Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I’ve written before about the Bag of Nails pub in Bristol (see here and here), which became famous because it featured more than a dozen moggies roaming about. The customers loved it (who wouldn’t?), and I even induced a reader to visit and send me a photo of himself enjoying a pint among the cats (see second link above). It closed for a while during the pandemic, and I was worried, but it’s now open again and doing better than ever.
This new article from BristolLIVE (click on screenshot) shows that the Bag of Nails has become even more famous, with people from around the world droppping in. I tell you, putting cats in a shop or business (if they’re allowed) is the best way to make it grow.
Quotes are indented:
When landlord Luke Daniels took over the Bag of Nails pub in Hotwells in 2012, he never thought it would become home to 14 felines, let alone a destination for cat tourists to visit in their droves. Bag of Nails on St George’s Road started out as a traditional real ale boozer, and after Luke took in one of his friend’s cats, Malcom, the feline residents grew over the years with as many as 24 at one time after the arrival of several litters.
What started as Bristol’s best-kept secret exploded with a flurry of national media attention that stemmed from an article in the Bristol Evening Post in 2015. “From that moment onwards my life went completely mental for six months straight,” Luke remembered. His phone was ringing non-stop with national papers all hoping to get the story.
Bag of Nails went global having been picked up by dozens of websites in Russia, Thailand and Japan, with two Japanese film crews visiting in 2016. “For about six months, the pub was rammed. The furthest distance someone travelled just to come to our pub was Tokyo. Imagine someone flying all that way just to see the Bag of Nails? It’s just a bit mad.”
Photo: Dan Regan/BristolLive
The clientele is mixed, Luke said. “With our customers, it’s about half cat tourists, half people who like good beer and good music.” ‘Cat tourism’ is one of the latest travel phenomena to grip the world.
There are hundreds of cat cafes, hotels and attractions that charge entry – Bristol once had You&Meow, a cafe inspired by Japanese zen gardens – but the Bag of Nails is different. In reality, it’s just a traditional boozer where cats happen to live.
Luke moved in above the pub at the start of the pandemic to take care of the cats while it was closed. “The lockdown was obviously quite difficult but it was difficult for all of the pubs, but very quickly we started doing takeaway beer. As soon as the Government said breweries with taprooms are allowed to do takeaway beer I thought ‘we have the same licence, we must be able to do it as well’.”
Photo: James Beck/Freelance
The pub lies on the boundary of the Clean Air Zone, and Luke believes a loading bay near the pub is just outside of the CAZ. Fortunately, Bag of Nails has found a local brewery that can sell quality beers for a sensible price, meaning that pints of ale stays low.
Luke added: “We’re going to always try and have Cheddar Ales for £3.50 a pint so that there’s always an affordable option for people. I think that’s quite important at the minute, some people have got money and some people just don’t anymore.”
But do they have Tim Taylor’s Landlord. If they did, I’d just move in and never leave. Here’s the publican, Luke Daniels:
Photo: James Beck/Freelance
Along with its strong range of real ales and its resident cats, the pub is also known for its very specific set of rules – some of which are not printable – including ‘No Scientology’ and ‘Babies and toddlers must be stored in the cellar’. Most of the rules have stayed the same apart from one rule – ‘No mobile phones’.
“People keep on breaking this rule. During the World Cup, some people came in and started watching a match at top volume on their phone. I had to ask them to turn it down because there were other people in the pub who don’t want to watch it.”
It’s known for being a sport-free pub that prioritises good music. Luke recently acquired a gramophone meaning they can play original 78s and LPs. It’s also popular for its extensive board game selection and has recently started a Monday poker night.
Bag of Nails is certainly unique due to its furry residents who live rent-free, but besides being a cat pub, prioritises quality, local breweries above all. It’s garnered a following beyond cat tourism which means it’s cemented itself as a pub to stay within the Hotwells area.
If you want to go there, and you should if you’re not that far, it’s at 141 St George’s Rd, Hotwells, Bristol (BS1 5UW). Here’s a photo from WhatPub, and the pub’s Facebook page is here.
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From I Heart Cats comes a collection of great teeshirts for cat lovers (they don’t just have to be for men!):
Sadly, they don’t tell you where you can order them, but I suppose a Google Image Search will help you out. Here are my favorite six:
. . . and the “if it fits, I sits” classic:
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Here from Open Culture is an article of tremendous historical interest: a compilation of cat names used in the Middle Ages (you may be familiar with Pangur Bán). Click to read; I’ve indented excerpts.
The text:
“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,” declares the opening poem in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. But the possibilities are many and varied: “Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James”; “Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter”; “Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat.” Things must have been less complicated in the Middle Ages, when you could just call a cat Gyb and be done with it. “The shortened form of the male name Gilbert, Gyb” explains Kathleen Walker-Meikle in Medieval Cats, dates as “a popular name for individual pet cats” at least back to the late fourteenth century.
In a slightly different form, the name even appears in Shakespeare, when Falstaff describes himself as “as melancholy as a gib cat.” Gyb’s equivalent across the Chanel was Tibers or Tibert; the sixteenth-century French poet Joachim du Bellay kept a “beloved gray cat” named Belaud.
Legal texts reveal that the Irish went in for “cat names that refer to the animal’s physical appearance,” like Méone (“little meow”), Cruibne (“little paws”), and Bréone (“little flame”). Walker-Meikle also highlights Pangur Bán, a cat “immortalized in a ninth-century poem by an Irish monk.” This hymn to the parallel skills of human and feline begins, in Seamus Heaney’s English translation, as follows:
Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.
I like Auden’s translation better, and I’ve put it below.
