only the gifted dogs show a nice tilt."

These findings suggest that dog head-tilts are related to sounds the pets have learned to find important. 

"Dogs tilt their heads in a number of situations, but it seems that they do this only when they hear something that is very relevant to them," Sommese said. "It seems that this behavior is strongly associated with sound perception, and it might be something they do when they're trying to listen more closely, or maybe when they are a bit confused, just like humans do."

Here are some highly regarded books on the subject of Russia and its people, society, and culture:

1. "A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924" by Orlando Figes - This book is a comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution, providing insight into the social, economic, and political forces that led to the downfall of the Russian empire.
2. "Russia: A Short History" by Abraham Ascher - This book provides a concise and accessible overview of Russian history, from the earliest days of Kievan Rus to the modern era.
3. "The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature" by Viv Groskop - This book explores the enduring appeal of Russian literature and how it can offer insights into modern life and relationships.
4. "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" by Vasil Bykov - This novel offers a powerful and moving account of life in Soviet Russia during the Second World War.
5. "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - This seminal work provides a harrowing account of life in the Soviet prison system, and has become a powerful symbol of resistance against totalitarianism.
6. "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky - This classic novel explores the nature of innocence, love, and redemption in 19th-century Russia.
7. "The Big Green Tent" by Ludmila Ulitskaya - This novel follows a group of friends in Soviet-era Russia as they navigate the challenges of growing up and finding their place in the world.
8. "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov - This iconic novel weaves together elements of fantasy, satire, and social commentary to explore the complexities of life in Soviet Russia.

These books provide a diverse range of perspectives on Russian history, culture, and society, and offer a valuable insight into this fascinating and complex country.

A fin whale with a severely deformed spine was recently filmed struggling to swim off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. This extreme case of scoliosis was likely caused by a vessel strike and will probably cause the gentle giant to slowly starve, experts say.

The injured, 56-foot-long (17 meters) fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) was spotted March 4 by a boat's crew off a beach at Cullera near Valencia. The boat's captain thought the whale was trapped in a fishing net and alerted the Spanish Civil Guard, who sent out a team of biologists and veterinarians from the Oceanographic Valencia aquarium. After arriving on the scene, it became obvious that the whale was not trapped; Instead, it had "scoliosis of unknown origin," according to a Facebook post

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 from Oceanographic Valencia.

The researchers attempted to put a tracking device on the injured animal's back, but it was too deformed for the satellite tag to successfully attach. After "a few hours of attention," the fin whale slowly headed away from the coast and out into deeper waters where it disappeared from view, Oceanographic Valencia representatives wrote.