Contagious Yawning in African Elephants Responses to Other Elephants and Familiar Humans.

While spontaneous yawning is common across all vertebrate classes, contagious yawning is less common and has been observed only in a few species of social animals. Interspecific contagious yawning in response to yawning by humans has been observed only by chimpanzees and dogs. After confirming additional occurrences of intraspecific contagious yawning in a group of captive African elephants previously studied, we further investigated the potential for the same group of elephants to engage in interspecific contagious yawning with familiar human handlers.

Elephant-Initiated Interactions with Humans: Individual Differences and Specific Preferences in Captive African Elephants ().

South Africa has seen a recent increase in the number of African elephants () maintained in reserves and parks and managed in free contact, where they may spend a significant amount of time in close proximity to humans. This study investigates how individual elephants choose to initiate interactions with humans by examining whether interaction types and frequencies vary both between elephants and with regards to the category of human involved in the interaction. Observations were made on a herd of seven captive African elephants frequently exposed to elephant handlers (guides), volunteers (who carry out general observations for the park's research unit), and tourists.

When Yawning Occurs in Elephants.

Yawning is a widely recognized behavior in mammalian species. One would expect that elephants yawn, although to our knowledge, no one has reported observations of yawning in any species of elephant. After confirming a behavioral pattern matching the criteria of yawning in two Asian elephants () in a zoological setting, this study was pursued with nine captive African elephants () at a private reserve in the Western Cape, South Africa, the Knysna Elephant Park.

Is there a causal relationship between the hypoxia-ischaemia associated with cardiorespiratory arrest and subdural haematomas? An observational study.

The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of subdural haematomas (SDHs) occurring in infants presenting following atraumatic cardiorespiratory collapse. This study was a review of retrospective case notes, brain imaging and post-mortem examinations carried out in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and emergency department (ED) in a tertiary paediatric centre in the UK. The study included infants and children less than 4 years old dying in the ED or admitted to the PICU after atraumatic cardiorespiratory arrest.

Methadone toxicity in infants: a report of two fatalities.

Fatalities in infants resulting from methadone toxicity are rare within the United Kingdom. We report two cases of fatality attributed to methadone toxicity in infants aged 3(1/2) and 15 months of age, respectively. One of the two cases was also associated with diazepam ingestion.