Frequent Open Culture readers may be reminded of the twelfth-century Chinese poet who wrote of being domesticated by his own cats, verses we featured here a few years ago. More recently, we put up a list of 1,065 Medieval dog names, which run the gamut from Garlik, Nosewise, and Hosewife to Hornyball, Argument, and Filthe. You’ll notice that the names given to dogs in the Middle Ages seem to have been more amusing, if less dignified, than the ones given to cats. Perhaps this reflects the strong, clearly centuries-and-centuries-old differences between the natures of the animals themselves, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. But whatever our preferences in that area, who among us couldn’t do with a Pangur Bán of our own?
This link gives the Pangur Bán poem (the name means “white Pangur”) in the original old Irish text, and below is the original transcription by an Irish monk living in Germany: (I’ve indicated the poem):
Samuel Barber turned the English version of the poem into one of his “Hermit Songs“; below is a beautiful version by Barbara Bonney with André Previn at the keyboard. I love the poem because it compares a scholar’s efforts to study with a cat’s efforts to catch a mouse. The lyrics are Auden’s version, the best translation I know of. I rate this poem, along with “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry” (a fragment of Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno) as the two best cat poems ever.
The Monk and His Cat
adapted by W. H. Auden from an 8th or 9th century anonymous Irish text
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me, study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art
Neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever
Without tedium and envy.
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are,
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
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Lagniappe: Readers’ cats in Boxes.
Here’s reader Divy’s cat Jango, playing a homeless moggy. As she said, “This is what happens when you leave an unattended box. He kept hanging out there so much that I placed the little cup next to it. He didn’t mind” Note what’s written on the cup:
And here’s reader Merilee’s 18-pound chonk named Booker T, in a photo called “Even if I don’t fits. . .”
From Deborah:
This is Morrie (of (Morrie’s Bar & Grille) recovering from a catnip hangover. He owns the joint, so he sleeps it off in his box on top of the video game, in a sunbeam by morning. And he never lacks company, since thanks to his beer goggles, all girl cats become Persians at last call.
From I Heart Catswe have a passel of pictures of well-known men or simply good-looking men, all with their their cats, proving that hot guys can still be tender toward moggies. Click to read, and I’ll put some specimens below:
Robert Downey, Jr.: “Robert Downey Jr. says his “cat lover cred goes way back” …
Not only is Franco a book lover, but he’s a cat lover as well. His two cats, Sammy and Zelda, reportedly earned their names from literary sources. Smart is sexy, so is a soft spot for felines…
Speaking of a soft spot for cats, The Cat Rapper Moshow is all kinds of handsome with his love of cats and his respect for women. He’s raising Black $avage, Sushi, Lil Parmesan, Mega Mam, and DJ Ravioli to be fine cats who give back…
Some years ago, it was reported the Dogg Father was actually a cat lover. Snoop spoils his two Siamese cats, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra. Here, we see the handsome Dogg and his tuxedo friend…
Just when we thought Chris Hemsworth couldn’t be any cuter, he goes and poses with cats…
If you like these, see a lot more on the Hot Dudes With Cats Instagram page.
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From NPR(!). Click on headline to read:
An excerpt:
Jessica Gerson-Neeves and her wife, Nikii, are really looking forward to using their new Vitamix blender to whip up smoothies and soups. In fact, the highly anticipated Black Friday purchase has recently become the focal point of their kitchen at home in British Columbia, Canada.
There’s just one problem: They can’t actually unpack it.
“It arrived in the mail on Dec. 16, and I brought it inside and set the box down on the kitchen floor for just a quick second,” Gerson-Neeves says. “And that was a month ago.”
The cardboard box has become the site of a weekslong turf war between the couple and their three cats, in a saga that has garnered thousands of invested followers on social media.
The posts read like dispatches from the front lines of a high-stakes battle, documenting the trio’s every move and their humans’ unsuccessful attempts to disrupt them.
The youngest troublemaker is Max, a tuxedo cat with the alias “sentient soccer ball.” Then there’s George, Destroyer of Worlds (“that’s what’s on his tag,” Gerson-Neeves says), also known as “sentient potato.” Rounding out the group is Lando Calrissian, who moonlights in the posts as “questionably sentient dust bunny” because, according to Gerson-Neeves, “he has a lot of fluff and very few thoughts.”
The cats’ page has grown from 64 followers to some 25,000, as people around the world learn about the story.
Gerson-Neeves stressed in a phone interview that the cats aren’t literally holding the Vitamix hostage. They could, of course, be hoisted off the box at any point. But she says she and her wife aren’t in a rush to end the stalemate since it’s providing some much-needed levity.
It all began, Gerson-Neeves says, when Max hopped on the Vitamix box as soon as she put it down that fateful December day. Like any besotted cat owner, she thought it was adorable and snapped a picture, which she posted to a cat-lovers Facebook group.
“I posted it with a tongue-in-cheek caption about how this was breaking news, which clearly this was not, and by the next day I think about 10,000 people had interacted with the post,” she explains.
She wrote jokingly in the original post that she would provide updates if the standoff continued, and members of the group held her to that promise, even as days turned into weeks.
There’s a lot more at the NPR site, including a report that the blender company, when informed of this hostage situation, sent Geerson-Neves family THREE empty blender boxes so they could reclaim their appliance. Here’s Jessica’s report to Vitamix that elicited the sending of boxes.
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From the BBC. It doesn’t really explain “why some cats just go where they want,” but gives three classes of wandering moggies, “supermarket cats,” “hospital cats,” and “cat burglars,” with several examples of each. Click to read; I’ll give one cat from each genre:
Henry the Hospital Cat:
Cats in a clinical setting are probably not ideal, but for more than five years fluffy ginger cat Henry has been a regular visitor to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge – with more than 5,000 followers on his Facebook page.
