It’s not often that you can warm your heart by learning about scientifically calculated catitude. But today is your lucky day because it’s one of those rare occasions. This will not only pull the strings of your second most important organ; it also covers essential information about our favorite feline friends (until the domestication of the cheetah, of course), whether furry or hairless.
Related: 10 Amazing Animals With Unique Environmental Adaptations
ten Cat allergies? Enter “CRISPR Kittens”
A Virginia biotech company called InBio, which specializes in asthma and allergy research, is exploring CRISPR to make one of the world’s most popular pets less allergenic. Such “CRISPR kittens” could be a blessing for many people prone to sneezing.
Cat allergies affect up to 15% of people, meaning “the domestic cat is the most common source of mammal allergens.” Most sufferers are attacked by a protein called Fel d 1, which mediates the allergic response in 95% of cat-allergic patients. This allergy-provoking protein is found in cat saliva and skin oil, and good luck avoiding them.
Fortunately, scientists have discovered that this protein apparently does nothing and cats could easily do without it. His real objective? Who knows. What is known is that targeting the production of this protein through gene editing could be far more effective than allergy pills and other treatments.(1)
9 Contraception for cats
Helping cats live happy, healthy lives also depends on humanely reducing stray populations. Yet this requires surgery, which takes time and resources. Now scientists have tried a simple, non-surgical “gene injection” on six female cats, with promising results.
The small size of the study was intentional, allowing for strict scientific examination of each cat and the mechanisms of the new anti-pregnancy approach. As a result, researchers were able to thoroughly analyze “15,220 freeze-dried scat samples to determine estrogen and progesterone levels and (examine) 1,200 hours of video of mating behavior,” according to William Swanson, director of the animal research at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
The injection injects a gene into muscle cells, leading to the pumping of anti-mullerian contraceptive hormone (AMH). AMH works by disrupting the development of egg follicles in the ovaries. Giving cats this gene therapy injection prevented pregnancies for at least two years. More research is needed to determine its overall safety and effectiveness, but this is a fascinating advancement for global feline welfare.(2)
8 Cats in squares
The cat’s senses are excellent; Their eyes are six times better at low light than ours, so even though you may accidentally bump into your cat in the dark, your cat will never accidentally bump into you in the dark. Not by chance, anyway.
Exceptional visual perception and brain wiring are why cats like to sit in 2D squares or other shapes, even if those shapes are incomplete (i.e. four cutouts spaced apart from each other square-shaped).
The fact that these appear to create a closed shape is the Kanizsa square illusion, exploiting our brain’s tendency to fill in gaps and see contours that don’t exist. The same thing happens in the cat’s mind, which means your cat will probably like a flat, incomplete square as much (or almost as much) as a cool, comfortable box.(3)
7 Leg “whiskers”
Cats don’t just have whiskers on the whisker part of their body. They also have whiskers on the whiskerless part of their body, including the backs of their legs. They’re called carpal vibrissae because carpus means wrist, and vibrissae is the fancy Latin scientific word for whiskers, or technically nose hairs.
Like the whiskers around their snouts, these vibrissae aren’t just meant to tickle you; these are sensory organs used to detect a cat’s surroundings. They can detect tiny movements, such as changes in air pressure and the surrounding environment, to help cats navigate their world and achieve their superb feline agility. Using these wrist whiskers, so to speak, cats can sense surfaces and objects, giving them better spatial awareness, environmental orientation, and hunting skills.(4)
6 Grayish Tabby: the first cat
If you have a dark grayish tabby cat, congratulations, you have the first cat! Our modern (debatable) domestic cats are known as Catand they descend from the African Libyan wild cat, which basically looks like a tabby cat. The cat’s motive is such an essential factor that it helps researchers decide whether a feline is wild or relative.
