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Friday Catblogging: Strolling with Shelter Cats

At Virginia Tech, there’s a study on the benefits of taking shelter cats for a stroll now and again. Marjorielee Christianson writes that Over 3 million cats enter shelters in the United States each year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Julianna Scardina, a member of the Virginia-Maryland College of…

Friday Catblogging: How Do Cats Cool Themselves Off?

Embed from Getty Images Hannah Keyser writes How Do Cats Cool Themselves Off? (‘Here’s a hint: It’s not by sweating through their paws’): Conduction allows cats to cool themselves off or warm themselves up via contact with objects of a different temperature. This is why you can often find your cat seeking out cool kitchen…

Friday Catblogging: Cat Noses

Tanya Lewis writes Cat Noses Contain Twisted Labyrinths That Help Them Separate Smells (‘Scientists hypothesize that coiled channels inside a cat’s nose may function like a gas chromatograph’): Researchers created a computational model of a cat’s nose based on computed tomography scans and tissue slices from a deceased house cat whose body was donated for…

Friday Catblogging: The Corsican ‘Cat-Fox’

For years, scientists have wondered if striped cats on Corsica were a distinct species: Turns out, they are: The elusive striped “cat-fox” familiar mostly to Corsican shepherds and as a source of intrigue to scientists, is indeed its own species specific to the French Mediterranean island, the French office for Biodiversity (OFB) announced Thursday. New…

Daily Bread for 11.19.22: About Those 18,000 Marine Bones in a Smithsonian Warehouse

Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 26. Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 4:27 PM for 9h 35m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1863, President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery…

Friday Catblogging: The Slow Blink

Embed from Getty Images Michelle Starr writes Scientists Confirm You Can Communicate With Your Cat by Blinking Very Slowly: In a study published in 2020, scientists observed cat-human interactions, and were able to confirm that this act of blinking slowly makes cats – both familiar and unfamiliar animals – approach and be receptive to humans. ….…

Friday Catblogging: Using AI Facial Recognition to Conserve Pumas

Ashleigh Papp, over at Scientific American, reports How AI Facial Recognition Is Helping Conserve Pumas: INTRO: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Ashleigh Papp. Papp: Mountain lions are now posing for their close ups. Researchers based in the greater Yellowstone National Park area have figured out a new way to identify these cats by using…