Although he has a comfortable home nearby, the seven-year-old has made the hospital site his second home – despite being put outside whenever he’s spotted patrolling the corridors.
Bosses at Addenbrooke’s continue to embrace Henry as one of their own and acknowledge the cat “does seem to have found a place in the hearts of many of our staff and patients” – but they are keen that he is not encouraged inside.
“In any hospital, the administrators will be thinking about allergies, but on the other hand there’s the consideration about how popular Henry is and at times of stress, cats genuinely are stress relievers,” Mr Tabor says.
“Of course, you can try to police a cat, but in an environment with revolving or open doors, it’s very difficult. It’s a real dilemma.”
Garfield the Supermarket Cat:
Ginger cat Garfield. . . found fame at Sainsbury’s in Ely. Garfield – “Mr Sainsbury’s” – amassed thousands of followers on social media before his death in 2019
Cat expert Roger Tabor, from Brightlingsea in Essex, says the reason they chose supermarkets is because “both these cats are very social animals, which doesn’t happen unless they’re socialised with people very early on”.
Theo the Cat Burglar:
Theo is a 13-year-old Siamese cross who has been terrorising parts of Ipswich with his thieving ways and embarrassing his owners for years.
He is a cat burglar – a kleptomaniac kitty who apparently cannot be reformed.
Theo has been known to break into neighbours’ homes through open windows or cat flaps and bring home any treasures he can find, from soft toys to cash and Christmas decorations.
“Cat burglars like Theo are rare – but they make headline news,” Mr Tabor says.
“With cats like this, the normal developmental pattern in the very early weeks didn’t happen and while he wants to hunt and retrieve things, he’s become fixated on toys which he thinks of as prey.
“From the cat’s point of view, he’s not a thief, he’s just behaving normally.”
Theo shows no signs of mending his criminal ways.
“At the moment he likes to visit my neighbour and steal his cats’ Kevin the Carrot soft toys,” Ms Drouet says.
“We’ve talked to Theo about his thieving, but I don’t think even he knows why he does it.
“He definitely has a shifty look about him – maybe his dad came from the wrong side of the tracks and it’s genetic.”
A pair of medieval gold earrings shaped like lynxes with minutely intricate decoration are going on display for the first time since they were discovered near the medieval Armenian city of Ani in eastern Turkey.
The gold lynx earrings were discovered in the village of Subatan, less than 10 miles away from Ani on the Silk Road route that traverses the ruins of the citadel. They weigh 22 grams and are decorated with star, teardrop and crescent shapes applied in granulation technique. They are exquisite examples of medieval Armenian art. The museum acquired the earrings in 1994, but they have been kept in protective storage.
Here’s a thread of artwork showing cats destroying stuff through history. Cats have been cats ever since they were domesticated—or rather, domesticated themselves—about 10,000 years ago. A few tweets from the thread:
Here is a thread of cats destroying our stuff throughout history, because they've always done it and they always will and for some reason we will keep loving them for it.
Here’s a chess-playing bot cat that’s the subject of a Wall Street Journal article, complete with a video. Click on the screenshot to read:
An excerpt:
The heels of the chess world have included Soviet grandmasters, alleged cheaters, and faceless supercomputers. But the game’s latest villain is a fearsome genius who quotes French cinema and has played millions of games in just a couple of weeks.
She also happens to be a mean cat.
Mittens—or technically the chess bot known as Mittens—might look cute. Her listed chess rating of a single point seems innocuous. But her play over the past few weeks, which has bedeviled regular pawn-pushers, grandmasters, and champions who could play for the world title, is downright terrifying. And as it turns out, people are gluttons for punishment.
Since Chess.com introduced this bot with the avatar of a cuddly, big-eyed kitten on Jan. 1, the obsession with playing her has been astonishing. Mittens has crashed the website through its sheer popularity and helped drive more people to play chess than even “The Queen’s Gambit.” Chess.com has averaged 27.5 million games played per day in January and is on track for more than 850 million games this month—40% more than any month in the company’s history. A video that American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura posted to YouTube titled “Mittens The Chess Bot Will Make You Quit Chess” has already racked up more than three million views.
When you play Mittens, she is arrogant and sarcastic, as a cat would be. Here’s a screenshot after a move from the video below.
(From WSJ): screenshot of a chess game against the Mittens chess bot PHOTO: CHESS.COM
None of those moments have driven people to virtual chess boards quite like a cat named Mittens who likes to taunt her opponents while she destroys them.
“I am inevitable. I am forever. Meow. Hehehehe,” Mittens tells her opponents in the chat function of games.
And the 22-minute video showing a game:
More about the nefarious catbot:
This particular bot was the brainchild of a Hamilton College student named Will Whalen who moonlights as a creative strategy lead. He had a crazy idea. What if they put an incredibly strong bot behind some devastatingly cute eyes?
“Then Mittens was born,” Whalen says.
But Mittens didn’t become a brutal troll until a Chess.com writer named Sean Becker led a team that developed Mittens’s personality to become the evil genius tormenting chess players everywhere. Part of why Mittens has become such a notorious villain is because she acts like one.
Mittens doesn’t purr. She references ominous lines from Robert Oppenheimer, Van Gogh, and even a 1960s Franco-Italian film called “Le Samourai.”
“Meow. Gaze into the long abyss. Hehehehe,” Mittens says, quoting German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Even her approach to the game is menacing. Mittens is designed to be skillful enough to beat the best chess players on the planet but uses particularly grueling tactics. Becker thought it would be “way more demoralizing and funny” if, instead of simply smashing opponents, Mittens grinded down opponents through painstaking positional battles, similar to the tactics Russian grandmaster Anatoly Karpov used to become world champion.
Try your hand! If you’re a chess aficionado, can you beat Mittens?
