Goats friendlier for happy human faces

If you're worried about menacing gangs of goats roaming the moor, here's how to sweeten the savage beasts: smile. Scientists found that "goats are drawn to humans with happy facial expressions."

The team showed goats pairs of photos of the same person, one of them featuring an angry expression, and the other a happy demeanour. The goats in the study made a beeline for the happy faces, the researchers report in the journal Open Science. The result implies that the ability of animals to perceive human facial cues is not limited to those with a long history of working as human companions, such as dogs and horses.