Do people and their dogs really look alike?

Question: Is there any truth to the old folk wisdom that people and their dogs tend to look alike?

Answer: Bulldog-faced Winston Churchill is often cited as an example of this, but the problem is Churchill did not own a bulldog, says psychologist Stanley Coren in "Why We Love the Dogs We Do." His beloved Rufus was a poodle, with narrow pointed muzzle, clear unwrinkled face and close-set eyes — not the image of his master.

But, argues Coren, people come to love their own face generally, so much so that some experts believe that children who look very much like one of their parents tend to be favored by that parent. And it might suggest that if the general features of a certain breed of dog match our own face, we'll feel a little warmer toward those dogs.

Not a lot of scientific work has been done on this, but Coren himself studied the reactions of 104 university women to slides of four different dog breeds. In general the women with longer hair that covered their ears and framed their face preferred the English Springer Spaniel and the Beagle with their longer lopped ears. They rated the dogs as more likable, friendly, loyal and intelligent. Women with shorter hair and visible ears, however, favored the Siberian Husky and the Basenji with their clearly visible pricked ears. "We are not talking about a universal preference, but it is statistically reliable."

Question: From a San Diego reader: "With human technology what it is today, why can't we just filter the salt from the oceans and make potable water for arid parts of the world?"

Answer: We're indeed doing this, via "desalination" using flash-distillation (picture a kettle boiling the water and the steam then condensed into water) as in Saudi Arabia with much cheap oil for energy, or via reverse osmosis using a membrane to filter out the salt, says University of California-Berkeley environmental engineer John Dracup.

Three problems with desalination: 1. Due to the energy requirements, it is an expensive process; 2. Ocean desalination occurs at sea level whereas most water supplies occur in the mountains or at a higher elevation and flow by gravity down to the customers. "Therefore, you have to pump the water up to where you want it, again expensive"; 3. The residual brine is categorized as a pollutant and difficult to get rid of. "You can't just dump it back into the ocean."

So, yes, "water, water everywhere" but not quite ready to drink.

Question: How has misunderstanding the "law of large numbers" been the ruin of many a gambler?