For example, some fur patterns, notably spots, appeared due to genetic alterations much later in the history of cat domestication. So if you have a stained grimalkin, thank the medieval times. But don’t thank him too much, because the cats’ general attitudes weren’t always good, to say the least.(5)
5 Will work for food… No!
Cats prefer to get their food without having to work for it. It’s clever but not surprising either. What’s surprising is that other animals are the opposite. So much so that scientists at the University of Davis conducted a comprehensive study on cats’ willingness to endure chores for their dinner.
This is called counter-loading, meaning that some animals prefer to work for their meal. According to Mikel Delgado, a feline behaviorist and veterinary researcher at UC Davis: “There is a body of research that shows that most species, including birds, rodents, wolves, primates – and even giraffes – prefer to work to feed themselves. »
The study gave 17 cats two food options: easy food on a tray and a food puzzle. Most chose the easy edibles. Perhaps because the puzzle did not stimulate cats’ natural behaviors, such as ambushing. However, cats still love puzzles, and that’s important because…(6)
4 Cat puzzles free the hunter
UC Davis researchers have previously studied cat puzzles to determine their benefits for felines. The study found that around a third of cat users provided puzzles for their four-legged friends, although it would probably be better if this figure was higher.
Puzzles benefit cats by bringing out their wild foraging instincts. The cats hunted for food and engaged in other predatory practices before “humans came in and took their jobs.” The puzzle contributes to the mental enrichment of felines by giving them back their work and giving them a sense of wild accomplishment, one could say. Additionally, previous research found that puzzles “helped cats lose weight, suffer from anxiety, and urinate outside the litter box.”
Unfortunately, many cat owners attempt puzzles but quickly give up. People should definitely continue, according to the study, but start with the easiest ones and work their way up.(7)
3 What cat genetics tell us
Humans have been cats for longer than some previously thought, according to a University of Missouri study. While some argue that anthropo-feline relationships really took off 4,000 years ago, perhaps in Egypt, genetic research pushes that date back to the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago. . As humans began hoarding grain, rodent populations exploded, taking advantage of our hard-earned wheat.
By chance, the cat arrived to take advantage of the rodents on our hard-earned wheat. While large domestic animals like cattle and horses have undergone multiple domestication events, the feline has undergone just such a transformation, according to feline geneticist and renowned MU professor Leslie A. Lyons. Our cats, truly semi-domesticated, became the cats we know in the Fertile Crescent several millennia ago, and then traveled the world with us.
Importantly, these genetic studies have created databases that have helped significantly reduce some feline conditions, such as polycystic kidney disease.(8)
2 Colors, patterns and length of fur reveal history, temperament and health
Long after the fertility of the Fertile Crescent, cats underwent a second human-assisted transformation during the Classic period in Egypt, approximately 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. Other evidence points to attempts to create a leopard cat in China, but no such kittens (or their relatives) remain.
These discoveries also highlight how cats took over the world. Ancient DNA from port city cats shows that people brought their feline companions aboard their ships, perhaps to keep rodents in check that were ravaging ships’ food supplies. Interestingly, the study of the evolution of cat colors and patterns links these characteristics to specific behaviors (like aggression), their origins, and the prevalence of disease.
However, the ancient Egyptians did not worship their cats as we like to think; they practiced various cruel rituals (including the massive establishment of cat factories) to appease the gods for their human benefit. However, this depressing historical avenue is for another day, because it’s all about happy cats.(9)
1 Finland has created a new cat
The universe released a new type of cat, recently described by science, in May 2024. This rare domestic Finnish feline has a new coat pattern called “salmiak,” and it’s kind of a cookies and cream vibe. Finns started taking notice of this pattern around 2007, noting that instead of conventional tuxedos, these black and white ones featured a gradient of colors, like a pinch of salt and pepper. The ombre effect occurs when the fur lightens from root to tip, from black to white.
To make it official, scientists identified the genetic mechanics in the journal Animal genetics as “a 95 kb deletion downstream of the KIT gene”. Ah, of course, that makes so much sense! In more understandable terms, a missing piece of DNA leads to the “salmiak” coat type, named after a popular type of Finnish salty licorice. Because Finns love licorice for some reason. But they also like cats, so it balances out.(ten)