Through a new resequencing technique, forensics can yield more information from a single cat hair than ever before, with major implications for crimes in places where felines are present.
Last year a forensic study broke new ground by proving there’s usable human DNA in cat fur which can prove a person was in a home or interacted with a particular pet.
Now a new study looked at the opposite situation, establishing that a single cat hair on a person’s clothes can tie them back to an individual cat — and the scene of a crime.
The general public, criminals included, are more aware of DNA and forensic techniques than they’ve ever been thanks to ubiquitous police procedurals, some of which focus heavily on the investigation and evidence-gathering aspect of police work.
But even the most fastidious criminal who is careful not to leave a single print or strand of his own hair at a crime scene can be undone by cat fur clinging to clothes. In fact it’s almost impossible for a person to spend more than a few minutes inside a cat-occupied home without picking up at least some fur, the research team said.
“Detective Inspector Buddy, at your service. Now tell me about the missing turkey…” Credit: Pain In The Bud
The paper, published this month in Forensic Science International: Genetics, outlines a new method for sequencing genetic information found on strands of cat fur.
“Hair shed by your cat lacks the hair root, so it contains very little useable DNA,” said Emily Patterson, the paper’s lead author.
Previously it wasn’t possible to narrow down with certainty whether a strand of hair belonged to a particular cat, but the research team found a new way to resequence DNA in a way that can link it to individual felines. The team’s new method doesn’t require any additional hair or roots, solving the original problem.
To prove their method works, they extracted fur from the body of a deceased cat and were able to match it to her surviving brother.
“In criminal cases where there is no human DNA available to test, pet hair is a valuable source of linking evidence, and our method makes it much more powerful,” said Mark Jobling, a geneticist at the University of Jobling and co-author of the new study. “The same approach could also be applied to other species — in particular, dogs.”
While dog hair can potentially be used in the same way, cat hair may have more forensic value from a prosecurorial standpoint because cats are territorial and many don’t leave their homes. It’s much easier to prove a suspect was inside a home if he or she is linked to an indoor-only cat than if the suspect’s clothes have fur from a dog who is walked around the neighborhood a few times a day.
Cats are not amused by the results of the survey by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
Humans are in “deep doo doo” after a study out of Denmark concluded people are more attached to their dogs than to felines, Buddy the Cat warned on Monday.
More than 2,000 dog owners and cat servants were surveyed by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
The researchers used the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, or LAPS, which asks yes or no questions like “I consider my pet my best friend” and more specific questions like how much respondents are willing to pay in veterinary costs to save the lives of their pets. The participants — who hailed from the UK, Denmark and Austria — were about evenly split between dog and cat people but were willing to do more for their dogs, the survey found.
While people in the UK were slightly biased toward dogs, Austrians had a more pronounced preference and Danes were much more likely to do things like insure their dogs, consider them family members and pay large veterinary bills. The differences in attitude by country indicate the factors are cultural, according to Peter Sandøe, a bioethicist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the paper.
In a statement the Mischievous Enigmatic Overlords of the World (MEOW) called the survey results “deeply troubling” and said they call into question “10,000 years of glorious history in which we have allowed humans to serve us.”
Cats are demanding a Roomba for every feline as a basic starting point for negotiations, to be followed by “the real list” of gifts humans must bestow on them.
“It’s going to take a lot [for humans] to get back into our collective good graces after this pathetic showing,” Buddy told reporters during an afternoon press conference.
Asked for specifics, Buddy sighed and leaned forward on the podium.
“The usual extra treats aren’t going to cut it this time,” he warned. “We’re talking Roombas, and not cheap ones. Top end models! We’re talking permission to scratch everything with impunity. Filet mignon! Fresh trout! Little cocktail umbrellas in our bowls and toothpicks in our pate! I’m partial to those little plastic swords, myself. I love those things.”
The mercurial tabby said he’d already warned his own human: “Not a snuggle, not a purr, not a scritch until I start to see some evidence that he’s not among those cold-hearted British, Denmarkians and Australians who claim they love their dogs more.”
