October 4, 2012 • 43 mins
Whether you prefer cats, dogs or snakes, you have to admit that humanity's relationship with felines is mysterious. Why do we live with these super predators? What does "meow" mean? Are they really our friends? Join Julie and Robert as they investigate.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie.
Cat people are weird. And I say that being a
cat person. But every day, it seems there's at least
(00:25):
one moment where I looked down and I see this
three carnivorous creature with a with a face like a
like a demented angel, working up at me, and and
and for at least a second, I have this sober
moment where I just realized how strange the whole thing
is that did here. This this creature lives in my
(00:46):
house now, exclusively in the house, with just a little
porch on the outside of the house that she can
access so that she doesn't run away or be run
off by feral hordes in the evenings, as was the
case a few months back. Um. But but yeah, I
have this moment where I'm just I just realized how
strange it is that we that I have this relationship
(01:07):
with this other species and that it and that you know,
you can you can go crazy and start calling it
like love or friendship or whatever, or you can or
you can strip it down to just base scientific realities,
which we're going to do in this podcast. But there's
this bond there and it's it's strange and it's and
it's pretty ancient and uh and it's really fascinating to
(01:30):
really pick it apart and look at just why this
relationship exists. Yeah. I've thought about this before too, just
and I've thought about it in the way of you know,
you always here that the Eskimos have you know, X
amount of words for the words snow because it's so
important to them. And then I think about my cat
Owen in the amount of nicknames that I have for him,
such as the importance um of him to me, you know,
(01:53):
and then my husband will look at me so oddly
some days when I just, you know, out of thin
air create a new nickname same like you know, so
rushed about I don't know, uh own and Ski in
the Sunshine seven. It just goes on and on and
on like that. It's pure nonsense. But I have thought
before to what extent am I just insane? Or is
(02:17):
this cat bringing out the insanity in me? And that's
what we're going to talk about today. Um as cat
people and you dog people out there to tune into this,
because I think it would be very interesting to get
your insights onto what degree you feel like you're being
manipulated by your furry little creature. Right at two points
I want. First of all, I think everybody I know
(02:38):
who happens to have a cat have multiple names. And
my wife and I we have multiple names for ours
given name Biscuit, Biscuit cat Heath on the official forms,
but we we call everything like Bosco Bisco, the Scotty
Sisty B yard Master B. While she's no longer yard
Master B. Now she's just housemaster b Um Bruskie d
(03:01):
with I don't know where that one came from, but
you know, you just end up rattling off all these
names and the cat doesn't know. The cat doesn't recognize
its own name. It just it works more with tone.
I understand. But uh, and then the second point that
you made, Wait now I forgot the second point. I
got manipulation. No, there was another point. What was it? Oh? Yes,
cat people. Uh. If you're new to the podcast and
(03:23):
you're thinking, oh, well, Robert Julie, their cat people, that
this is their bias at play. I will point out
we do have an earlier episode titled does My Dog
Really Love Me? And that one explores the bond between
humans and dogs, which, despite the kind of snarky title,
is a is a fair and balanced look at the
scientific bond link between canines and humans. Yeah, and we
(03:46):
also talk a lot about oxytocin exchange. This is the
field gives hormone, and we won't talk about that so
much today because a lot of that's in play and
we covered it. That's what cat's end dogs, so we
know already that it's a beneficial baby. It's the eyes
of the baby to pick it up and all sorts
of hormonal things are We all snuggle with our with
our cats and dogs and we feel better for it
and they do too. Um. So let's talk a little
(04:09):
bit about the stats here, because according to Scientific American
in their article the Evolution of house Cats, a third
of American households have feline members and more than six
hundred million cats live among humans worldwide. This brings us
back to our previous episode on the bat, where we
pointed out that the bat is arguably the most successful
mammal on the planet when you take into account that
(04:32):
both domestic cats and the rat have had a little
human help and spreading. Yeah, indeed, so the cat has
very much had our our help. There. We're partners in
crime with the cats and and they're everywhere for it.
That's true. And uh, we know this. We know that
a cat is a descendant of the African wildcat, and
that the domestication of the cat has been in the years,
(04:55):
making uh something up to like twelve thousand years and
then making Yeah, you look back on the what we
can piece together about the history of humans and cats.
I mean we you can you can look back to
ancient cultures like the Egyptians. Obviously they had a love
of the domestic cat. They they would mummify the cat.
We have the remains, you've seen the cute little sarcophagi
(05:18):
that remained today in our museums. But yeah, when we
start looking at the fossil evidence, it's, uh, it's pretty fascinating. Uh,
as far as we can tell, you know, cats were
first domesticated roughly twelve thousand years ago, and it's worth
trying to remember what else was happening at that time
about twelve thousand years ago. Also, agricultural societies were really
(05:41):
beginning to flourish in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent.
That's where this is happening. So we've been hanging out
with dogs for a while. Humans and dogs went way
back because what we were we doing, we were roaming around,
digging stuff out of the ground. We were we were
chasing down animals, treating them, pulling them down, cooking them up,
throwing a few scraps to the to the wolf like
animals that gathered on the the the outskirts of our fire.
(06:03):
And so we had this bond with the dog because
the dog could get something from us, could and could
offer something in return. The cats really didn't have anything
in the game up until that point. But then we
started growing our own food. And one of the great things,
i mean, the society culture building things about agriculture is
that you're able to grow a surplus. You're able to
grow enough to sustain you through the through the winter months.
(06:26):
You you grow enough to where where food becomes dominant
enough that you don't everyone doesn't have to engage in
the creation of it. People can specialize in other things.
And out of that though, again you have this surplus
of food setting around, so income the rodents to to
help you with that surplus of food. There's like, I
see you've got some some extra food there, Let me help.
(06:47):
And then the cats come and they say the same thing,
but they're talking about the rodents. They say, hey, I
see you have some some my thing and out around
your food. Let me eat them. And as this happened,
suddenly we're living in the same space as those cats.
We see that the cats are doing something that benefits us,
and uh and and they bond begins to form, domestication
(07:08):
begins to take hold, which makes perfect sense because cats
really are mainly solitary creatures. I mean, they do bond
with humans, and they do bond with other cats and
sometimes dogs, but they don't hang out in packs as
dogs do. And as you noted, a dog would you know,
follow around and have a pact mentality. Um. So, once
we established ourselves and weren't as nomadic and yes, all
(07:29):
of a sudden we were storing lots of grain, then
that situation could allow for domestication. And this is pretty cool.
Mitochondrial genetic analyzes shows that domestic cats are likely descended
from five mother cats from this region, the Fertile Crescent
and whose descendants were transported across the world by humans.
(07:51):
And then in five five the mitochondrial eaves of the
cat world and the earliest evidence of cat human reaction
comes from archaeological remains in Cyprus dated two around undred
years ago. Um and I interpret this as archaeological remains
in terms of depiction of Yes, Cyprus is pretty interesting
(08:12):
and how it impacts our our ability to understand the
history of our relationship with cats. Uh three, Archael just
found a job owed dating back eight thousand years two
thousand four, they found a site about fifteen hundred years
old that that showed a human buried with a cat.
And and one of the things that's important with Cyprus,
this is an island. And so the argument here is
(08:34):
wildcats are not just wandering up making boats and traveling over.
Humans are not going to bring I mean, if you've
ever trapped a feral cat or in a cage and
seeing how wild it is, your your first thought is not, hey,
let me take that on a little boat with me.
You've taken on a boat ride and release it all
the way over in Cyprus. No, it's uh, it's a
it's not something you want to to travel with so
(08:55):
the ideas that they brought over domesticated animals, right, which
again would be great for pest control on a ship. UM.
I should also point out that Uh, in ancient Rome,
cats were also prized by scholars because mice are going
to get into your house. Not only they're gonna go
after your grain, but they're gonna go after your your paperwork.
You're gonna go after your your manuscripture scrolls. Right. So
(09:16):
the cat becomes surprised in this society because he's gonna
help you protect your information, which I thought was pretty fascinating. UM.
And I mentioned that Egypt already, but just to put
that in in sort of grizzly context, scientists found a
cat cemetery in Benny Hassan Uh that apparently contained three
hundred thousand cat pies. And you know they had they
(09:38):
had Bastete, the Egyptian goddess of love, with the head
of a cat. Um and UH. To be convicted of
killing a cat in Egypt often meant a death sentence,
which which reminds me of there's an HP Lovecraft story
called The Cats of of Althar where it's like a
modern setting but the cats kind of run the show
and if anyone kills a cat there then meet with death.
(10:00):
But it's at the hands of the cats. It is
interesting too from a cultural perspective, because I was just
thinking about how we house cats and and give them
a nice, pretty place to live. In other parts of
the world there's roaming around, like literally in Rome where
there are so many cats, it's almost like their pigeons. Yeah,
it's also interesting to look at the again, that's like
(10:21):
the relationship you go back to, you know, ancient Egiant,
Middle East Greece people have this bond with the cat.
But for a long time in Europe it's during the
Middle Ages you see them um associated with evil and
the night uh and particularly with witches. Uh. Not to
derail too much into witchcraft, which we hope to cover
in a little in an upcoming episode, but I was
(10:44):
reading about witchcraft in England and uh and at the time,
persecuting witches in England was a little, uh, little tamer
than it was on the continent, because in the continent
you could use all sorts of torture to get exactly
the kind of ridiculous uh store array of satanic intrigue
that you wanted, you know, it's like, basically, here's the script.
