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Chinese Boy Claims To Have Cat-Like Night Vision
Oswald McWeany writes "Reports swirling around the Internet are that a boy in China may have cat-like night vision. The boy with eerie blue-eyes was able to fill out a questionnaire in the dark and his eyes reflect like a cat's when a light is shined on them. No reports yet if he marks his territory or is litter box trained."
Blue eyes? He just uses prescience to find if the answers he's about to write down are correct, much like Paul Muad-Dib the God-Emperor did later in his life. Nothing new here
And there you were complaining about all the toxic waste that cheap manufacturing and lax environment laws in China.
We could have blue-eyed sightseeing children here in the US, but, OH NO, you had to have cheap iPhones!!
From an evolutionary standpoint, I would think such a radical mutation impossible, unless his family has been selectively breeding for night vision for thousands of years.
I suspect instead this is just sensationalism and the boy has moderately better vision in low light, without the reflective light collection mechanisms that exist in other animals.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
He had a surgical shine job.
I still have very good night vision, but as I age it's not as effective as it was when I was a teenager. I have above average visual acuity, which I think is the basis of it. Having blue eyes I can't see as being relevent or even reflecting eyes (hay, anyone ever hear of red eye?) His irises are simply able to dilate enough to let in more of the limited light available and has sensitive Rod cells.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Litter box trained is actually sort of a misnomer. You don't have to train a cat to use a litter box just show it to them. It is the preference of a cat to use a clean, pleasant smelling, dry, powdery and easily dug location for their business and the litter box is generally the best location they are going to find. Although in a pinch a potted plant will do.
Despite the claims that his eyes have a retroreflective tapetum lucidum, they can't capture it on camera:
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2115-china-cat-eyed-boy-night-vision.html
In the footage, Nong's teacher claims the boy's eyes flash when shined with a flashlight in the dark, but the reporters don't seem to be able to catch the effect on camera. When Nong's eyes are illuminated in the dark, they appear normal. James Reynolds, a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, noted, "A video could capture [eyeshine] easily, just like in nature films of leopards at night."
I can't seem to take a flash photo of my dog without seeing her eyes shine back at me, so I don't see why they can't capture the effect in this boy if it exists.
I think he's just a blue-eyed chinese boy (which is unusual but not unheard of) with exceptionally good low-light vision, but I don't believe he's developed the same low-light vision adaptation that some animals have.
Yeah, I know that cats aren't completely color blind, but they only have about a tenth the density of cones in their eye as a human with normal vision does, and to us, such imagery would look highly desaturated.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How is there no X-Men reference anywhere in the article or the comments? Are we afraid of copyright lawsuits for uttering the brand? :)
Bow before me, for I am root.
Looking for some authentication here...
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There's this new technology called "sunglasses" that might help you.
Most cats are trained at a very young age by their mother to use a litterbox. Although they instinctively prefer something with the qualities of a litterbox, there is some training involved in most cases.
I have a feeder for stray cats and often let them use my garage in the colder parts of winter along with a litter box. No training required and I have first hand knowledge at this point that these are cats that are on at least their third generation of being born outside and living feral.
I can't find any references to this before January 2012, although maybe the recent news flare-up has drowned the older stuff out. Here's a Snopes thread on it, nobody's calling it a hoax and these guys know their hoaxes:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=78597
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Or a roommate's shoes.
I drank what? -- Socrates
So your stance is that mother cats who have no particular reason to prefer a litter box over the dirt in the yard (and may have never seen a litter box), teach the kittens to use a litter box... even when there is no litter box to teach them with? How do you explain that kittens acquired just after weaning also use a litter box automatically?