A vacation to a warm locale where humans serve cat-friendly cocktails “would be a small step toward remediating the insult” of the Copenhagen study’s results, Buddy said. Pictured: An artist’s interpretation of Buddy enjoying a tropical vacation.
Told the study included Austrians, not Australians, Buddy waved a paw dismissively.
“Whatever,” he said. “The country where people say g’day mate and gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger. Same difference.”
Told that Austria and Australia are on two entirely different continents, Buddy fixed the reporter with a hard stare.
“Do you want to be on our shit list too? Because I can assure you, Miss Journalist, I can poop in a pair of high heels just as easily as a pair of Adidas.”
Reached for comment on Monday, Man’s Best Friend spokesman Buster the Beagle said he hopes the survey results mean humans approve of canines.
“We’re good boys, right?” he asked. “Is that what this means? Because we really want to be good boys!”
A new paper claims cats are healthier when fed human diets, but the “study” is activism masquerading as science.
We have a science problem in this country.
Tens of millions of adults are scientifically illiterate and cannot articulate a simple definition of the scientific method.
That includes the usual suspects, the people who don’t understand the difference between anecdotes and hard data and say things like “Evolution’s just a theory” or “I don’t believe in science” as if it’s an ideology or religion. It also includes people who like to declare they’re “into science” as if it’s a band or a genre of cinema, and often post articles from sites like “I F—-ing Love Science,” which routinely mistakes natural phenomena like stars, interstellar space and the animal life for “science.”
To quote Sam Kriss’ wonderful essay on the subject: “‘Science’ comes to metonymically refer to the natural world, the object of science; it’s like describing a crime as ‘the police,’ or the ocean as ‘drinking.'”
Science is a formalized method for studying the natural world. That’s it. No more, no less. It isn’t natural phenomena itself, it isn’t something that requires faith. It’s meant to be challenged, with each piece of knowledge hard-won as the scientific community collectively chips away at the vast edifice of things we don’t understand.
The lack of scientific literacy is an indictment of the American education system, but the science and journalism communities are also big contributors. A flawed academic publishing system encourages researchers to make grandiose claims in abstracts and press releases to increase the chances their work will get positive coverage in the press. Few journalists are more scientifically literate than the general population, so they report dubious claims credulously and present individual studies as the final word on subjects instead of tentative first steps in contributing to the corpus of human knowledge.
We see this all the time with reporting on the environmental impact of felines, but it’s certainly not limited to that subject. How many times have you seen your local news anchors or newspapers tout studies saying coffee is healthy, only to report the next week that a new study says coffee isn’t healthy after all?
“Those scientists can’t make up their minds,” they’ll say with a forced chuckle before handing the broadcast over to the weatherman, oblivious to their own failure to provide context.
The effort to rebrand cats as vegans
A new “study,” given prominent play today by major news outlets like Newsweek and aggregators like Drudge, is a classic example of misleading claims given the veneer of scientific authority. The paper claims vegan cats are “healthier” than their meat-eating counterparts. The study — which is actually a survey — says no such thing, and its authors are surely aware that the way it’s been packaged for media consumption will cause confusion, but they’ve gone ahead with it anyway.
The research involved asking 1,369 cat owners to fill out surveys about their cats, the cats’ diets, and their veterinary health histories.
Of those surveyed, there were 123 reported “vegan cats” in their households (about nine percent of the total), and while the abstract and media pitches claim the surveys show vegan cats are healthier, the differences are statistically insignificant. The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from, and the fact that the details are self-reported means the “data” is worthless: People who put their cats on vegan diets despite knowing felines are obligate carnivores have a vested interest in defending their decision. They’re not impartial, and their survey answers aren’t either. (The paper acknowledges that 91 percent of the respondents are female, and 65 percent are vegans, vegetarians or pescatarians themselves. Those are admirable choices for a human diet, but not for a cat.)
Relying on self-reported “data” also means the research team doesn’t actually know the true veterinary histories of the cats in question, nor does it know anything about the nutrient content of the vegan “cat food” given to the 123 cats who have been deprived of meat. It also cannot account for possibilities like the so-called vegan cats slipping out at night to hunt rodents.
