Cats

Critter News Roundup Vol.4

I loves me some Critter News. Here’s some of the latest news on animals.

  • 3 Islands Overrun By Crazy Animals – FEB 14, 2013 08:00 AM // DISCOVERY NEWS
    Islands full of feral cats, tiny migrating craps, and golden pit-viper snakes.
  • Virtual Fence Offers High-Tech Herding – FEB 15, 2013 01:29 PM ET // BY JESSE EMSPAK
    What we’re talking about is a smarter version of that underground dog fencing. Not only will it keep the animals in, but use the jolts to convince the animals to move to the places with the most water or the best grazing. Talk about upsizing technology.
  • Thousands of Dolphins Spotted Near San Diego – Monday, Feb 18, 2013 // By Sarah Grieco
    Dolphins covered 7 miles of ocean. Whale and dolphin tours are doing abnormally well this year, and this “super mega-pod” amounts to one of the larger mega-pods viewed of late.

And… Since I’m ready to be done but I don’t want this story to get buried (animal news other than the Ketchum Bigfoot paper is pretty hard to come by right now!), I have for you a bonus story that you can read at your own leisure!

News Dump Vol.2

I figured I would dump news today because it’s the early in the month, and everything that’s from last month needs to get off my List of things to put in the blog.

Critter News Roundup Vol.2

Here again, and it’s more Critters, because this week tons of Critter News rolled down the pipes. This one is longer than normal (5 stories instead of 3), but I didn’t want to skip talking about any of these, so I’m not going to. Roundups will now be 3-5 stories with comments (dumps will be 6+ stories without comments, or with very short comments).

News Roundup Vol.2

  • Girl Who Doesn’t Grow Baffles Doctors – 16 January 2013 by Marc Lallanilla
    Brooke’s condition dosen’t have a name. She’s only 16 pounds. And her physicality isn’t the only thing failing to grow, as she’s mentally equivalent to a toddler despite being 20 years old.
  • Cats Take on Owners’ Habits (Good and Bad) – 16 January 2013 by Jennifer Viegas
    It’s nice to know that dogs aren’t the only ones who bear some similarities to their people. It also changes much of what was understood by biology about feline behavior.
  • Cornell Creates Massive Animal Sound Site – 16 January 2013 by Jennifer Viegas
    Cornell is launching a website with nearly 150,000 augio recordings of 9,000 species that go back to the year 1929. Check it out at www.MacaulayLibrary.org

Kitsu’s Afternoon “News”: Genetically Engineered AIDS Fighting Phosphorescent Felines

Originally reported by Discovery News in their 12 September 2011 Blog post.

Jellyfish genes have been used to “tag” Feline Immunodeficiency virus (FIV) resistant cats bred in a laboratory. FIV is the feline equivalent of aids and these cats can be used to study FIV resistance and gain insights into fighting HIV and AIDS. The original FIV resistant gene was derived from Rhesus Macaques and inserted into this line of cats along with the Jellyfish gene for luminesense, so that cats carrying the gene would also glow when exposed to black light.

So far the gene has bred true and showed no negative effects on the effected felines. With luck the studies of these cats will result in studies that move AIDS and HIV prevention forward.

And no. You can’t have a glowing cat for a pet. They don’t sell them.

Cats Paw