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