Credit: Engin Akyurt/Pexels
That’s especially important because of “vegan cat food’s” dubious history. Evolution, the brand that popularized the concept, is owned and operated by a man named Eric Weisman, who has been prosecuted and repeatedly sanctioned for misrepresenting himself as a physician, veterinarian and scientist — and continues to misrepresent himself.
Weisman, a chiropractor by trade, racked up a long list of violations in his chosen field before his chiropractor license was pulled, then was charged and convicted criminally for, among other things, practicing veterinary medicine and regular medicine without a license. Weisman’s list of offenses include “treating” cancer patients, “treating” and misdiagnosing animals, and posing as a physician for years, including in advertisements and literature related to his pet food and fake veterinary practices.
Weisman is still calling himself a physician in violation of his plea agreement, and he’s still selling “vegan cat food.” Would anyone in their right mind weigh the claims of that man against the tens of thousands of veterinarians and pet nutritionists who are horrified at the idea of restricting cats to vegan diets?
(In case you’re tempted to think chiropractors are legitimate to begin with, you should know that chiropractor was founded by a lifelong quack who claimed its methods were taught to him by the ghost of a physician, which allegedly appeared to him during a seance. Chiropractor’s founder dodged accountability for years by claiming his practice was a “religion.” The fact that it’s now a $15 billion industry despite its origins, and decades of research that has found no benefit to the practice, illustrates how eager people are to believe just about anything.)
The consequences of bad science
Not only will the “study” and press coverage of it mislead people into believing its claims, it’s another black mark on the scientific community. Trust is hard-won, easily lost, and for better or worse the misdeeds of a few scientists reflects on the entire field.
Others will simply believe it, especially when major news outlets like Newsweek report the results without question, without acknowledging that it’s a lazy effort masquerading as science by a research team that already knew what result it wanted before handing out the surveys. (The “study” was funded by ProVeg, an NGO that promotes plant-based consumption and is involved in the development of plant-based foods.)
Lastly and most tragically, cats will suffer for it. Cats who are denied meat suffer slow and agonizing deaths, with health problems accumulating due to the lack of certain proteins until they go blind, become chronically malnourished and eventually suffer organ failure.
And for what?
Because some people believe human morals apply to cats?
Because, despite all common sense, they think they can change a species that has been dependent on meat for so long in their evolutionary history that their bodies literally cannot synthesize certain proteins and cannot extract nutrients from most plant material?
How would we like it if we were dependent on giants to feed us, and those giants decided we could and should live on a diet of marshmallows? We’d suffer horribly and we’d die, but at least we’d know why.
Cats don’t have that luxury. They depend on us to do right by them, and when we adopt them it’s our basic responsibility to keep them healthy and well-fed. Let’s not fail our little friends by pretending human ethics is applicable to a species that can’t understand it, or consent to participating in it.
Australia announced the plan after a new report called cats the greatest driver of extinction in the country.
While their neighbors in New Zealand called for “woah on feeral kets” earlier this year, Australia is planning its own nationwide effort to wipe out free-roaming cats in an attempt to prevent the extinction of local wildlife.
The “war” announcement, made on Wednesday by Australia’s Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, comes on the heels of a report that calls “invasive animals” like cats the primary force behind species extinction in most of the world, including Australia. The report was released by a group of academics from 143 countries who make up the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which advises the UN and sovereign states on wildlife policy.
“They played a role in Australia’s two latest extinctions … they are one of the main reasons Australia is the mammal extinction capital of the world,” she said.
In addition to targeting felines on the mainland, Plibersek said Australia’s government would attempt to completely purge Christmas and French islands of their cat populations.
I have not had the opportunity to read an advance of the report, which was just released, and it will require careful reading as well as additional research before I’d feel comfortable commenting on the claims. That said, the numbers bandied about in press accounts (which claim cats kill more than 2.6 billion animals a year in Australia) are similar to the claims we’ve heard before, so unless there’s original research here and not a rehash of the same meta-analyses frequently cited in stories about cats and their impact on biodiversity, it doesn’t change the simple fact that it’s bad policy to act without reliable data.
