firecat

The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa by Jonathan B. Losos

Cribbed from my review on Audible.

A delight for cat lovers of all stripes

Jonathan Losos is an evolutionary biologist. His primary research is on lizards but he spends a lot of time keeping up with cat science too, and teaches a college class on cat science. He reads the Audible version of the book and I found him easy to listen to.

Although the book is loosely strung together with the theme of evolution, the author ranges into a number of other subjects too, particularly the state of general scientific knowledge about cats (there are far too few studies, he complains), how new breeds of cats are developed and recognized, and ethical issues involving cats (indoor vs outdoor, wildlife vs feral cats, creation of breeds that vary a lot from the general traits of cats, such as the Munchkin, which has very short legs.

Anyway, I absolutely loved most of this book. It had just the right balance for me of “yeah I knew that” / "yeah I thought so" and “huh, I didn’t know that.” Losos does a great job of explaining scientific concepts so that they would be easy for non-scientists to understand. He is delightfully enthusiastic about his subject matter. The wide variety of material is organized well. I really liked the way he explained the need for certain research, described the research methods abstractly, and then included fun anecdotes about how particular studies actually went. (The parts about studying cats outdoors using GPS collars and cat cams were particularly enjoyable.) I especially learned a lot in the section about creating new breeds of cat, and found out I had some misunderstandings about domestic cat–wild cat hybrid breeds. I'm glad to know more and I feel a little less uncomfortable about them now than I did before.

There were a couple of things I didn't love as much. Losos has a habit of describing two sides of an ethical conflict and placing himself smack in the middle of the two camps with a smug "of course, I'm right" attitude. I also didn't like his enthusiasm for the idea of creating saber-toothed cats using CRISPR! Ew! But that's not a complaint about the quality of the book.

I really appreciate everyone's condolences about Biscuit. I'm fortunate that the people in my life understand it's hard to lose a pet.

( cut for sad )

Pet Charts said: Congratulations, your photo made the Pet Charts for May 18, 2009! Vote it up the charts at: http://petcharts.purina.com/Default.aspx?day=2009-5-18

(I'm using an Attribution-Share Alike license so this is OK with me.)

I take photos of cats for Peninsula Humane Society's adoptable cat web pages. I usually end up taking a few photos that are too weird or silly to go up on the pages—here's this week's batch.
( Read more... )

The Background:
I'm not a tidy housekeeper and sometimes some of my clothes get stored on the floor or on furniture. Furthermore, there isn't enough room in my study for everything that I want to keep in here.

The Setting:
My study. The computer is near the back wall.

Against the wall opposite the door is a large "zero gravity recliner" that the cats like to sleep in, especially when it has unsorted clean laundry in it. At the moment, it holds a large, inflated exercise ball, which the cats hate because it makes weird squeaky noises and sometimes chases them and it's bigger than they are.

Near the door is a storage area consisting of 2' wide and 2' deep shelves, some with wire mesh dividers. When I'm being on the tidier side, I store some of my clothes in there.

Long sleeve sweaters and sweatshirts
Long pants
Short sleeved knitted shirts	Long sleeved knitted shirts
Shorts	Knitted tank tops
Laundry basket storage

The Gathering Storm:
I notice a lot of tank tops on the floor. I assume that I dumped them there after doing laundry and forgot to put them away. I put them away.

A couple of days later, I notice a lot of tank tops on the floor again. I think "I thought I put these away. Guess not." I put them away.

Their Finest Hour:
Late one evening I hear a soft rhythmic scraping sound. I look in the direction of the sound and see my cat Biscuit standing on her hind legs, scraping tank tops out of the tank top storage shelf. Once she has cleared enough room on the shelf, she hops in, lies down, and goes to sleep.

Well, I think she would have lain down and gone to sleep if I hadn't interrupted her by laughing uproariously.

The Grand Alliance:
A short time later, I find Angus on the shelf.

The Hinge of Fate:
The next day, I put the tank tops back on the shelf.

That evening I hear the sound of a cat tongue scraping against fabric. The tank tops are on the floor. Biscuit is back in the shelf, nonchalantly cleaning herself (and the few remaining tank tops that she's using as a bed cushion).

Closing the Ring:
Biscuit is now scraping the tank tops off the shelf nightly.

How long will it take for her to defeat the evil forces who invaded the recliner and installed the exercise ball in it?

I really liked today's Cute Overload photo of a cream tabby kitten. Here are lots lots more: http://www.tigers-deluxe.de/