(11:05):
You just torture the person until they reproduce it. But
you can use these methods um to the full extent
in England. So the story has tended to be far
less wild and but and one charge in particular found
its way into a lot of the accounts, and that
is that this old woman is living in this house
by herself except for this strange cat. Clearly, what's going
(11:29):
on here is the cat is there familiar, it's a demon,
and she is suckling it with some sort of bizarre
third nipples somewhere. Of course, yeah, that makes total sense.
But it wasn't like the the six hundreds until they
really got over all that in Europe. I was gonna say,
I can see how people would look to a cat
and think that it might have some sort of magical
(11:49):
attributes to it, only because if you've ever seen a
cat jump up like ten feet in there on you know,
some sort of surface that's maybe like, you know, two
inches wide, it does seem sort of like this magical,
crazy skill. And uh so I can see how the
imagination would lend itself to that. They seem like they
can teleport, they can their masters of of stealthy movement
(12:12):
and uh, and all of this comes down to what
are what are they basically designed for? What if they
evolved to do? They're killing machines machines? Yeah, um recently
an article came out about this and uh and I
thought it was very interesting because, according to George Fenwick,
he's the president of American Bird Conservacy, cat predation is
one of the reasons why one in three American bird
(12:33):
species are in decline. And if you have a cat
that has access to the outdoors, you're you're probably familiar
with this. Chances are they have brought home either a
live board bird or a portion of a live bird,
or some sort of bloody trophing that may or may
not have come from the insides of a bird. But
the thing is that, apparently, umu, the cats only bring
(12:53):
home a quarter of what they kill, so left forty
rod where they died. So if your animals bringing home
bloody trophies, just remember that you're only seeing part of
the equation here. Yeah, this is really interesting to Researchers
at the University of Georgia attached something called kitty cams
to sixty cats, so each owner would put a small
(13:14):
video camera mounted on a breakaway collar on the cat
in the morning, and then let the cat out, and
then they'd removed this camera and mountain and they would
download the footage of the carnage. Really basically a Faces
of Death, except except with some of some added napping
and and butt licking thrown in. Yes, yes, but looking yeah,
well and that's a different kind of thing. But um.
(13:36):
Each cat's activities were recorded for seven to ten days,
and the cats usually spent anywhere from like four to
six hours outdoors. But the really the most surprising thing
they found is that the majority of the house house
cats weren't hunters, and that only forty percent of the
cats in the study again house cats uh stopped chased
or killed other animals during the day. And another thing
(13:57):
they discovered is that and then you'll have to think
about this in next time your cat cozy's up to
you and and nezzles you. Um. Cats were seen eating
road kill, climbing down into storm trains and lapping up
sewer water, and eating insects like walking sticks and earthworms. Well,
the bug eating doesn't bother me. That doesn't so much either.
I think it's it's probably more the road kill and
(14:20):
certainly the risky behavior. You know, because because and I
say this is, you know, the cat that we have,
Biscuit wandered up to us as like an outdoor previously
owned animal, and then was outdoor for a little bit,
then indoor outdoor for a long time, and then we
moved to an area where there was a feral pack nearby,
and she's getting kind of kind of up there, and
(14:41):
the best theory that we have is that it came
to the point where she couldn't defend her turf anymore.
The the young you know, criminal element came around and
they said, hey, this is our turf now, and she's like,
all right, that's cool, I'll find some more humans, I guess.
And so we had to find her, bring her back,
and now she's indoor. But but ye had just to
to to know all the dangers that this animal to
(15:03):
give this bond with can encounter during the day in
an outdoor environment, particularly in an urban environment. Yeah, and
a lot of this was caught on camera so they
could say, yeah, cats do actually engage in risky behavior,
I mean, are younger ones and the other side, because
I know this becomes an argument between cat owners, you know,
the whole outdoor versus indoor outdoor scenario. I mean, the
(15:23):
other side is that, yes, an indoor cat is safer,
but they they spend six days the indoor oudoor and
spend six d eight hours outdoor because they love it.
That's what they've evolved to do. They've evolved to live
in an outdoor environment, eating varmints, not living in a
living room, chasing balls and listening to whistles and you know,
and eating all day. So it's it's it's weird. We
(15:44):
find this is what happens when humans manipulate the course
of nature. We find ourselves and in uh, in some
strange and not particularly satisfying places. You know. Holly Fry
of pop stuff is our residant cat experts. Oh did
she like cats? That's a joke. Um, yeah, yeah, she's
she's the one. She's got the library. Yeah, we all
(16:04):
come to her, We do all all our cat questions
and problems. She will answer them. Um. But she had
told me that this is interesting that in feral cat
colonies that they actually work in concert, almost like a
pack together, and that they will take turns in groups,
both sleeping in different places and hunting, so we'll share
a particular space whether or not author using it to
(16:25):
hunt or to sleep in together, which shows a level
of cooperation I didn't realize was actually in cats. Yeah,
And I mean the feral situation is it's a whole
topic unto itself, because then we we've you know, it's like,
do you we want to control that in that population
because it's an invasive species. It's killing all of these
birds and and shipmunks and what have you, um and uh,
(16:46):
and potentially endangering domestic cats. You don't necessarily know what
kind of of diseases the feral pack is carrying and
potentially in you know, in getting involved with your cats. Uh.
But then you you get into arguments, all right, to
what extent can you actually do a spay and neuter program?
You're never gonna get one of those programs. But then again,
(17:11):
if you just go in and wholesale exterminate stray cats,
other ferrells are going to move into the area anyway.
So it's again humans start messing with the natural swing
of things, and and everything gets a messy pretty quickly,
it does. It does. Um, well, let's talk about their
anatomy that how what makes them such stealthy killers. Yes.
(17:34):
One of the things I thought was really interesting is
that twenty six of their two forty four bones reside
in their tails, and this is actually what allows them
to have the sort of crazy balancing powers that they have. UM,
and the movement powers. And they also have a detached
clavical which allows a catch shoulders to move back and
(17:56):
forth in rhythm with its legs and kind of squeeze
through the space. Says that they do. And cats can
feel vibrations on the ground with their paws, which alerts
them to the potential prey. Yeah. You you get a
taste of that. Whenever you you have like a blanket
out the cat is walking across it. You know, you
can tell how tenderly they're walking and how how closely
(18:16):
they're analyzing the attention of the surface underneath. You know
they're there. Or if you have a toddler tearing down
the hallway, you know, another room away, you can automatically
look at the cat and the cat will sense it first,
whether or not you can hear. It's really interesting. Um.
Another thing about them is their whiskers are rooted really
(18:36):
deeply into their face, and that's an area that's rich
nerves and blood vessels, and these whiskers are so sensitive
that they can detect the slightest directional change in the wind.
And of course, uh, and of course they also have
excellent hearing. If you've ever you've ever watched a cat
just setting there, like even when they appear to be
kind of asleep and they're not completely asleep, their ears
(18:58):
are very active. There's a sound on the other side
of the house, and you'll see there there you're sort
of listen to that. There's something going on outside. They're
kind of half listening to that as well, so they
kind of move slowly like a little satellite dish. That's
what I've noticed. Um. And then another really cool aspect
of cats I think is just the mechanics of their
per boxes. Right. It's thought that the laryngeal muscles are
(19:21):
responsible for the opening and closing of the glottis and
this is the space between the vocal cords, and this
results in a separation of the vocal cords producing the
pur sound. And then purring is really unique. And then
it's a result of both the inhalation as well as
the exhalation, as opposed to account just me owing and
using the exhalation. So there are a number of different
theories as to why they purr. It's it's one of
(19:43):
these behavioral questions that we're still figuring out an answer too. Uh.
Veterinarians generally suggest that purring on a basic level, especially
between a kitten and it's mom, is saying, hey, hey mom,
it's me. I'm all right, I am here, and it's
also a part of their bonding mechanism. But obviously there's
something else going on, or there's more going on in
(20:06):
other situations, for instance, when cats purr to their humans,
what's that about, right? Well, yeah, But here's the interesting
thing too, is that um Dr Elizabeth Vaughan mougen Paler
has suggested that the per with its low frequency vibrations,
is a natural healing mechanism. So sometimes you hear a
cat per when it it is injured or or very upset,
(20:28):
as you know as well as you know when you're
petting in and it's experiencing some sort of pleasure from that.
But it's interesting that she says that purring maybe linked
to the strengthening and repairing of bones, relief of pain,
and wound healing, and that made me think about some
of the studies that we've seen before concerning meditation and
chanting and the vibration actually in the fruit very healing, yeah,
(20:52):
for the body, and a lot of that though have
to do more with inflammation in mucus. But I thought
that was an interesting detail. But I think that when
we're talking about purring, you're talking about, um, the ways
in which we can well cats can manipulate us. But
before we get to that, I wanted to talk a
little bit about mimicry. So I don't do you have
you ever heard a cat like mimic a bird? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
(21:16):
to the extent that it sounds like a bird. I'm
not I'm not all that convinced, but certainly they have
a particular sound in the same way that there's a
They make a certain sound when they're encountering cats that
they probably don't like, which generally is all of them,
you know, It's that kind of kind of thing. But
then there's that noise that they make when they see
a cat, generally through the window, uh, you know, generally
(21:37):
asking where they can't get to the cat, I mean,
they can't get to the bird, and so they're just
setting there watching and getting a little agitated and excited,
and the next start going, yeah, it's so odd because
those vocalizations really do sound bird like, and my cat
will just kind of sluice his face up to the
window and do that and just look, you know, apopolectic.