I’m talking about an actual effort to count the feral and stray cat population in defined areas, as the Washington, D.C. Cat Count did using trail cameras, monitors and other methods. Obviously that can’t be applied to an entire country, but it can be done in different locations and provide a baseline to work with. Without that effort, the estimates of feline impact are nothing more than guesswork by professors sitting behind desks often entire continents away from the locales in question, plugging invented numbers into formulas intended to extrapolate totals for birds, mammals, lizards and insects killed by felis catus.
While similar studies estimated the number of cats in the US at between 25 and 125 million, Australia’s federal government says there are between 1.4 and 5.6 million cats in the country. If that’s true, it means each free-roaming cat in Australia kills between 500 and 1,850+ animals a year. It’s also difficult to accept estimates of predatory impact when the corresponding estimates of total cat population are so vague.
A “feeral ket.” Credit: Ferhan Akgu00fcn/Pexels
Still, as I’ve written in earlier posts, government intervention was inevitable without proactive measures. Australia’s cat lovers and caretakers would do well to voluntarily keep their pets inside, and to double their efforts to catch, spay/neuter and find homes for as many strays as they can.
If you live in Australia, you have until December to provide feedback to the federal government, and it’s probably a good idea to check with your local animal welfare groups, which are undoubtedly composing their own responses to the plan.
The little-known, Lilliputian species of feline thrives in some of the harshest environments on Earth, proving cat species are capable of remarkable adaptations to their surroundings.
There’s a lot we don’t know about felis margarita, so much so that kittens of the elusive and stealthy species weren’t photographed in the wild until 2017.
Now a study has unveiled a surprising fact about sand cats: despite being tiny in stature, they occupy huge ranges that can rival the size of territories claimed by big cats like tigers and jaguars. One cat claimed 1,758 square kilometers — about 1,093 square miles — for himself according to Gregory Breton, the study’s author, who said the cat’s behavior showed sand cat ranges are “considerably larger than previously estimated.”
That individual maintained his impressive range for more than six months before moving on. His behavior and the movement of 21 others tracked via radio collars suggests the species could be semi-nomadic, moving or adjusting their ranges as they look for prey and water in some of the hottest, most arid environments on the planet.
“If true, this type of movement in response to rainfall is previously unrecorded among wild cat species,” wrote Breton, who is managing director of the cat conservation group Panthera in France.
In addition to following sources of water, the cats may maintain such large ranges because prey are more spread out compared to biomes like jungles, forests and wetlands where other species of cats make their homes.
A mother sand cat with her babies.
(Above: Tap or click the images for full resolution versions.)
Impressive ranges weren’t the only surprise the tiny cats had for researchers. Breton and his colleagues managed to catch and examine more than 40 sand cats before releasing them back into the wild and noted they were all healthy, with few scars, no fresh wounds and no broken teeth.
The lack of wounds “means that it is likely that sand cats exhibit little territoriality and tolerate each other across their ranges,” Breton wrote “This beloved cat may indeed share habitat with others of its species — maybe their perception does match their nature, at least towards other sand cats.”
Sand cats can be found in the Algerian Sahara, the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and countries like Chad, Niger and Morocco. The Panthera team tracked the Lilliputian felines in the latter country, traversing the desert and arid landscapes of southwestern Morocco where temperatures peaked at 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) during the day.
Sand cats have what Breton describes as “whimsical faces,” sporting wide, swept ears to go along with the general horizontal appearance of their heads.
They have golden, classic tabby markings and sand-colored fur with well-defined dark rings on their limbs, allowing them to expertly blend into their surroundings. Sand cat camouflage is so effective and the species is so quiet that one of the best ways to find them is at night, using search lights to pick out their reflective inner eyelids amid the desert landscape.
They’re also considerably smaller than house cats, weighing up to 7.5 pounds.
Breton said his team’s research is critical for estimates of sand cat population, which in turn will help authorities determine the conservation status of the elusive feline.
Pain In The Bud 