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Tech NewsThis 21st Century Cat Hunts For RFID-Tagged Prey
Outdoor cats get to massacre untold millions of mice per year, but indoor cats have to make do with balls of yarn and laser pointers. To try and bridge the gap, one man built a machine that would only feed his kitty when he ‘hunts’ down an RFID-chipped plastic ball. Ben Millam made the device … Continued
By Chris Mills -
Tech NewsYou’ll Want These Star Wars Dog and Cat Toys More Than Your Pets Do
With a new Star Wars movie on the horizon, do you really think that Disney and Lucasfilm would limit their marketing efforts to just humans? Of course not. Dogs and cats are also in both company’s promotional crosshairs with this massive collection of costumes and toys designed just for pets from Petco. On the outside … Continued
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ScienceBiology
32 Totes Adorbs Photos Of Your Cats
The house cat is amongst the noblest of all creatures. Or at least that’s what they’ve fooled us all into thinking. Here are your cats from this week’s Shooting Challenge. Winner: Martta We took the photo with my cat Martta on our secret shady summer spot when sun was setting down. Martta is photogenic sacred … Continued
By Mark Wilson -
ScienceBiology
Smelling Cat Urine Turns Baby Mice Into Willing Victims
The war between cats and mice just took a chilling turn, as a team of Russian researchers announces that early exposure to a chemical in cat urine can condition mice not to flee from an approaching cat. This can’t end well for the mice. Cat urine contains a chemical compound called L-Felinine, and mice have … Continued
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Tech News
This Is The One Thing That People Never Understand About Cats
You probably don’t know your cat as well as you think you do. According to a recent survey of cat owners in the UK, most people are pretty clueless about their cats’ lives. Ecologist Jennifer McDonald and her team of researchers conducted a small survey of cat owners in the UK. They asked people how … Continued
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Tech News
The First-Ever Cat Convention Pretty Much Broke the Internets
Last weekend, CatCon took the internet by storm. 10,000 people descended on the convention in L.A., which featured appearances by celebrity cats, cat-centric panels, and all the cat swag you could shake a stick with a dangling feather at. The internet’s love affair with our cat friends is long documented (and we’ve been posing cats … Continued
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ScienceBiologyScientists To Sequence Lil Bub’s Genome
A team of geneticists is ready to unlock the secrets behind Internet celebrity cat Lil Bub’s unique appearance. Lil Bub, whose full name is Lillian Bubbles (her friends call her Bub), may be the most recognizable cat on the Web. Although Bub is an adult now, she still looks like a kitten, with wide green … Continued
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Tech News
Robot Dogs Will Replace Pets in Super-Dense Cities
Keeping a pet healthy requires resources and open space, and in the cities of the future both may be at such a premium that live pets will become a thing of the past. Australian researcher Jean-Loup Rault suggests robotic and virtual-reality pets may replace the real thing. In a study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, … Continued
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Tech NewsHow To Tell A Bobkitten From A Regular Kitten
Bobkitten or regular kitten? While both look cute nibbling on your finger, one might actually eat that finger. This is the latest litter born in the Santa Monica Mountains. Pictured here are B326 and B327. Two bobcat kittens just born in the wild in the Simi Hills, north of Los Angeles. Their mom wears a … Continued
By Wes Siler -
Tech NewsOf Course Japan Has An Island Where Cats Outnumber People
Thisshort film documents life on Tashirojima, a tiny island off the Oshika Peninsula in Japan. It’s home to 800 cat overlords, and the 100 or so humans who slavishly feed their feral masters. Cats were originally brought onto the island to control the mouse population, who fed on silkworms and threatened the fishing industry that … Continued
By Chris Mills -
ScienceBiologyThis Woodcut from 19th Century Japan Reveals Deep LOLcat History
This video is an animation based on a Japanese woodcut called “Popular Hotspring Spa (of Cats).” It’s from 1880, but artist Utagawa Yoshifuji’s imaginary world of spa cats looks like something that’s unfolding at the intersection of LOLcat and internetville. This woodcut is just one of many on display at New York’s Japan Society right … Continued
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io9This Time-Lapse Proves That Cats Are Solar-Powered
I think we all knew this, but watching it in time lapse form is pretty astonishing. Watch as a strip of sunlight moves across the floor during a day, and packs of cats move with it. It happens so slowly in real life, that at the end of the day, I can tell my cats … Continued
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Tech News
It’s Ok To Be a Crazy Cat Person When All Your Felines Are Robots
Most people look down on what’s become known as ‘crazy cat people’ but it has less to do with the state of their mental health, and more about the impossible task of keeping a house full of felines clean. But what if those cats didn’t need a litter box, never destroyed the furniture, and were … Continued
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io9
Meet Tiffany Two, The World’s Oldest Cat (She’ll Be 27 Next Month)
Congrats to San Diego tortoiseshell Tiffany Two, who will turn 27 on March 13 … making her the world’s oldest living cat, according to Guinness World Records. That’s 125 in human years. Tiffany Two’s owner, Sharon Voorhees, paid $10 for her remarkable pet in 1988; the name is “a tribute to another tortoiseshell cat she … Continued
By Cheryl Eddy -
Tech NewsGadgets
You’ll Finally Understand Felines With the Meowlingual Cat Translator
Many years ago the Bowlingual translator promised to finally bridge the communications gap between humans and dogs. But since a wagging tail and shredded toilet paper make it easy to figure out what a dog is thinking, it wasn’t exactly a must-have gadget. Cats, on the other hand? That’s a different story. Often, you’re never … Continued
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io9
Even In 19th Century Japan, People Loved To See Cats Doing Human Things
These artworks were made by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), one of the last great Japanese masters of the ukiyo-e style were really a novelty of its age. Kuniyoshi started to use cats instead of humans in satirical kabuki prints in the early 1840s. Cats Enjoying The Evening Cool, 1839-1842 via Tokyo National Museum Engaged in Various … Continued
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Tech News
Do Mysterious Big Cats Prowl The English Countryside?
England’s version of Big Foot or just the logical result of new laws that forced exotic pet owners to free their animals in the 1970s? One thing’s for sure: reported sightings of big cats are on the rise in the UK, while new studies seek to prove their existence. According to the BBC, there were … Continued
By Wes Siler -
io9We Can’t Stop Watching This Video Of A Chicken That Purrs Like A Cat
This hen, a rescue animal taken in by Australia’s Manning River Farm Animal Sanctuary, enjoys purring when she’s petted … just like a cat. So zen. So happy. Reports the shelter: “She has a bit of a sore leg so we’re glad to spoil her just a little.” Via Laughing Squid. Top image via Yahoo.
By Cheryl Eddy