I mean, he looks like he's about to go nuts.
But I thought there was really a cool mimicry A
(22:01):
bit a piece of information here. In this two thousand
and ten Live Science article, they reported that a wild
cat species in the Amazon imitates a call of its
intended victim, which is a small squirrel sized monkey known
as a pied tamarin. They're super cute. Ever seen them
before as well? I'm sure they are cute and tasty
to a cat um. So when the cat mimics the
(22:22):
monkeys call, the tamarins are then compelled to come out
and come down out of their trees and investigate because
it's like, what's that familiar yet unfamiliar voice I hear?
And then when they do that, of course the cat pounces.
That was a little bit frightening, But it's the key
here those two is to think of that power and
that ability as as we try to understand cat's interactions
(22:44):
with humans. They they there is this this inborn ability
to mimic prey. To what extent are they using that
mimicry mimicry power to hack the human being that presumably
on them? All right, well, let's ponder that for a moment,
take a quick break, and then when we get back
we will see to what extent they're manipulating us. All right,
(23:09):
we're back, um, just to to rewind us a little
bit real quick. We're talking about purring, and it's heltive properties. Uh.
If you were into poetry or you're just into cats, uh,
check out a poem by Coleman Barks titled Purring. This
was featured September eight on Garrison Keeler is the Writer's Almanac,
and it's a really beautiful poem that equates purring with
(23:32):
poetry and uh and and talks a little bit about
the science. I can't read the whole thing, I'll link
to in the blog post, but there's a great, uh,
great little section um where the poet says, here's something
I've never heard of. Feline purrs and two conditions when
deeply content and when mortally wounded to calm themselves reading
for the death opening, which I just find kind of
(23:53):
kind of beautiful. And and I also I have to admit,
when my own cat was lost, I would have read
that poem and that kind of get me a little
bit of solace because I thought she wasn't going to
come back. And so I've thought to myself, well, if
something has happened to her and she is injured and
she's you know, on her last day out there somewhere,
than she's purring, you know. Yeah man, oh okay um, yeah, Well,
(24:19):
I think that's the That's the thing that about purring
it is it is so comforting on that level. If
you've ever heard a cat pr and especially if you're
you're petting the cat, it is there's something about it
that just makes you feel like you're more, you know,
in a nice warm quilt on a winter's day with
a mug of hot chocolate. I sound so much like
a crazy cat leader right now. So I'm gonna acknowledge
(24:41):
that there's some I freaking who it is. I want
to say it was like Kick Kuala or somebody. There's
a musician who used some some purring noises in one
of his tracks and it's like a really soothing kind
of ambient track and selling this is kind of purring
noise in the background. Well that's the thing about it, um,
there is a level of manipulation behind it that's making
you feel all uh, you know, kitten parts and rainbows.
(25:04):
Researcher Karen Macomb documented something called a solicitation purr. Yeah. Now,
this is apparently the purring that occurs first thing in
the morning. Like to put you in my situation, I
am waking up in it where I'm not the only
beginning to wake up. The cat believes it's definitely time
to wake up. So it's like five or something, and uh,
and she'll come and she'll want a walk on my pillow,
(25:26):
which is the one place I mean she she doesn't
walk on the kitchen cabinets and in the kitchen and
the cutting boards and all that, thank goodness. But but
aside from that, the one area that I'm like, this
is my place. Please don't sit here with your your
paws that have been God knows where my pilloup. This
is where my yeah, just leave this place sacred to
(25:46):
the humans. But first thing in the morning, course she's
walking on that pillow, purring and wants to set right
next to my head. And this is end. This is
the solicitation purring. And it's apparently it's like an alarm clock.
It's not the the you know, some people have cats.
It will be a little more aggressive that'll like to
do a little swiping of the face to wake him
up in the morning. But but this is basically the
(26:07):
cat trying to wake you up with with with a
more subtle means. Yeah, it's it's funny though. That kind
of perr has a lot going on behind it, and
it's different from any other purrs that you're going to encounter. Yeah, actually,
technically it's it's pretty amazing. Um. Macombs says that it's
produced with a low fundamental frequency and its harmonics by
(26:29):
muscular activation, but then also voices a cry. She says,
probably with the inner edges of the vocal chords, which
is then superimposed on the sounds frequency spectrum. And she
said that cats have just about the right size of
vocal folds to produce a cry that is similar to
a baby's. So there is a coincidental element, she says,
(26:50):
to this, and she said, in fact, the meow can
some remarkably like a crying child, which actually is true, um,
different from the purr, of course, but she's saying that
they might have there's there's this idea that there's sort
of natural selection in play that is creating these sounds
emanating from the cat. In other words, it would behoove
them to just put a slight bit of a cry
(27:13):
behind a purr that's nearly you know, perceptible, in order
to get you up to feed them. Yeah, it's kind
of like it's almost like a backhanded compliment or something
where somebody's like saying something really sweet. It's not a
backhanded compliment, but where someone saying something really sweet, but
with an agenda, you know, like like like oh, you're
you're so great, honey, especially when you um, you know,
(27:35):
fix me coffee? Could you give me some coffee? That
kind of thing, you know. So it's this is fascinating
because the owl. Obviously I can definitely see that, like
because because the cat will me out and it's either
really sweet or it's really irritating. Um, And I can
definitely equate that with a with a baby's scream. But
the purr, it's like the purl with this hidden agenda
(27:58):
of of infant mimic cree. It's kind of like the
medicine with the jam on top of it to soothe
it going down. Because because when the when the cat's
purring next my head in the morning, I may be
irritated about the pillow sitting, but I'm not irritated about
the purring, because the purring is soothing. But but subconsciously
it's waking me up. I know. It's it's an amazing
ability right to both soothe you but also to get
(28:19):
you to get up and get them food. Also, speaking
of me ow and mewing, there's a there's a two
Cornell University study and they were looking like a hundred
different vocalizations from twelve cats. And and again, if you
live with a cat, you know they have varying ways
of saying things. They it's not language by any means,
(28:40):
but there they're they're their pitch, their tone, the way
they stressed the me ow changes, and they and they
found in this study particularly that on one hand you
had the more pleasant, less demanding news and ease tend
to be shorter with the energy spread evenly through the
high and low frequency. The sounds start high and they
(29:02):
go low, so this would be like me ow me,
okay meal. So start with the big me little now,
all right, and then there's the the the other side
of the colon cone. These are the urgent less pleasant
and these are these tend to be longer, and they
stressed the owl over the me and there with more
energy and the lower frequency. So it's more like me
(29:23):
ow does exactly. So there you go. So just that
that's just a simple look at how meals can change.
And of course they change greatly, like like I imagine
you've found that with your cat, there also their self
there is this like pathetic version up in the owl.
It will happen like like if you try and put
them in a bathtub or something. Yeah, but and these
(29:45):
sort of water is not that will be less crazy
cat calls. Um. But I didn't want to mention too
that that study had twenty volunteers and some of whom
I believe didn't even own cats, and they were able
to pick out these or rather uh match these sort
of I guess you'd say psychological states with these different
kinds of me outs, which underlines that it's not just
(30:07):
a thing where crazy person living with a cat has
is reading a lot into what's going on. It's not there, No,
it's that this species has learned to game the human system.
It's learned how to manipulate this, and it's it's pretty fascinating.
Having said there, there are a lot of study that
there about cats and cat ownership, some more interesting than others,
some more impactful in others. We ran across one that
(30:29):
was talking about gender roles and and there's some interesting
statistical data is in there about how uh, women tend
to attach more to their cats than men do. And
then and then there's a I don't know, it's it's interesting,
but it's more just statistical, it's more about It feels
like it's more about the humans and about the cats.
So yeah, and it's hard to say because they didn't
(30:51):
necessarily look at the data and say is this because
is this is the nurture versus nature thing? Like women
tend to be more nurturing because this is the role
that they take in society, and therefore they're going to
connect with the cat more. Yeah. I mean, cats love
the ladies, and lord knows the ladies love cats. But
there's not really all right, well, let's talk about those
ladies that love cats. The men and the ladies who
(31:13):
love cats, and let's let's do a little versus dog people.
Oh yes, yes, this is the classic rivalry dog people
versus cat people. Um and and you see it like
in any workplace. In this workplace, for instance, you definitely
have the cat people. It's like you, me, Holly, Tracy,
I'm not sure who else offhand. But then then they're
the dog people like Josh and Shock they both dog
(31:34):
people died in the wool, hardcore horrible dog people now
and then uh, my own editor that we both work
closely with Alson Laddermilk very much a dog person. But
is there anything is is there really something different about
us as people or is it with our personality? It
is our personalities different? Or is it just the fact
(31:56):
that some people have a dog so doing cat again?
A ton of studies about this. I tend to think that,
you know, making generalized, uh you know, sweeping generalizations about
people's personalities and their paths. It's kind of a little
bit nuts, but I think it does bear talking about.