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Here’s a video of moggy getting foiled by the childproof lock on the microwave. But why does the cat want in so badly? The answer is below. You know that the cat eventually would have dragged the microwave off the edge had the filmer not been there to stop him.
The YouTube notes from ViralHog:
“Bentley is a 4-year-old Himalayan who we worked with a local rescue to rescue from the streets. Through Facebook, we confirmed he has no owner so we stepped in, after already having 4 cats we thought, ‘What’s one more?’ Bentley is the sweetest cat but has a strong affinity for finding food, probably due to his time surviving outside. He once got pizza out of our microwave and that is when we learned he could open it. We didn’t want to have to buy a new one since we just got that one, so we put a child lock on it. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy about that and was determined to get the microwave open”
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Lagniappe: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, showing a sense of humor, published a 2023 cat calendar. The pdf is free to download, so you don’t have to pay for it.
The US Army Corps of Engineers’s Portland District published its annual calendar with striking photos of big projects across the region… enhanced with giant cats. Download the PDF here.
“Engineering is not that exciting,” public affairs specialist Chris Gaylord told Today.com. “We all believe that what we do is very important, and that’s the reason we don’t take our social media so seriously.”
Great attitude although I, for one, find massive dams, monstrous construction equipment, and huge ships to be quite exciting.
This article from last October’s Atlantic (click below to read) recounts the disappearance of cat allergies in author Katherine Wu. She was strongly allergic to cats until her early twenties, and poof!—the allergy disappeared. (This happens with some allergies: I used to get covered with poison ivy pustules when I was a kid, even if I so much as looked at the stuff, but now I can walk through groves of it without a reaction.)
From her article:
What I went through is, technically speaking, “completely weird,” says Kimberly Blumenthal, an allergist and immunologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Some allergies do naturally fade with time, but short of allergy shots, which don’t always work, “we think of cat allergy as a permanent diagnosis,” Blumenthal told me. One solution that’s often proposed? “Get rid of your cat.”
My case is an anomaly, but its oddness is not. Although experts have a broad sense of how allergies play out in the body, far less is known about what causes them to come and go—an enigma that’s becoming more worrying as rates of allergy continue to climb. Nailing down how, when, and why these chronic conditions vanish could help researchers engineer those circumstances more often for allergy sufferers—in ways that are actually under our control, and not just by chance.
She describes the immune reaction, with involves producing the antiboy IgE:
People whose bodies make less IgE over time can become less sensitive to allergens. The same seems to be true for those who start producing more of another antibody, called IgG4, that can counteract IgE. Some people also dispatch a molecule known as IL-10 that can tell immune cells to cool their heels even in the midst of IgE’s perpetual scream.
All this and more can eventually persuade a body to lose its phobia of an allergen, a phenomenon known as tolerance. But because there is not a single way in which allergy manifests, it stands to reason that there won’t be a single way in which it disappears. “We don’t fully understand how these things go away,” says Zachary Rubin, a pediatrician at Oak Brook Allergists, in Illinois.
. . . Other allergies are more likely to be lifers without dedicated intervention—among them, issues with peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, pollen, and pets. Part of the reason may be that some of these allergens are super tough to neutralize or purge. The main cat allergen, a protein called “Fel d 1” that’s found in feline saliva, urine, and gland secretions, can linger for six months after a cat vacates the premises. It can get airborne, and glom on to surfaces; it’s been found in schools and churches and buses and hospitals, “even in space,” Blumenthal told me.
Wu describes various treatments, like exposure to small amounts of cat antigens, which have mixed success. Or you can get one of the cat breeds that is hypoallergenic. But now, as Smithsonian reports, researchers are trying to genetically engineer cats to be even less allergy-provoking:
InBio, a United States biotech company, has found a way to block genes responsible for a major cat allergen using CRISPR, a genetic engineering technique that allows scientists to add or remove bits of DNA at a specific location in an organism’s genome. Gizmodo’s Ed Cara reports the find is the first step toward hypoallergenic cats as healthy as felines with unedited genes. Details on the project called CRISPR Cat were published this month in The CRISPR Journal.
This involves removing two genes that, in cat saliva, cause allergies in humans:
The two genes that code for Fel d 1 are CH1 and CH2. Researchers at InBio are working on using CRISPR to create cats that produce little-to-no Fel d 1. After analyzing the DNA of 50 domestic cats, researchers identified regions along the two genes that the team could cut and edit with CRISPR, per Gizmodo. CRISPR technology uses an enzyme called Cas9 to cut the two strands of DNA at a target site on the genome so that sections of DNA can be inserted or deleted.
When the team compared the genes of the domestic cats with eight wild cat species, the researchers found variation between the groups, suggesting that Fel d 1 is not a needed gene for the cats to survive and removing it may not cause any health risks, Gizmodo reports.
Three issues here. First, they’d really need to do long-term studies of the genetically edited cats. Proteins are usually there for a reason, and there may be long-term risks to simply removing these genes. Second, if the editing removes the genes from the body but not the germ cells, the cats wouldn’t be able to pass on the edited DNA, and the next generation of cats would have Fel d1. That means you couldn’t breed a line of such cats, but would have to buy them from the company each generation. (And of course no company is going to sell germ-line-edited hypoallergenic cats, as they’d put themselves out of business!) Finally, these cats would, given the technology needed to make them, be insanely expensive.
My suggestion: if you’re a true ailurophile, live with the allergy or get a hypoallergenic cat.
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This article, from Skeptical Inquirer (click to read) describes how a cat toy was being repackaged and sold at a higher price to be used as a device to contact spirits. The people who complained about this were, bizarrely, people who believe in spiritualism and the paranormal. Click to read.
