Even if you’ve never lived with a cat, you can still be subject to their powers of mammalian mind-control. “The Cry Embedded Within the Purr,” Karen McComb, Anna M. Taylor, Christian Wilson, and Benjamin D. Charlton, Current Biology, 19 (13), July 2009, pp. R507-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.033. The authors, from The Centre for Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition […]
Tag: cat
Ten Tops List [videos of spinning tops] — 2011
There are lots of top ten lists, but this is the first Ten Tops List. Here are ten videos of spinning tops that scientists find interesting and or amusing. [Want to take a whirl at learning the science of spinning tops? Download (free) Professor John Perry’s 1890 book Spinning Tops— The “Operatives’ lecture” of the British […]
Cat color and allergies?
Investigator G.J. Reynolds writes: Here’s a nice little set of papers on how the color of a cat affects its owners allergies. First, a 2000 abstract in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunologyestablishing that owners of lighter-colored cats have fewer symptoms than owners of darker-colored cats [one of the authors, Clifford Bassett, is pictured here in lieu […]
Esther the Cold War Kitty
Today we look back at the apocryphal story of Esther the Cold War Kitty (from the Sept/Oct 2004 special Cats issue of the Annals of Improbable Research). First, a bit of introduction: The book Esther the Cold War Kitty is legendary. Written at the height of the Cold War, it was intended as propaganda for children in […]
Dropped-cat research
This video (HT metafilter) shows cats being dropped in low-gravity. BONUS: “Does a Cat Always Land on Its Feet?” published in the Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 4, no. 4.
Dog & cat flea-jump tribute video
Someone made a tribute video, inspired by the 2008 Ig Nobel physics prize winners. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France were honored for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat.
The Curious Case of the Boyfriend and the Replacement Cat
“A Zoocentric Capgras Syndrome” [article in German], U. Ehrt, Psychiatrische Praxis, vol. 26, no. 1, January 1999, pp. 43–4. The authors, who are at Klinik und Poliklinik fur Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Halle/Saale, Germany, report that: “We present a case of a 23-year-old women who had the delusional belief that her cat had been replaced by […]
Legal poser: feline intent
The prosecution and defense wrangled repeatedly about whether witnesses could accurately assess the cat’s state of mind. So says a November 13, 2007 New York Times report about the trial of “bird-watching enthusiast” James M. Stevenson in Galveston, Texas. NOTE: the Times reported further details on December 2 of that same year. (Thanks to investigator […]