Archive for January, 2009

Sometimes journalists can be real dogs…

Miscellaneous: January 21st, 2009 by DL

We were tickled to read recent story in the Daily Telegraph citing a Swedish study which, the paper claims:

found strong evidence that breeding for appearance has led to a decline in intelligence  [in dogs].

Intrigued, The Local set about getting in touch with the study’s author, Kenth Svartberg, who, according to the Telegraph, was affiliated with Stockholm University.

But Svartberg wasn’t listed on the school’s personnel roster, although an employee in the biology department told us he had authored a study about dogs back in 2006.

Finally getting in contact with Svartberg, we learned that he no longer works at Stockholm University, but instead operates a dog training business.

He confirmed that the study cited by the Telegraph was published several years ago. What’s more, he was a bit hot under the collar at the way his research had been portrayed.

“The study had nothing to do with intelligence in dogs, per se,” he told The Local.

He claimed the paper had “misrepresented” his findings and suspects it did so in order to contribute to an ongoing debate in the UK  about the breeding of so-called “hand-bag” dogs.

So much for journalists being a man’s best friend.

Egypt: ‘Give back our artifacts’

Miscellaneous: January 21st, 2009 by PO

Cairo has called on a Swedish museum to return more than 200 artworks taken from Egypt by a Swedish collector in the 1920s. AP has the story.

The artifacts, Hawass said, were taken “in an illegal manner” by Otto Smith, a collector who was digging in Egypt at locations such as Saqqara and Luxor in mid 1920s, when there was a huge appetite for Egyptian artifacts in the West.