A study. This is from the Psychology Today article Personality
(32:17):
differences between cat and don dog owners. They talked about
Sam Gossling, who is a psychologist at the University of
Texas and Austin. He conducted a web based study. Now
we're talking about more than four thousand people responding to
this study asking whether they were dog people, cat people,
neither or both. Uh. The same group was then given
forty four at forty four item assessment and um, this
(32:41):
measures them on what they call the Big five personality
dimensions that psychologists often used to study personalities. Okay, now
you want to know the results, right, Okay. The results
showed that dog people were generally about fifteen percent more extroverted,
intent more agreeable. Those aren't he numbers, by the way,
(33:02):
both of which dimensions are associated with social orientation. In addition,
dog people were eleven percent more conscientious than cat people,
and conscientious meaning that they had a tendency to show
self discipline and to complete tasks and aimed for achievement. Um.
This trait also shows a preference for planned rather than
spontaneous behavior. You know, the thing that really drives drives
(33:26):
home here though, is that owning a cat owning a
dog are two totally different things. And certainly if you
have if you owned a cat and you're thinking about
owning a dog, be aware of that because it is
a it is a very different obligation. Cats dogs are
more social animals, which which can lead to and in
a way a deeper bond with that dog. But there
(33:47):
comes with that a lot of responsibilities and and and
a lot of socialization that has to take place. So
you have a dog, you haven't you need to take
that dog out and it needs to go on walks,
You need to encounter other humans. It needs to encounter
other dogs, and needs to encounter other dogs and humans
at the same time. So there's a there's a lot
of socializations occurring with the dog. And I feel like
there's a lot of force socialization that is that is
coming with being a responsible dog owner. Yeah, I was
(34:09):
about to say there's going to be a level of
extra version that you're going to engage in. I mean,
just take a look at any local dog park and
he will see this, right. So do just want to
meet new people, meet new dogs, sniff new butts. That's
just what they do. Meanwhile, the cats are a different
thing altogether. The cats are very much I'd rather not
meet new people, certainly, no more than one or two
(34:29):
at a time. I do not want to meet yeah,
do not bring a kitten around here, or I'm gonna flip.
It's a it's an end. They're they're a little more
you're going out of town for a weekend, you might
have somebody come and check in on the cat or
the cats. That's cool. But the dog you get, generally
you're gonna have to board that that creature, or you're
gonna have to take it with you, or you're gonna
have to arrange for somebody to really dogs set hardcore
(34:52):
for it. There, it's a little more of a hands
on engagement. So I wondered what this study seems to
argue that different types of people grab take towards one
animal or the other. But I feel like it's just
as much ownership in relationship with that creature molds the person.
Are you saying is the tail wagon? That? Yeah, exactly,
because you know it mentions the ming more task and
goal orient it or whatnot. When when you're a dog owner,
(35:14):
you have to be otherwise you're gonna have a horrible,
horrible dog. Okay, Well, let's talk about cat people. What's
happening with them? All right? So they are about twelve
more neurotic. However, they were also eleven percent more open
than dog people, and the openness trait involves a general
appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity,
(35:39):
curiosity in a variety of experience. And then people with
high scores on openness, of course we know this already
are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs, while people with
low scores on openness, and they say in parentheses dog
people tend to have more conventional, traditional interests. I think
part of and this is me just reading the stuff,
(36:00):
but that maybe to be a cat owner you have
to sort of create a lot of ideas. You have
to There's a lot more mystery with the cat to
read into, like why doesn't the cat want to hang
out with me? What's it? What's it doing in the
next dream? Why is it talking at the wall? You
know where? So now it's the tail of wagging the cat. Well,
I think on a very basic level, cats are harder
(36:21):
to understand than dogs, and they're harder to train, certainly
because the dog is a social animal. So there are
a number of ways to mold the dog based on
its social interactions, and it's it's it's natural um need
for a social order and you know, a dominant male,
m alpha male figure and its environment, that kind of thing,
(36:43):
whereas the cat doesn't have that. So you know, you
you want to train up a dog, right, you can
call up a dog whisper, you know, or take the
dog to a dog academy. That for the most I
think there's somebody that calls himself the cat whisper for
but for the most part, there is no cat whisper,
and there there are for the most part, there aren't
other than ali and there are no cat academies really
to take them take the cat to. I mean, cats
(37:04):
are and I'm generalizing cats are more of a mystery
than dogs. Now, Holley's is that they can be trained
through clicker training. Yeah, you have to do it when
they're younger though, of course, um and then many many
treats are involved, which makes sense because again the cats
just gaming you. Um. Alright. So again I think of
these things more as sweeping generalizations. But it's interesting to
(37:27):
talk about. And this of course leads us. All roads
lead us to where do cats really reside in this world? Like,
where's the one place where they are front and center?
Because otherwise they're they're behind closed doors. We don't see
them much, right, Yes, cats basically own the Internet. They're
just everywhere. Like every other YouTube is is a cat
(37:47):
clip cats attacking bags, cats looking weird, cats, sounding weird, cats,
being good cats, being bad cats leading a hitler. It's
you could just go on and on. It's like there
is a generation of memes that that they are a rise.
You have Internet superstars that are felines, like it's so,
I think it's Maru, the Japanese cat that's adorable looking.
(38:09):
There's a there's a grumpy cat that's uh, that's suddenly
a big hit. It looks like a grumpy human. It's
where there's l O L cats and of course the
whole I mean there's Yeah. Actually Wired magazine Wired dot
com has a great article about everything cat internet and
cat culture internet that you could ever want to know about.
(38:29):
The article is called Online Cat Industrial Complex. Yeah, we
will link to that in the blog post that the
company's this episode, and there's a lot of great info
in there. They mentioned Maru quite a bit. But the
really amazing thing that that really feels on target with
the stuff to blow your mind is the Google x lab.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is great because what they are
(38:51):
trying to do is to create a concept of a
thing for a brain simulation project. And what did they
do and what is what is the one thing on
the Internet that's a simple concept that there's a ton
of data on cats. So the researchers fed ten million
random YouTube stills into a brain simulation and then this
(39:13):
silicon cortex quickly, really really quickly developed the concept of
the cat. And this is amazing because basically a machine
has given the chance to learn what humanity is about
through its YouTube use. And the first thing they come
up with his cats. So it's it's so I like
to imagine again we've talked about the Internet is this
complete um collection of world knowledge and in a sense,
(39:37):
the Internet as human culture like in a way that
in a in a way that is not only an
outpouring of who we are, but it is who we are.
And conceivably, you can imagine an alien civilization encountering this Internet.
Maybe we're still around, maybe we're not, maybe we've become
something else entirely, but they encounter this Internet, this vast
(39:58):
sea of data about who we are, and they're like,
what is all this chaos? Let's let's start rooting this out,
so they send something in or they analyze it with
their alien data analysis ray. And the first thing they
come up with is like, well, first of all, they
are these things called cats. We assume these are the masters.
This is apparently the dominant species. And then there is
(40:18):
a secondary species, a primate species called the human. And
as best we can tell from YouTube clips, they occasionally
hit each other in the groin with with with the
with softball bats. Generally it's the the larval humans that
do this. They feed the cat masters, they look after them,
and then they have a lot of sex. Yeah, they
(40:40):
like to knock boots a lot, and they like to
watch it, yes, but mostly they serve their masters, the felines. Right,
they just do the knocking boots on the side. We
don't know why they're obsessed with it that they must
have only done that and then punched each other in
odd places. So anyways, it's it's fascinating to think of
that in terms of to what extent, to what extent
(41:01):
are we just super obsessed with cats and uh and
in what will future civilization make of it? Um? In closing,
I mentioned the story that the cats of Althar by
HP Lovecraft and and I'm just gonna read just a
quick ex excerpt from that. It is said that in Althar,
which lies beyond the river sky, no man may kill
(41:21):
a cat. And this I can verily believe as I
gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For
the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which
men cannot see. He is the soul of Antique Cagyptus,
the bearer of tales from forgotten cities in the ore
and oh fear. He is the kin of the Jungles lords,
(41:41):
and heir to the secrets of oory and sinister Africa.
The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language.
But he is more ancient than the Sphinx and remembers
that which she hath forgotten. That my friend was the
cat's pajamas. All right, well, um, let's call the robot
over here and seef we have a quick listener mail
(42:02):
to run through. Here's equipment from Jeff Jeff Wrightson and says, hi,
just listen to your episode three minutes till impact. I
used to work for an airline, but I stayed on
the ground. I'm kind of afraid of flying. I worked
with the tiny jets once I checked the flight crew
to see if they were ready to board, but really
had to use the bathroom. But couldn't wait the thirty
(42:24):
minutes to an hour for the plane to leave because
I drink a lot of coffee, so I used the lab.
It was stationary, the engine was off, an airplane door
was open, and still I had the same reaction when
I break down and use the bathroom on a plane
in flight. I had to push. I guess you could
describe it as the Whizz Willie's from Hell great show,
(42:44):
and my mind gets blowing on a regular basis of Jeff,
So there you go. So um, Whizz Willie's induced by
fear of flying. I just I found that strange and interesting,
the mind body connection right there, there you go. So
on that note, if you have something you would like
to share with us, um, particularly um you cat people
(43:04):
and dog people out there. If you have thoughts on
the human cat relationship, if you have some personal experiences
and I know you do, related to cat vocalization and
cat manipulation of their human servants slash masters, then let
us know about it. You can find us on Facebook
and Tumbler. We are Stuff to Blow your Mind on
both of those pages, and you can also find us
(43:25):
on Twitter, where we go by the handle blow of
the Mind, and you can also drop us a line
at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie.