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Click to read:
The latest rebranded device first came to my attention by way of Earthbound Voices Paranormal, a husband-and-wife paranormal team from the Kansas City area (with several more teams also contacting me later). They were concerned that a light-up cat toy, sold by Ethical Products Inc., was being repackaged as a new paranormal device—and at a higher price (which is often the case). After some conversation, I was asked if I would investigate this particular device. I was supplied links to both the paranormal device and the cat toy suspected of rebranding. It wasn’t hard to see how similar the two products were, so I decided to take a closer look and ordered both products (several of each, so I could test them).
The gadget in question is called The Vibration Activated Light Sphere from Des-Tech Paranormal Research Equipment. Des-Tech is run by Cody Ray DesBiens, a ghost hunter from the Boston, Massachusetts, area involved with two ghost hunting groups based out of Rhode Island: the Rhode Island Society for the Examination of Unusual Phenomena and The Atlantic Paranormal Society (known for their TV series Ghost Hunters). On his Facebook page, he states he “specializes in audio and investigation technology with knowledge in electronics and physics.”
Looking closer at the Vibration Sphere device, it is described on the package as “the easiest device for spirit communication!” The device resembles a clear, plastic golf ball measuring one and a half inches in diameter. Inside the ball, we find a circuit board with three LEDs, a push-button on/off switch, three AG3 batteries, and a tilt sensor. When the switched is turned on, three LEDs blink sporadically for five seconds whenever the ball is disturbed.
Here’s the “toy”/paranormal device:
The author took apart both devices and also field-tested them. They are virtually identical except for one slight difference, and are made in exactly the same way. Only one component differs. The way these things work is that they light up when the cat bats them in a certain way, but one can also pretend that they light up when you’ve contacted a spirit. They have different sensitivities to movement, that’s all:
After receiving both the Light Sphere paranormal devices and Ethical Products’ cat toys, I disassembled both devices to get a better look at the internal components. It was obvious these devices came from the same supplier, as they used the same parts with only the circuit board being a slightly different style; most likely this was due to a different production run or a supplier switching manufacturers.
The field test:
Now that I knew where these products came from and confirmed that they were indeed cheap cat toys, I wanted to test them side-by-side. DesBiens and the packaging of his version make conflicting claims; in his initial response to me, DesBiens states a new accelerometer—which isn’t actually present—was used to “make it more efficient and not as sensitive for an investigation environment.” However, the front packaging of his device states “Sensitive to even the slightest movement.” I set out to see if there was a difference between the two versions and if so, which was the more sensitive.
I set up three of the balls I purchased from Ethical Product, Inc. alongside two from Des-Tech, on the floor in my living room. All balls were marked according to where I purchased them, and I set a video camera on them for the next few hours. I allowed this simple test to run throughout the day; amid the daily routine of a family consisting of two adults, one teenager, and a small dog; walking, going up and down the stairs, chasing toys—the dog, not me—and even sitting still while delivery trucks came down the street. Initial results showed the Des-Tech version was triggered a lot more than the other. However, once I changed the orientation of the balls—and hence the angle of the internal tilt sensor—I found the results became random; both versions were set off by different actions. Activation of the balls really depended on how the tilt sensor was situated. Even the act of shifting my body while in a seated position on the floor would cause the ball to light up in some positions, while not in a different position.
The conclusion: the spirit finder is just a cat toy with a different sensitivity to motion. It doesn’t detect spirits. And sold as a paranormal device, it costs about four times what it costs as a cat toy:
So, what’s the point of investigating this? Well, people from the hobby of ghost hunting were curious about someone upselling a cheap toy and reached out asking for help. That’s usually good enough for me. This is the sort of thing I like digging into. For example, in the contest video I mentioned earlier, DesBiens specifically states “We’ve had our manufacturer install … ” (Des-Tech 2019), giving the viewer the impression that he came up with this device himself, when he obviously did not. On March 1, 2019, the Des-Tech Paranormal Research Equipment Facebook page posted: “In 2018 Cody founded Des-Tech Paranormal Research Equipment, a company devoted to the creation and distribution of new technology for paranormal research.” The only device available for sale, as of this writing, is the Vibration Activated Light Sphere; something he did not create and is certainly not new technology.
Something else that bothered me was the simple fact this is a cheap cat toy, which can be purchased online for as little as $3.49 (Chewy.com), while the rebranded version is being sold for $11.04. I purchased a three-pack (for testing) from Amazon for $13. If you really want to play with a light-up ball, you can find similar balls at toy stores, pet stores, and even drug stores; I found a large bin of them at Rite Aid for $1.50 each.
Read the article if you want to see the enormous trouble that author Biddle went to, repeatedly contacting the manufacturer and sellers, to take the mickey out of this toy.
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We Love Cats and kitten has a very short report on a duck that takes care of kittens,
This has to be one of the most heart warming videos I have ever seen.
The people that run Lucky Duck Rescue came across five kittens all alone, they had obviously been abandoned.
They weren’t sure what to do with them but were anxious to keep them warm, so they put them in the dog bed that belonged to Harry, one of the resident ducks.
But what Harry did next was something completely unexpected to everyone.
He took these tiny newborn babies under his wing and nurtured them as if they were his own children.
It seems animals are teaching us lessons all the time.
They learn quickly how to interact with different species with love.
Meanwhile, humans still keep on living with the illusion that only humans are important.
It is so sweet and shows us that it doesn’t matter what species you are, it’s love that makes a family.
Umm. . . . what about the lesson that a duck doesn’t have the ability to lactate and feed the kittens? That isn’t even mentioned in this story. I presume there was an alternative to feed the moggies. But none of the commenters even mention this problem!
Here’s the video, which is cute. The music starts 42 seconds in. But WHO FED THE KITTENS? Watching for two or three minutes will give you the idea. The lesson from this is that ducks are awesome, but are no substitute for a mother cat!
