Here are two interesting articles I read today:

(1) “Moscow’s Stray Dogs” [Financial Times] – a descriptive and insightful look into the population of roughly 35,000 stray dogs in Moscow. The articles goes in depth into the four types of dogs roaming the streets of Moscow (based on the dogs’ character, how they forage for food, their level of socialization to people, and the ecological niche they inhabit). What was most interesting to me was reading about the evolution of the dogs. Most intriguing are the Moscow Metro dogs:

They orient themselves in a number of way…They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer’s voice and by time intervals. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it’s Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their ­biological clocks.

The metro dog also has uncannily good instincts about people, happily greeting kindly passers by, but slinking down the furthest escalator to avoid the intolerant older women who oversee the metro’s electronic turnstiles.

(2) “Underwater, but Will They Leave the Pool?” [New York Times] – an interesting look into why the mortgage default rates are so low.