Cat people are weird. And I say that being a
cat person. But every day, it seems there's at least
(00:25):
one moment where I looked down and I see this
three carnivorous creature with a with a face like a
like a demented angel, working up at me, and and
and for at least a second, I have this sober
moment where I just realized how strange the whole thing
is that did here. This this creature lives in my
(00:46):
house now, exclusively in the house, with just a little
porch on the outside of the house that she can
access so that she doesn't run away or be run
off by feral hordes in the evenings, as was the
case a few months back. Um. But but yeah, I
have this moment where I'm just I just realized how
strange it is that we that I have this relationship
(01:07):
with this other species and that it and that you know,
you can you can go crazy and start calling it
like love or friendship or whatever, or you can or
you can strip it down to just base scientific realities,
which we're going to do in this podcast. But there's
this bond there and it's it's strange and it's and
it's pretty ancient and uh and it's really fascinating to
(01:30):
really pick it apart and look at just why this
relationship exists. Yeah. I've thought about this before too, just
and I've thought about it in the way of you know,
you always here that the Eskimos have you know, X
amount of words for the words snow because it's so
important to them. And then I think about my cat
Owen in the amount of nicknames that I have for him,
such as the importance um of him to me, you know,
(01:53):
and then my husband will look at me so oddly
some days when I just, you know, out of thin
air create a new nickname same like you know, so
rushed about I don't know, uh own and Ski in
the Sunshine seven. It just goes on and on and
on like that. It's pure nonsense. But I have thought
before to what extent am I just insane? Or is
(02:17):
this cat bringing out the insanity in me? And that's
what we're going to talk about today. Um as cat
people and you dog people out there to tune into this,
because I think it would be very interesting to get
your insights onto what degree you feel like you're being
manipulated by your furry little creature. Right at two points
I want. First of all, I think everybody I know
(02:38):
who happens to have a cat have multiple names. And
my wife and I we have multiple names for ours
given name Biscuit, Biscuit cat Heath on the official forms,
but we we call everything like Bosco Bisco, the Scotty
Sisty B yard Master B. While she's no longer yard
Master B. Now she's just housemaster b Um Bruskie d
(03:01):
with I don't know where that one came from, but
you know, you just end up rattling off all these
names and the cat doesn't know. The cat doesn't recognize
its own name. It just it works more with tone.
I understand. But uh, and then the second point that
you made, Wait now I forgot the second point. I
got manipulation. No, there was another point. What was it? Oh? Yes,
cat people. Uh. If you're new to the podcast and
(03:23):
you're thinking, oh, well, Robert Julie, their cat people, that
this is their bias at play. I will point out
we do have an earlier episode titled does My Dog
Really Love Me? And that one explores the bond between
humans and dogs, which, despite the kind of snarky title,
is a is a fair and balanced look at the
scientific bond link between canines and humans. Yeah, and we
(03:46):
also talk a lot about oxytocin exchange. This is the
field gives hormone, and we won't talk about that so
much today because a lot of that's in play and
we covered it. That's what cat's end dogs, so we
know already that it's a beneficial baby. It's the eyes
of the baby to pick it up and all sorts
of hormonal things are We all snuggle with our with
our cats and dogs and we feel better for it
and they do too. Um. So let's talk a little
(04:09):
bit about the stats here, because according to Scientific American
in their article the Evolution of house Cats, a third
of American households have feline members and more than six
hundred million cats live among humans worldwide. This brings us
back to our previous episode on the bat, where we
pointed out that the bat is arguably the most successful
mammal on the planet when you take into account that
(04:32):
both domestic cats and the rat have had a little
human help and spreading. Yeah, indeed, so the cat has
very much had our our help. There. We're partners in
crime with the cats and and they're everywhere for it.
That's true. And uh, we know this. We know that
a cat is a descendant of the African wildcat, and
that the domestication of the cat has been in the years,
(04:55):
making uh something up to like twelve thousand years and
then making Yeah, you look back on the what we
can piece together about the history of humans and cats.
I mean we you can you can look back to
ancient cultures like the Egyptians. Obviously they had a love
of the domestic cat. They they would mummify the cat.
We have the remains, you've seen the cute little sarcophagi
(05:18):
that remained today in our museums. But yeah, when we
start looking at the fossil evidence, it's, uh, it's pretty fascinating. Uh,
as far as we can tell, you know, cats were
first domesticated roughly twelve thousand years ago, and it's worth
trying to remember what else was happening at that time
about twelve thousand years ago. Also, agricultural societies were really
(05:41):
beginning to flourish in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent.
That's where this is happening. So we've been hanging out
with dogs for a while. Humans and dogs went way
back because what we were we doing, we were roaming around,
digging stuff out of the ground. We were we were
chasing down animals, treating them, pulling them down, cooking them up,
throwing a few scraps to the to the wolf like
animals that gathered on the the the outskirts of our fire.
(06:03):
And so we had this bond with the dog because
the dog could get something from us, could and could
offer something in return. The cats really didn't have anything
in the game up until that point. But then we
started growing our own food. And one of the great things,
i mean, the society culture building things about agriculture is
that you're able to grow a surplus. You're able to
grow enough to sustain you through the through the winter months.
(06:26):
You you grow enough to where where food becomes dominant
enough that you don't everyone doesn't have to engage in
the creation of it. People can specialize in other things.
And out of that though, again you have this surplus
of food setting around, so income the rodents to to
help you with that surplus of food. There's like, I
see you've got some some extra food there, Let me help.
(06:47):
And then the cats come and they say the same thing,
but they're talking about the rodents. They say, hey, I
see you have some some my thing and out around
your food. Let me eat them. And as this happened,
suddenly we're living in the same space as those cats.
We see that the cats are doing something that benefits us,
and uh and and they bond begins to form, domestication
(07:08):
begins to take hold, which makes perfect sense because cats
really are mainly solitary creatures. I mean, they do bond
with humans, and they do bond with other cats and
sometimes dogs, but they don't hang out in packs as
dogs do. And as you noted, a dog would you know,
follow around and have a pact mentality. Um. So, once
we established ourselves and weren't as nomadic and yes, all
(07:29):
of a sudden we were storing lots of grain, then
that situation could allow for domestication. And this is pretty cool.
Mitochondrial genetic analyzes shows that domestic cats are likely descended
from five mother cats from this region, the Fertile Crescent
and whose descendants were transported across the world by humans.
(07:51):
And then in five five the mitochondrial eaves of the
cat world and the earliest evidence of cat human reaction
comes from archaeological remains in Cyprus dated two around undred
years ago. Um and I interpret this as archaeological remains
in terms of depiction of Yes, Cyprus is pretty interesting
(08:12):
and how it impacts our our ability to understand the
history of our relationship with cats. Uh three, Archael just
found a job owed dating back eight thousand years two
thousand four, they found a site about fifteen hundred years
old that that showed a human buried with a cat.
And and one of the things that's important with Cyprus,
this is an island. And so the argument here is
(08:34):
wildcats are not just wandering up making boats and traveling over.
Humans are not going to bring I mean, if you've
ever trapped a feral cat or in a cage and
seeing how wild it is, your your first thought is not, hey,
let me take that on a little boat with me.
You've taken on a boat ride and release it all
the way over in Cyprus. No, it's uh, it's a
it's not something you want to to travel with so
(08:55):
the ideas that they brought over domesticated animals, right, which
again would be great for pest control on a ship. UM.
I should also point out that Uh, in ancient Rome,
cats were also prized by scholars because mice are going
to get into your house. Not only they're gonna go
after your grain, but they're gonna go after your your paperwork.
You're gonna go after your your manuscripture scrolls. Right. So
(09:16):
the cat becomes surprised in this society because he's gonna
help you protect your information, which I thought was pretty fascinating. UM.
And I mentioned that Egypt already, but just to put
that in in sort of grizzly context, scientists found a
cat cemetery in Benny Hassan Uh that apparently contained three
hundred thousand cat pies. And you know they had they
(09:38):
had Bastete, the Egyptian goddess of love, with the head
of a cat. Um and UH. To be convicted of
killing a cat in Egypt often meant a death sentence,
which which reminds me of there's an HP Lovecraft story
called The Cats of of Althar where it's like a
modern setting but the cats kind of run the show
and if anyone kills a cat there then meet with death.
(10:00):
But it's at the hands of the cats. It is
interesting too from a cultural perspective, because I was just
thinking about how we house cats and and give them
a nice, pretty place to live. In other parts of
the world there's roaming around, like literally in Rome where
there are so many cats, it's almost like their pigeons. Yeah,
it's also interesting to look at the again, that's like
(10:21):
the relationship you go back to, you know, ancient Egiant,
Middle East Greece people have this bond with the cat.
But for a long time in Europe it's during the
Middle Ages you see them um associated with evil and
the night uh and particularly with witches. Uh. Not to
derail too much into witchcraft, which we hope to cover
in a little in an upcoming episode, but I was
(10:44):
reading about witchcraft in England and uh and at the time,
persecuting witches in England was a little, uh, little tamer
than it was on the continent, because in the continent
you could use all sorts of torture to get exactly
the kind of ridiculous uh store array of satanic intrigue
that you wanted, you know, it's like, basically, here's the script.
