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Bionic Cat Gets World's First Implant Paws
Several readers send in the news of Oscar, the first bionic cat, whose hind paws got cut off in a harvester accident. In a world's-first operation, a neurosurgeon has now given him exoprosthetic paws that are implanted directly into his leg bones. The BBC artlcle has a video captured just after the operation, and PopSci has an apparently later one in which Oscar is walking and running almost completely normally.
We have the technology.
Those implants look a lot like Chell's heel springs. (image)
My gf lived on a farm (her mom still owns it) and had a whole load of barn cats. Like, dozens. Barn cats are semi-tame, not a housecat but not feral, either. The kittens would follow her around in a line, and the older ones would come to her for loving up. The cats were tolerated (and fed a bit) because they kept the barns and grounds free of vermin. It's a common practice, at least in Minnesota.
She's a cat whisperer now. Works the front desk at the vet and can calm down and get friendly with almost any cat, even sick ones. I've seen her stick her fingers into cats' mouths to check out their gums and teeth, make the toes spread and claws pop out by pressing the center pad of the cats' paws, all with no resistance from the cat. The kittens are pacified with a clutch of their neck scruff, but the older cats are a mystery as to how she does it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I had a three legged cat. It lost one of its front legs. Whenever it used the litter box it couldn't really bury its business but it did waive its nub around in the air.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Just as a point of interest, there were a series of experiments (honest to goodness animal cruelty WITHOUT benefit) to test the pain tolerance of various animals. One of the results of the experiment was that the scientist concluded that cats did not feel pain. This was later proven to be false, but because cats evolved as a unique mix of predators/prey (they're not the alpha carnivore) and as a solitary creature, there was no benefit to showing external signs of pain. In fact, it could put them at risk, so cats will actively hide it.
Now if you step on a cat's tail, it'll freak out, so there's none of that kind of pain going on, but cats are really good at hiding chronic pain, so simply because the cats are good at hiding pain doesn't mean that these implants are pain free.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Somewhat off-topic (but the story is about cat surgery, so...), over the past year, a cyst/tumor started to grow on my cat's forehead. When it grew to about 1.5cm diam., the vet said it would keep growing, eventually into her eye, if it wasn't removed. She quoted $850 for the surgery, much of it the cost of anesthesia and monitoring. After fretting over it for some weeks, and draining it every few days (which the vet said I'd have to do for the rest of her life without the surgery) to keep the pressure down and make it grow slower, I had an idea. Cat fur is very loose and pliable, so I pulled the tumor away from her skull, formed it into a kind of ball, and tied a rubber band very tightly around the base to cut off the circulation. (I don't think this caused her any pain; she was purring during the whole procedure.) Within a week and a half it dried up and shrank to the size of a raisin. The skin just under the rubber band fused together, and last week, about 6 weeks later, the tumor fell off by itself (rubber band still attached). Now there is just a tiny reddish spot where the tumor used to be. I thought that perhaps I should patent my "method to cure cat skin tumors with a rubber band", but upon researching it, I found that apparently Hippocrates suggested this technique in 460 BC.