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Lagniappe: A cat saves his d*g friend by chasing away another d*g attacking it.
From CNN (and many other places like this one), we hear about the Guinness Officially Designated World’s Oldest Living Cat. Her name is Flossie, and, as of November 25, was the official Senior-est Cat on the planet.
Click to read:
From CNN:
Flossie, at the age of almost 27 – which is the feline equivalent of being 120 human years old, according to Guinness World Records – has been crowned the world’s oldest living cat.
The British brown and black cat received official recognition from Guinness World Records on Thursday at the record-breaking age of 26 years and 329 days, according to a news release. Although she’s poorly sighted and deaf, she is reportedly in good health.
“I knew from the start that Flossie was a special cat, but I didn’t imagine I’d share my home with a world record holder,” said owner Vicki Green, who adopted her after the elderly pet was handed in to UK cat welfare charity Cats Protection in August.
“She’s so affectionate and playful, especially sweet when you remember how old she is. I’m immensely proud that Cats Protection matched me with such an amazing cat,” she added.
At the age of 26 years and 329 day, Flossie has been recognized as the oldest cat alive.
Flossie has been in several homes since living as a stray kitten close to Merseyside hospital in Liverpool, northwestern England, in the first few months of her life in 1995.
She was adopted by a worker at the hospital, who she lived with for 10 years before her owner died. Flossie was taken in by her late owner’s sister. After 14 years, her second owner died. She was then with her second owner’s son for three years, before being entrusted to volunteers at Cats Protection.
“I didn’t imagine I’d share my home with a world record holder,” said Flossie’s owner Vicki Green. Photo: Cats Protection/Guinness World Records
That is when word of her incredible age began to spread and the journey to confirm her record began.
“We were flabbergasted when we saw that Flossie’s vet records showed her to be 27 years old,” said Naomi Rosling, the charity’s branch coordinator, in the release.
Most cat owners prefer to adopt a much younger cat, with elderly animals often living their final days in shelters, according to the release.
“I’ve always wanted to give older cats a comfortable later life,” said Green, who hopes Flossie’s story will encourage potential cat owners to provide a haven for older pets.’
Flossie is usually found curled up in her favorite yellow blanket.
The oldest cat who ever lived, Crème Puff, reached the age of 38 years and three days. They [?????] died on August 6, 2005.
You can read about Creme Puff on Wikipedia, and I did part of a post on his staff, crusty Texan Jake Perry, (who also owned the world’s second oldest cat) here.
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Here, from Facebook, is the world’s oldest known cat door: 14th century (and BN—”before Newton”). Click to enlarge
Why do cats “knead” you? (The behavior is also called “making biscuits”.) This short piece from Science Alert has the answer (cat owners probably already know it). Click to read:
Kneading is when cats massage an object with the front paws, which extend and retract, one paw at a time.
This massaging action, named for its resemblance to kneading dough, is repeated rhythmically. You may have spotted your cat kneading and wondered how on Earth they developed such a behavior.
So, why do cats knead? Does it tell us anything about how they’re feeling, and is there anything you can do if they’re painfully kneading you while sitting on your lap?
. . .Cats first begin to knead when just tiny kittens, still nursing from their mother. Kneading is associated with suckling, which helps stimulate a mother cat’s milk supply through the release of oxytocin and likely evolved for this reason.
Kneading also has another evolutionary advantage. It can be used as a form of tactile and pheromone communication between kitten and mother.
Cats have scent glands in their soft paw pads, and when they knead, these glands release pheromones (chemical messages used to communicate).
Kneading on their mother releases pheromones associated with bonding, identification, health status, and many other messages.
One of these, known as “cat-appeasing pheromone”, is released by the sebaceous glands round the mammary glands.
. . .Kneading, in particular, may be retained into adulthood because it can help communicate messages.
Kneading on your lap is a cat’s way of saying, “we’re affiliated” or “you’re in my social group”. Or, to be very human about it, “you’re my person”.
We may also reinforce kneading by rewarding our cat with attention when they do it.
Some cats like to knead on soft or woolen blankets while also sucking on the material, as if from a teat. This may be relaxing or soothing for the cat because of this association.
. . .In most cases, kneading likely indicates your cat is comfortable.
However, if the kneading (and especially sucking) occur very frequently, for a long time, appears compulsive, or is beginning to damage your cat’s paws, legs, or mouth, it may be a sign your cat is stressed or in pain and needs to see a vet.
The article gives tips on how to stop your cat from kneading you with its claws out.
Here’s a Dodo video showing a variety of moggies kneading. Sound low: the purring is LOUD!
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Lagniappe 1: From BoingBoing; click on screenshot to read:
Last year, the Internet fell in love with Brünnhilde the Cat as seen in the incredible 1936 photograph below. Now, the US Library of Congress has started the new year with a gift to the world— the above portrait of Brünnhilde the Cat photographed from a different angle. Do what thou wilt with Brünnhilde the Cat but please, treat her with the regal respect this warrior deserves.
As with all of the Free to Use and Reuse sets shared by the Library of Congress, “The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.”
Both photos courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Three tweets about the photo and its history. I’m not sure why it’s so beloved. . .
The history of the photo was written up in "Advertising & Selling," Volume 27, Issues 8-13 (1936). Unfortunately, the entire article is not available for reading. pic.twitter.com/tCeStSM3Ur
The Caturday felid is late today, mainly because I forgot it was Caturday! But here it is, better late than never:
From LoveMeow comes the latest version of Grumpy Cat, who passed away some time ago at the age of seven. Now we have Frowny Cat. Click to read:
A litter of kittens were brought into the Carroll County Humane Society in Tennessee, needing foster care. They were about 4-5 weeks old and one of them was significantly smaller.