(11:05):
You just torture the person until they reproduce it. But
you can use these methods um to the full extent
in England. So the story has tended to be far
less wild and but and one charge in particular found
its way into a lot of the accounts, and that
is that this old woman is living in this house
by herself except for this strange cat. Clearly, what's going
(11:29):
on here is the cat is there familiar, it's a demon,
and she is suckling it with some sort of bizarre
third nipples somewhere. Of course, yeah, that makes total sense.
But it wasn't like the the six hundreds until they
really got over all that in Europe. I was gonna say,
I can see how people would look to a cat
and think that it might have some sort of magical
(11:49):
attributes to it, only because if you've ever seen a
cat jump up like ten feet in there on you know,
some sort of surface that's maybe like, you know, two
inches wide, it does seem sort of like this magical,
crazy skill. And uh so I can see how the
imagination would lend itself to that. They seem like they
can teleport, they can their masters of of stealthy movement
(12:12):
and uh, and all of this comes down to what
are what are they basically designed for? What if they
evolved to do? They're killing machines machines? Yeah, um recently
an article came out about this and uh and I
thought it was very interesting because, according to George Fenwick,
he's the president of American Bird Conservacy, cat predation is
one of the reasons why one in three American bird
(12:33):
species are in decline. And if you have a cat
that has access to the outdoors, you're you're probably familiar
with this. Chances are they have brought home either a
live board bird or a portion of a live bird,
or some sort of bloody trophing that may or may
not have come from the insides of a bird. But
the thing is that, apparently, umu, the cats only bring
(12:53):
home a quarter of what they kill, so left forty
rod where they died. So if your animals bringing home
bloody trophies, just remember that you're only seeing part of
the equation here. Yeah, this is really interesting to Researchers
at the University of Georgia attached something called kitty cams
to sixty cats, so each owner would put a small
(13:14):
video camera mounted on a breakaway collar on the cat
in the morning, and then let the cat out, and
then they'd removed this camera and mountain and they would
download the footage of the carnage. Really basically a Faces
of Death, except except with some of some added napping
and and butt licking thrown in. Yes, yes, but looking yeah,
well and that's a different kind of thing. But um.
(13:36):
Each cat's activities were recorded for seven to ten days,
and the cats usually spent anywhere from like four to
six hours outdoors. But the really the most surprising thing
they found is that the majority of the house house
cats weren't hunters, and that only forty percent of the
cats in the study again house cats uh stopped chased
or killed other animals during the day. And another thing
(13:57):
they discovered is that and then you'll have to think
about this in next time your cat cozy's up to
you and and nezzles you. Um. Cats were seen eating
road kill, climbing down into storm trains and lapping up
sewer water, and eating insects like walking sticks and earthworms. Well,
the bug eating doesn't bother me. That doesn't so much either.
I think it's it's probably more the road kill and
(14:20):
certainly the risky behavior. You know, because because and I
say this is, you know, the cat that we have,
Biscuit wandered up to us as like an outdoor previously
owned animal, and then was outdoor for a little bit,
then indoor outdoor for a long time, and then we
moved to an area where there was a feral pack nearby,
and she's getting kind of kind of up there, and
(14:41):
the best theory that we have is that it came
to the point where she couldn't defend her turf anymore.
The the young you know, criminal element came around and
they said, hey, this is our turf now, and she's like,
all right, that's cool, I'll find some more humans, I guess.
And so we had to find her, bring her back,
and now she's indoor. But but ye had just to
to to know all the dangers that this animal to
(15:03):
give this bond with can encounter during the day in
an outdoor environment, particularly in an urban environment. Yeah, and
a lot of this was caught on camera so they
could say, yeah, cats do actually engage in risky behavior,
I mean, are younger ones and the other side, because
I know this becomes an argument between cat owners, you know,
the whole outdoor versus indoor outdoor scenario. I mean, the
(15:23):
other side is that, yes, an indoor cat is safer,
but they they spend six days the indoor oudoor and
spend six d eight hours outdoor because they love it.
That's what they've evolved to do. They've evolved to live
in an outdoor environment, eating varmints, not living in a
living room, chasing balls and listening to whistles and you know,
and eating all day. So it's it's it's weird. We
(15:44):
find this is what happens when humans manipulate the course
of nature. We find ourselves and in uh, in some
strange and not particularly satisfying places. You know. Holly Fry
of pop stuff is our residant cat experts. Oh did
she like cats? That's a joke. Um, yeah, yeah, she's
she's the one. She's got the library. Yeah, we all
(16:04):
come to her, We do all all our cat questions
and problems. She will answer them. Um. But she had
told me that this is interesting that in feral cat
colonies that they actually work in concert, almost like a
pack together, and that they will take turns in groups,
both sleeping in different places and hunting, so we'll share
a particular space whether or not author using it to
(16:25):
hunt or to sleep in together, which shows a level
of cooperation I didn't realize was actually in cats. Yeah,
And I mean the feral situation is it's a whole
topic unto itself, because then we we've you know, it's like,
do you we want to control that in that population
because it's an invasive species. It's killing all of these
birds and and shipmunks and what have you, um and uh,
(16:46):
and potentially endangering domestic cats. You don't necessarily know what
kind of of diseases the feral pack is carrying and
potentially in you know, in getting involved with your cats. Uh.
But then you you get into arguments, all right, to
what extent can you actually do a spay and neuter program?
You're never gonna get one of those programs. But then again,
(17:11):
if you just go in and wholesale exterminate stray cats,
other ferrells are going to move into the area anyway.
So it's again humans start messing with the natural swing
of things, and and everything gets a messy pretty quickly,
it does. It does. Um, well, let's talk about their
anatomy that how what makes them such stealthy killers. Yes.
(17:34):
One of the things I thought was really interesting is
that twenty six of their two forty four bones reside
in their tails, and this is actually what allows them
to have the sort of crazy balancing powers that they have. UM,
and the movement powers. And they also have a detached
clavical which allows a catch shoulders to move back and
(17:56):
forth in rhythm with its legs and kind of squeeze
through the space. Says that they do. And cats can
feel vibrations on the ground with their paws, which alerts
them to the potential prey. Yeah. You you get a
taste of that. Whenever you you have like a blanket
out the cat is walking across it. You know, you
can tell how tenderly they're walking and how how closely
(18:16):
they're analyzing the attention of the surface underneath. You know
they're there. Or if you have a toddler tearing down
the hallway, you know, another room away, you can automatically
look at the cat and the cat will sense it first,
whether or not you can hear. It's really interesting. Um.
Another thing about them is their whiskers are rooted really
(18:36):
deeply into their face, and that's an area that's rich
nerves and blood vessels, and these whiskers are so sensitive
that they can detect the slightest directional change in the wind.
And of course, uh, and of course they also have
excellent hearing. If you've ever you've ever watched a cat
just setting there, like even when they appear to be
kind of asleep and they're not completely asleep, their ears
(18:58):
are very active. There's a sound on the other side
of the house, and you'll see there there you're sort
of listen to that. There's something going on outside. They're
kind of half listening to that as well, so they
kind of move slowly like a little satellite dish. That's
what I've noticed. Um. And then another really cool aspect
of cats I think is just the mechanics of their
per boxes. Right. It's thought that the laryngeal muscles are
(19:21):
responsible for the opening and closing of the glottis and
this is the space between the vocal cords, and this
results in a separation of the vocal cords producing the
pur sound. And then purring is really unique. And then
it's a result of both the inhalation as well as
the exhalation, as opposed to account just me owing and
using the exhalation. So there are a number of different
theories as to why they purr. It's it's one of
(19:43):
these behavioral questions that we're still figuring out an answer too. Uh.
Veterinarians generally suggest that purring on a basic level, especially
between a kitten and it's mom, is saying, hey, hey mom,
it's me. I'm all right, I am here, and it's
also a part of their bonding mechanism. But obviously there's
something else going on, or there's more going on in
(20:06):
other situations, for instance, when cats purr to their humans,
what's that about, right? Well, yeah, But here's the interesting
thing too, is that um Dr Elizabeth Vaughan mougen Paler
has suggested that the per with its low frequency vibrations,
is a natural healing mechanism. So sometimes you hear a
cat per when it it is injured or or very upset,
(20:28):
as you know as well as you know when you're
petting in and it's experiencing some sort of pleasure from that.
But it's interesting that she says that purring maybe linked
to the strengthening and repairing of bones, relief of pain,
and wound healing, and that made me think about some
of the studies that we've seen before concerning meditation and
chanting and the vibration actually in the fruit very healing, yeah,
(20:52):
for the body, and a lot of that though have
to do more with inflammation in mucus. But I thought
that was an interesting detail. But I think that when
we're talking about purring, you're talking about, um, the ways
in which we can well cats can manipulate us. But
before we get to that, I wanted to talk a
little bit about mimicry. So I don't do you have
you ever heard a cat like mimic a bird? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
(21:16):
to the extent that it sounds like a bird. I'm
not I'm not all that convinced, but certainly they have
a particular sound in the same way that there's a
They make a certain sound when they're encountering cats that
they probably don't like, which generally is all of them,
you know, It's that kind of kind of thing. But
then there's that noise that they make when they see
a cat, generally through the window, uh, you know, generally
(21:37):
asking where they can't get to the cat, I mean,
they can't get to the bird, and so they're just
setting there watching and getting a little agitated and excited,
and the next start going, yeah, it's so odd because
those vocalizations really do sound bird like, and my cat
will just kind of sluice his face up to the
window and do that and just look, you know, apopolectic.
I mean, he looks like he's about to go nuts.
But I thought there was really a cool mimicry A
(22:01):
bit a piece of information here. In this two thousand
and ten Live Science article, they reported that a wild
cat species in the Amazon imitates a call of its
intended victim, which is a small squirrel sized monkey known
as a pied tamarin. They're super cute. Ever seen them
before as well? I'm sure they are cute and tasty
to a cat um. So when the cat mimics the
(22:22):
monkeys call, the tamarins are then compelled to come out
and come down out of their trees and investigate because
it's like, what's that familiar yet unfamiliar voice I hear?
And then when they do that, of course the cat pounces.
That was a little bit frightening, But it's the key
here those two is to think of that power and
that ability as as we try to understand cat's interactions
(22:44):
with humans. They they there is this this inborn ability
to mimic prey. To what extent are they using that
mimicry mimicry power to hack the human being that presumably
on them? All right, well, let's ponder that for a moment,
take a quick break, and then when we get back
we will see to what extent they're manipulating us. All right,
(23:09):
we're back, um, just to to rewind us a little
bit real quick. We're talking about purring, and it's heltive properties. Uh.
If you were into poetry or you're just into cats, uh,
check out a poem by Coleman Barks titled Purring. This
was featured September eight on Garrison Keeler is the Writer's Almanac,
and it's a really beautiful poem that equates purring with
(23:32):
poetry and uh and and talks a little bit about
the science. I can't read the whole thing, I'll link
to in the blog post, but there's a great, uh,
great little section um where the poet says, here's something
I've never heard of. Feline purrs and two conditions when
deeply content and when mortally wounded to calm themselves reading
for the death opening, which I just find kind of
(23:53):
kind of beautiful. And and I also I have to admit,
when my own cat was lost, I would have read
that poem and that kind of get me a little
bit of solace because I thought she wasn't going to
come back. And so I've thought to myself, well, if
something has happened to her and she is injured and
she's you know, on her last day out there somewhere,
than she's purring, you know. Yeah man, oh okay um, yeah, Well,
(24:19):
I think that's the That's the thing that about purring
it is it is so comforting on that level. If
you've ever heard a cat pr and especially if you're
you're petting the cat, it is there's something about it
that just makes you feel like you're more, you know,
in a nice warm quilt on a winter's day with
a mug of hot chocolate. I sound so much like
a crazy cat leader right now. So I'm gonna acknowledge
(24:41):
that there's some I freaking who it is. I want
to say it was like Kick Kuala or somebody. There's
a musician who used some some purring noises in one
of his tracks and it's like a really soothing kind
of ambient track and selling this is kind of purring
noise in the background. Well that's the thing about it, um,
there is a level of manipulation behind it that's making
you feel all uh, you know, kitten parts and rainbows.
(25:04):
Researcher Karen Macomb documented something called a solicitation purr. Yeah. Now,
this is apparently the purring that occurs first thing in
the morning. Like to put you in my situation, I
am waking up in it where I'm not the only
beginning to wake up. The cat believes it's definitely time
to wake up. So it's like five or something, and uh,
and she'll come and she'll want a walk on my pillow,
(25:26):
which is the one place I mean she she doesn't
walk on the kitchen cabinets and in the kitchen and
the cutting boards and all that, thank goodness. But but
aside from that, the one area that I'm like, this
is my place. Please don't sit here with your your
paws that have been God knows where my pilloup. This
is where my yeah, just leave this place sacred to
(25:46):
the humans. But first thing in the morning, course she's
walking on that pillow, purring and wants to set right
next to my head. And this is end. This is
the solicitation purring. And it's apparently it's like an alarm clock.
It's not the the you know, some people have cats.
It will be a little more aggressive that'll like to
do a little swiping of the face to wake him
up in the morning. But but this is basically the
(26:07):
cat trying to wake you up with with with a
more subtle means. Yeah, it's it's funny though. That kind
of perr has a lot going on behind it, and
it's different from any other purrs that you're going to encounter. Yeah, actually,
technically it's it's pretty amazing. Um. Macombs says that it's
produced with a low fundamental frequency and its harmonics by
(26:29):
muscular activation, but then also voices a cry. She says,
probably with the inner edges of the vocal chords, which
is then superimposed on the sounds frequency spectrum. And she
said that cats have just about the right size of
vocal folds to produce a cry that is similar to
a baby's. So there is a coincidental element, she says,
(26:50):
to this, and she said, in fact, the meow can
some remarkably like a crying child, which actually is true, um,
different from the purr, of course, but she's saying that
they might have there's there's this idea that there's sort
of natural selection in play that is creating these sounds
emanating from the cat. In other words, it would behoove
them to just put a slight bit of a cry
(27:13):
behind a purr that's nearly you know, perceptible, in order
to get you up to feed them. Yeah, it's kind
of like it's almost like a backhanded compliment or something
where somebody's like saying something really sweet. It's not a
backhanded compliment, but where someone saying something really sweet, but
with an agenda, you know, like like like oh, you're
you're so great, honey, especially when you um, you know,
(27:35):
fix me coffee? Could you give me some coffee? That
kind of thing, you know. So it's this is fascinating
because the owl. Obviously I can definitely see that, like
because because the cat will me out and it's either
really sweet or it's really irritating. Um, And I can
definitely equate that with a with a baby's scream. But
the purr, it's like the purl with this hidden agenda
(27:58):
of of infant mimic cree. It's kind of like the
medicine with the jam on top of it to soothe
it going down. Because because when the when the cat's
purring next my head in the morning, I may be
irritated about the pillow sitting, but I'm not irritated about
the purring, because the purring is soothing. But but subconsciously
it's waking me up. I know. It's it's an amazing
ability right to both soothe you but also to get
(28:19):
you to get up and get them food. Also, speaking
of me ow and mewing, there's a there's a two
Cornell University study and they were looking like a hundred
different vocalizations from twelve cats. And and again, if you
live with a cat, you know they have varying ways
of saying things. They it's not language by any means,
(28:40):
but there they're they're their pitch, their tone, the way
they stressed the me ow changes, and they and they
found in this study particularly that on one hand you
had the more pleasant, less demanding news and ease tend
to be shorter with the energy spread evenly through the
high and low frequency. The sounds start high and they
(29:02):
go low, so this would be like me ow me,
okay meal. So start with the big me little now,
all right, and then there's the the the other side
of the colon cone. These are the urgent less pleasant
and these are these tend to be longer, and they
stressed the owl over the me and there with more
energy and the lower frequency. So it's more like me
(29:23):
ow does exactly. So there you go. So just that
that's just a simple look at how meals can change.
And of course they change greatly, like like I imagine
you've found that with your cat, there also their self
there is this like pathetic version up in the owl.
It will happen like like if you try and put
them in a bathtub or something. Yeah, but and these
(29:45):
sort of water is not that will be less crazy
cat calls. Um. But I didn't want to mention too
that that study had twenty volunteers and some of whom
I believe didn't even own cats, and they were able
to pick out these or rather uh match these sort
of I guess you'd say psychological states with these different
kinds of me outs, which underlines that it's not just
(30:07):
a thing where crazy person living with a cat has
is reading a lot into what's going on. It's not there, No,
it's that this species has learned to game the human system.
It's learned how to manipulate this, and it's it's pretty fascinating.
Having said there, there are a lot of study that
there about cats and cat ownership, some more interesting than others,
some more impactful in others. We ran across one that
(30:29):
was talking about gender roles and and there's some interesting
statistical data is in there about how uh, women tend
to attach more to their cats than men do. And
then and then there's a I don't know, it's it's interesting,
but it's more just statistical, it's more about It feels
like it's more about the humans and about the cats.
So yeah, and it's hard to say because they didn't
(30:51):
necessarily look at the data and say is this because
is this is the nurture versus nature thing? Like women
tend to be more nurturing because this is the role
that they take in society, and therefore they're going to
connect with the cat more. Yeah. I mean, cats love
the ladies, and lord knows the ladies love cats. But
there's not really all right, well, let's talk about those
ladies that love cats. The men and the ladies who
(31:13):
love cats, and let's let's do a little versus dog people.
Oh yes, yes, this is the classic rivalry dog people
versus cat people. Um and and you see it like
in any workplace. In this workplace, for instance, you definitely
have the cat people. It's like you, me, Holly, Tracy,
I'm not sure who else offhand. But then then they're
the dog people like Josh and Shock they both dog
(31:34):
people died in the wool, hardcore horrible dog people now
and then uh, my own editor that we both work
closely with Alson Laddermilk very much a dog person. But
is there anything is is there really something different about
us as people or is it with our personality? It
is our personalities different? Or is it just the fact
(31:56):
that some people have a dog so doing cat again?
A ton of studies about this. I tend to think that,
you know, making generalized, uh you know, sweeping generalizations about
people's personalities and their paths. It's kind of a little
bit nuts, but I think it does bear talking about.