As it turned out, the runt of the litter was the only one born with dwarfism. Her siblings were on par with their growth. “However, there was an obvious difference with her,” Michelle Roberts, a foster volunteer of the rescue, told Love Meow.
“She was smaller and weighed less than the other cats. She also had that ‘grumpy cat’ face that I have noticed in other dwarf cats.”
Michelle was asked if she could foster the kittens, and she didn’t hesitate to take them in. The tiniest fur baby named Widget gazed up at Michelle with the most “disapproving” look when they first met, and immediately commanded her attention.
Photo by Michelle Roberts
“I instantly fell in love with her before I even met her. Once I saw her in person, I was completely smitten,” Michelle told Love Meow.
Over the next 1-2 weeks, her littermates grew by leaps and bounds, while Widget took her time making small progress each day. Her little “frowny” face became more pronounced, and her cattitude bloomed.
She may be small, weighing just 6.4 pounds, she can play, wrestle, and romp around just like any other cat.
“She loves playing with tissue paper and crinkle balls. She also enjoys picking fights with her siblings (other resident cats).”
Rarely do you get an entire cat post about the eyes of cats, but this one, from the New Zealand site Stuff, has some good photos. I’ll show a few; click on the screenshot below to see them all:
In the afternoon sun, Willow’s eyes are two lustrous gold coins.
Three-year-old Arlo has eyes that Italian skies would envy.
The exquisite shadowy stylings of Nimbus:
Eddie loves the caress of afternoon sun.
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From Introvert, Dear, an organ for the community of introverts. Click on the screenshot to read:
From author Cati (!) Vanden Breul:
I love cats, but due to my nomadic lifestyle, I haven’t been able to have one of my own in recent years. Nevertheless, spending time with my new friend, I couldn’t help but draw some comparisons between myself, an introvert, and the felines who live among us. Of course, not all introverts — or cats! — are exactly alike, but really, the similarities are striking.
And the Four Ways. You’ll learn not only about the comparison, but about human introverts themselves. These are excerpts:
1.) We’re choosy yet obsessively loyal creatures.
Both introverts and cats can take a long time to form a bond with others, making us appear aloof to strangers. Once someone has made us feel seen — someone who passes the “you’re actually kind of OK” test — this rare person automatically levels up to VIP in our world.
This makes us want to cuddle up on their figurative (or literal) lap and engage in hours of deep, meaningful conversation about anything and everything from our private inner thoughts to the world’s great mysteries. Acquaintances and small talk be damned. We found a person who makes us purr, rather than our usual slinking off for a nap or disappearing into a daydream.
In the full bloom of a new connection, whether platonic or intimate, we introverts feel warm, fuzzy, and in a rare turn of events, understood. We want to share the parts of ourselves we rarely reveal, and in turn, learn as much as we can about the other person’s inner world, too. . .
2). We communicate nonverbally.
It’s no secret that many introverts feel they communicate better in writing than in conversation. If you’re like me, you easily get flustered when you’re trying to explain the multitude of thoughts churning in your mind. Nothing ever comes out quite as eloquently as it sounded in your head. This struggle can be embarrassing, and it has to do with our introverted tendency to favor long-term memory over active memory.
This challenge becomes even more apparent when we like someone and want them in our lives. We might become awkward trying to express our feelings out loud, using words. I mean, it’s not easy for anyone to put themselves out there with an “I love you,” “I have a crush on you,” or just a, “Want to hang out?” For private and reserved introverts, these scenarios can be even more anxiety-provoking and tongue-tying.
That’s why, when we like you, we might not say it straight out. Instead, watch for nonverbal communication. If we’re making a conscious effort to spend time with you, know that we value you quite a bit. . .
3). We’re relational yet we need our space.
Cats are fascinating. They seek affection from us — their humans — jumping on our computer keyboards when we’re trying to work or winding themselves around our legs. They also unapologetically do their own thing. If a cat is not in the mood for company, it will simply find a quiet, removed space to inhabit (and you’ll never hear it apologize for preferring time alone).
Similarly, introverts can be hot and cold, on or off in their relationships, and yes, this aspect of our behavior can be confusing to others. I often find these two facets of my personality to be at odds with each other. On the one hand, I crave meaningful relationships and I find myself longing for them when they prove illusive. On the other hand, I need lots of alone time to replenish my energy and function at my best. It’s during solitude that I find my grounding and reconnect with myself. Ironically, my solitude is the biggest thing that allows me to find meaning in my relationships; it gives me the energy to truly show up for others.
and. . .
4.) Cozy is our default mode.
Last but not least — and this is a big one — both introverts and cats are creatures of comfort. We like stretching and naps. Like, a lot. We burrow into our favorite nooks and take immense pleasure in killing a few hours in a state of rest. We have a quiet and calm energy, as opposed to an extroverted go-go-go mentality. (You know how dogs great everyone they see? That’s definitely not us.) We love routine, and if something changes unexpectedly, we might hide and hiss (inwardly) until we adjust.
This isn’t to say, however, that we don’t experience bursts of motivation and tear off toward unseen prey. Like cats, we’re innately curious and motivated to investigate and find meaning in our surroundings.
But, if we’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, our best bet is to find a comfy place to chill, away from the hustle and bustle of the world. If you don’t see or hear from us for awhile, we’re probably recharging, gathering our energy in stillness, waiting for the next big “hunt.”
Exactly the same? Well, you be the judge. I’d say “aloof” rather than “introverted,” but to each their own.
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Lagniappe: Reader Stephen found a welcoming bar:
I was visiting one of my old haunts in Dallas (I live in Brooklyn now), and imagine my surprise to see this sign walking in! The Stoneleigh P in Oak Lawn section of Dallas. Worth a visit if you’re ever passing through.
Why would you want to train a cat? Well, the article below from SCIENCEalert (click title to read) gives you several reasons why specific training is needed:
In a rehoming shelter, for example, training can be a useful tool to increase a cat’s exploratory behaviors, positive reactions to people, and maybe even their chances of being adopted.
At home, we can use simple techniques to help cats with things like feeling comfortable in a cat carrier, getting used to car journeys, as well as tolerating being groomed and receiving basic health examinations and treatments. Such training can also help cats cope better with visits to the vet.
This edition teaches you how to train cats to not be afraid of their cat carrier when they need to go to the vet. This is, I know, a common issue. Here’s the intro, which they follow with
Cats are not born with an innate affinity towards humans and must be exposed to gentle, warm handling from two weeks old so they can learn we are friend rather than foe.
There is limited evidence that younger cats are more attentive to our social cues, which could mean they are more amenable to training. Kittens should also be played with using cat wands or fishing rod toys so that they learn not to attack our hands or feet.
Punishments such as shouting, rough handling, or using a water spray can induce stress and compromise the quality of owner-cat relationships.
Reward-based techniques can be an excellent way to teach a cat to enter a carrier on their own or sit calmly whilst we deliver their flea treatment. Some very friendly food-motivated cats may enjoy being taught to give a high five, or to sit or spin.
But cats are often less motivated than dogs to pay attention to us, or do what we are asking, especially in situations where they don’t feel comfortable. These factors may explain the high drop-out rates in studies that involve training cats to attend to human social cues.
It’s important that we make sure the cat is somewhere they feel at ease when we undertake any training with them. Always ensure the cat has the option to walk away or end the session when they want and try to give them a break if they seem uncomfortable.
Signs to look for include the cat turning their head away, nose licking, head shaking, a raised paw, sudden bouts of self-grooming, looking hunched or tense, a twitching or thumping tail, and rotated or flattened ears.
Here’s how to teach your cat enter a carrier and settle in five easy steps:
Then read the advice, which is very good, about getting Fluffy to the vet.
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A reader sent me this trailer for a film that you can rent from Netflix.
I watched this last night on Netflix.
You must watch it! If any of your guests have Netflix, try to see it. It’s not long but is remarkable. Right up your alley!!!
Here’s the official trailer, suitable for Christmas viewing with your ailurophilic family. if you like it, you can join Netflix here. But how DARE they charge you money to learn about cats?
And a longer report which has a short segment from the trailer but then an interview with the director, Andy Mitchell:
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The Pallas’s Cat is my favorite of all wild felids. It’s cute, fluffy, and you just want to pick one up and squeeze it. But since they’re wild, that’s not advisable, though my old copy of Wild Cats of the World says this:
According to Stroganov, Pallas’s cat remains wild and vicious in captivity, yet a specimen from Ladak kept by Colonel A. E. Ward became very tame, though it always dislike strangers. There have been reports of Pallas’s cats being kept in a semi-domestic state in parts of Central Asia “They differ in many ways from the domestic cat,” Pallas wrote, but they like to mate with him.
I wonder if the hybrids are fertile. If they were, well, then they could develop a domestic breed, just as they did with the Bengal cat.
The Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul), also known as the manul, is a small wild cat with long and dense light grey fur. Its rounded ears are set low on the sides of the head. Its head-and-body length ranges from 46 to 65 cm (18 to 26 in) with a 21 to 31 cm (8.3 to 12.2 in) long bushy tail. It is well camouflaged and adapted to the cold continental climate in its native range, which receives little rainfall and experiences a wide range of temperatures. The Pallas’s cat’s pupils are rounded, a unique feature among the Felinae.
The Pallas’s cat was first described in 1776 by Peter Simon Pallas, who observed it in the vicinity of Lake Baikal. In the early 19th century, it was reported to occur in Tibet, and in the Transcaspian Region in the early 20th century. To date, it has been recorded across a large areal extent, albeit in widely spaced sites in the Caucasus, Iranian Plateau, Hindu Kush, parts of the Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, Altai-Sayan region and South Siberian Mountains. It inhabits rocky montane grasslands and shrublands, where the snow cover is below 15–20 cm (6–8 in). It finds shelter in rock crevices and burrows, and preys foremost on lagomorphs and rodents. The female gives birth to between two and six kittens in spring.
After that, of course, you’re going to want to see it, so here are a few films. The first is a three-minute job from the BBC, narrated by David Attenborough with rare video of this animal in the wild. Look at that coat!
Here’s a 4.5 minute National Geographic video about a quest to see the cat on the Tibetan Plateau. The round pupils are especially evident in this video.
I’ve saved the adorable kittens for last. They look like dust bunnies, but check out the relative size of those paws! These are from the Novosibirsk Zoo in Russia:
And the cover of a recent PNAS (the article is here).
(From the Journal): Cover image: Pictured is a Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul). Anderson Feijó et al. explored the evolutionary histories of 1,543 mammalian species across Asia to identify how and when modern biodiversity assembled across the continent throughout its Cenozoic history. The authors found that the rich mammalian biodiversity that arose in the Paleogene period diversified and spread across Asia and other continents in the Neogene period. According to the authors, bursts of species diversification and shifts in species composition in Asia during the Cenozoic era correlate with tectonic events, such as continental collisions, and drastic climatic changes, such as aridification or sea retreat. See the article by Feijó et al., e2207845119. Image credit: Phil Benstead (Greentours).
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Lagniappe: The best moments of Larry the Cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office since 2011. The footage includes a face-off with Larry’s nemesis Palmerston, formerly the Chief Mouser of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) at Whitehall in London (now retired).