A study. This is from the Psychology Today article Personality
(32:17):
differences between cat and don dog owners. They talked about
Sam Gossling, who is a psychologist at the University of
Texas and Austin. He conducted a web based study. Now
we're talking about more than four thousand people responding to
this study asking whether they were dog people, cat people,
neither or both. Uh. The same group was then given
forty four at forty four item assessment and um, this
(32:41):
measures them on what they call the Big five personality
dimensions that psychologists often used to study personalities. Okay, now
you want to know the results, right, Okay. The results
showed that dog people were generally about fifteen percent more extroverted,
intent more agreeable. Those aren't he numbers, by the way,
(33:02):
both of which dimensions are associated with social orientation. In addition,
dog people were eleven percent more conscientious than cat people,
and conscientious meaning that they had a tendency to show
self discipline and to complete tasks and aimed for achievement. Um.
This trait also shows a preference for planned rather than
spontaneous behavior. You know, the thing that really drives drives
(33:26):
home here though, is that owning a cat owning a
dog are two totally different things. And certainly if you
have if you owned a cat and you're thinking about
owning a dog, be aware of that because it is
a it is a very different obligation. Cats dogs are
more social animals, which which can lead to and in
a way a deeper bond with that dog. But there
(33:47):
comes with that a lot of responsibilities and and and
a lot of socialization that has to take place. So
you have a dog, you haven't you need to take
that dog out and it needs to go on walks,
You need to encounter other humans. It needs to encounter
other dogs, and needs to encounter other dogs and humans
at the same time. So there's a there's a lot
of socializations occurring with the dog. And I feel like
there's a lot of force socialization that is that is
coming with being a responsible dog owner. Yeah, I was
(34:09):
about to say there's going to be a level of
extra version that you're going to engage in. I mean,
just take a look at any local dog park and
he will see this, right. So do just want to
meet new people, meet new dogs, sniff new butts. That's
just what they do. Meanwhile, the cats are a different
thing altogether. The cats are very much I'd rather not
meet new people, certainly, no more than one or two
(34:29):
at a time. I do not want to meet yeah,
do not bring a kitten around here, or I'm gonna flip.
It's a it's an end. They're they're a little more
you're going out of town for a weekend, you might
have somebody come and check in on the cat or
the cats. That's cool. But the dog you get, generally
you're gonna have to board that that creature, or you're
gonna have to take it with you, or you're gonna
have to arrange for somebody to really dogs set hardcore
(34:52):
for it. There, it's a little more of a hands
on engagement. So I wondered what this study seems to
argue that different types of people grab take towards one
animal or the other. But I feel like it's just
as much ownership in relationship with that creature molds the person.
Are you saying is the tail wagon? That? Yeah, exactly,
because you know it mentions the ming more task and
goal orient it or whatnot. When when you're a dog owner,
(35:14):
you have to be otherwise you're gonna have a horrible,
horrible dog. Okay, Well, let's talk about cat people. What's
happening with them? All right? So they are about twelve
more neurotic. However, they were also eleven percent more open
than dog people, and the openness trait involves a general
appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity,
(35:39):
curiosity in a variety of experience. And then people with
high scores on openness, of course we know this already
are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs, while people with
low scores on openness, and they say in parentheses dog
people tend to have more conventional, traditional interests. I think
part of and this is me just reading the stuff,
(36:00):
but that maybe to be a cat owner you have
to sort of create a lot of ideas. You have
to There's a lot more mystery with the cat to
read into, like why doesn't the cat want to hang
out with me? What's it? What's it doing in the
next dream? Why is it talking at the wall? You
know where? So now it's the tail of wagging the cat. Well,
I think on a very basic level, cats are harder
(36:21):
to understand than dogs, and they're harder to train, certainly
because the dog is a social animal. So there are
a number of ways to mold the dog based on
its social interactions, and it's it's it's natural um need
for a social order and you know, a dominant male,
m alpha male figure and its environment, that kind of thing,
(36:43):
whereas the cat doesn't have that. So you know, you
you want to train up a dog, right, you can
call up a dog whisper, you know, or take the
dog to a dog academy. That for the most I
think there's somebody that calls himself the cat whisper for
but for the most part, there is no cat whisper,
and there there are for the most part, there aren't
other than ali and there are no cat academies really
to take them take the cat to. I mean, cats
(37:04):
are and I'm generalizing cats are more of a mystery
than dogs. Now, Holley's is that they can be trained
through clicker training. Yeah, you have to do it when
they're younger though, of course, um and then many many
treats are involved, which makes sense because again the cats
just gaming you. Um. Alright. So again I think of
these things more as sweeping generalizations. But it's interesting to
(37:27):
talk about. And this of course leads us. All roads
lead us to where do cats really reside in this world? Like,
where's the one place where they are front and center?
Because otherwise they're they're behind closed doors. We don't see
them much, right, Yes, cats basically own the Internet. They're
just everywhere. Like every other YouTube is is a cat
(37:47):
clip cats attacking bags, cats looking weird, cats, sounding weird, cats,
being good cats, being bad cats leading a hitler. It's
you could just go on and on. It's like there
is a generation of memes that that they are a rise.
You have Internet superstars that are felines, like it's so,
I think it's Maru, the Japanese cat that's adorable looking.
(38:09):
There's a there's a grumpy cat that's uh, that's suddenly
a big hit. It looks like a grumpy human. It's
where there's l O L cats and of course the
whole I mean there's Yeah. Actually Wired magazine Wired dot
com has a great article about everything cat internet and
cat culture internet that you could ever want to know about.
(38:29):
The article is called Online Cat Industrial Complex. Yeah, we
will link to that in the blog post that the
company's this episode, and there's a lot of great info
in there. They mentioned Maru quite a bit. But the
really amazing thing that that really feels on target with
the stuff to blow your mind is the Google x lab.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is great because what they are
(38:51):
trying to do is to create a concept of a
thing for a brain simulation project. And what did they
do and what is what is the one thing on
the Internet that's a simple concept that there's a ton
of data on cats. So the researchers fed ten million
random YouTube stills into a brain simulation and then this
(39:13):
silicon cortex quickly, really really quickly developed the concept of
the cat. And this is amazing because basically a machine
has given the chance to learn what humanity is about
through its YouTube use. And the first thing they come
up with his cats. So it's it's so I like
to imagine again we've talked about the Internet is this
complete um collection of world knowledge and in a sense,
(39:37):
the Internet as human culture like in a way that
in a in a way that is not only an
outpouring of who we are, but it is who we are.
And conceivably, you can imagine an alien civilization encountering this Internet.
Maybe we're still around, maybe we're not, maybe we've become
something else entirely, but they encounter this Internet, this vast
(39:58):
sea of data about who we are, and they're like,
what is all this chaos? Let's let's start rooting this out,
so they send something in or they analyze it with
their alien data analysis ray. And the first thing they
come up with is like, well, first of all, they
are these things called cats. We assume these are the masters.
This is apparently the dominant species. And then there is
(40:18):
a secondary species, a primate species called the human. And
as best we can tell from YouTube clips, they occasionally
hit each other in the groin with with with the
with softball bats. Generally it's the the larval humans that
do this. They feed the cat masters, they look after them,
and then they have a lot of sex. Yeah, they
(40:40):
like to knock boots a lot, and they like to
watch it, yes, but mostly they serve their masters, the felines. Right,
they just do the knocking boots on the side. We
don't know why they're obsessed with it that they must
have only done that and then punched each other in
odd places. So anyways, it's it's fascinating to think of
that in terms of to what extent, to what extent
(41:01):
are we just super obsessed with cats and uh and
in what will future civilization make of it? Um? In closing,
I mentioned the story that the cats of Althar by
HP Lovecraft and and I'm just gonna read just a
quick ex excerpt from that. It is said that in Althar,
which lies beyond the river sky, no man may kill
(41:21):
a cat. And this I can verily believe as I
gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For
the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which
men cannot see. He is the soul of Antique Cagyptus,
the bearer of tales from forgotten cities in the ore
and oh fear. He is the kin of the Jungles lords,
(41:41):
and heir to the secrets of oory and sinister Africa.
The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language.
But he is more ancient than the Sphinx and remembers
that which she hath forgotten. That my friend was the
cat's pajamas. All right, well, um, let's call the robot
over here and seef we have a quick listener mail
(42:02):
to run through. Here's equipment from Jeff Jeff Wrightson and says, hi,
just listen to your episode three minutes till impact. I
used to work for an airline, but I stayed on
the ground. I'm kind of afraid of flying. I worked
with the tiny jets once I checked the flight crew
to see if they were ready to board, but really
had to use the bathroom. But couldn't wait the thirty
(42:24):
minutes to an hour for the plane to leave because
I drink a lot of coffee, so I used the lab.
It was stationary, the engine was off, an airplane door
was open, and still I had the same reaction when
I break down and use the bathroom on a plane
in flight. I had to push. I guess you could
describe it as the Whizz Willie's from Hell great show,
(42:44):
and my mind gets blowing on a regular basis of Jeff,
So there you go. So um, Whizz Willie's induced by
fear of flying. I just I found that strange and interesting,
the mind body connection right there, there you go. So
on that note, if you have something you would like
to share with us, um, particularly um you cat people
(43:04):
and dog people out there. If you have thoughts on
the human cat relationship, if you have some personal experiences
and I know you do, related to cat vocalization and
cat manipulation of their human servants slash masters, then let
us know about it. You can find us on Facebook
and Tumbler. We are Stuff to Blow your Mind on
both of those pages, and you can also find us
(43:25):
on Twitter, where we go by the handle blow of
the Mind, and you can also drop us a line
at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
Stuff Works dot com
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