Cats instinctively dislike being messy, wet, and waste odors. Just as all cats instinctively pick at food in a delicate and selective manner and in general take almost every action in a careful deliberate way unless panicked. They all have a COMPULSION to chase and stalk that is triggered by certain movement patterns. I don't know that anyone has made a deliberate study of incubating a kitten from birth and keeping it in isolation from other cats into adulthood but it seems unlikely that every cat from the first evolution of cat to modern day has passed on the exact same training in this regard. Nature is a far simpler solution in this regard than nurture and therefore all else being equal is most likely correct.
That said, I do concede that cats definitely do teach one another even when they aren't mother cats. If you succeed in toilet training one cat in the house it will most likely teach the others. The same with using cat doors and other tricks. In some respects despite not being pack animals cats are actually quite social. I haven't seen dogs teaching one another advanced behaviors like this.
I would even concede there are aspects of waste disposal that are likely trained. Burying behavior seems to be in my observation. Some cats bury in a deep and carefully buried hole, others just toss back a couple pawfuls of dirt. Generally these behaviors seem to be common to cats from the same litter but they aren't static. Some cats change behavior in this respect and that may be because they learn from other cats or just that they discover on their own that they prefer the results of a deep careful bury.
What do you call people who have been, "selectively breeding for night vision for thousands of years"?
Ninjas!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
that you are what you eat.
I trained my male cat to piss in the toilet.
Take a thick piece of cardboard, stick it between the bowl and the toilet seat and cut around to make it a neat fit. Then cut a circle in the center of whats left that just fits a colander, and mount the colander in the middle so it's hovering over the water in the toilet bowl. Fill the colander with kitty litter and leave it there for them to find. If they don't use it, wait a little longer than usual to change their normal litter, so it's gross and they don't want to use it. Once they get used to using the litter box built into the toilet, gradually put a little less litter in the toilet bowl each time you change it, until eventually there isn't any, but they're still going to the toilet. Then take the whole apparatus away.
Saves on litter costs, and lets you brag about how smart your cat is.
I'm pretty sure you can find those at any tourist destination. . . Disneyworld, The Smithsonian, Paris. . .
In some respects despite not being pack animals cats are actually quite social. I haven't seen dogs teaching one another advanced behaviors like this.
To add to your informative comment, I can say I have at least in one case seen this with two dogs as well, both previous pets of mine.
I had an older lab, actually she was my step fathers originally, but became mine once he passed away.
Now I must admit, she was a retired police dog when my step father got her, and already knew quite a few verbal and physical commands. She was quite bright for a dog.
Unfortunately my step father did not treat her particularly well. :/
I mean he loved her to death and was wonderful in playing with her and giving attention. But he basically fed her whatever he was eating. Very bad for a dog
She developed diabetes, and from that further problems. She was over weight, and had a tendency to develop bed sores from inactivity.
At one point she seemed ready to give up on life, as dogs tend to do when they know their time is near. But she was still relatively young, and had hope left.
I exercised her as much as she would stand for, and had a very hard time adjusting her diet to something more healthy. She all but refused most dry dog food, and with her weight wanted to be lazy, which just makes the problem worse...
Anyways, after awhile i got the idea that perhaps getting another puppy would help matters in a few ways. Both motherly instincts to kick in, as well as competing for more attention. The new dog was a pound puppy, and I got her very young, only a few weeks old. :{
Low and behold, the plan actually worked! She lived another 3 years, and was a little over 10 when I had to have her put down due to a tumor growing behind her brain
One of the skills she had and taught the puppy, was knowing where our yard boundary was.
The back yard is fenced, but the front is not at all. My house also shares a front yard with the house to my south (Each of our driveways are on the far side, and other than mow lines, no distinction between them.) No sidewalk between yard and street either.
The older dog knew where she could go, and where not to go. She knew where the mow line should be and would Not cross it without looking back at me for my OK.
She taught the puppy the yard rules, taught her the same way to get attention to be let out back, and the puppy mostly learned the same furniture rules from the older dogs actions.
I did teach the puppy some verbal commands, although she never had the same vocabulary as the police dog.
Also another strange thing, when I gave the older dog hand orders, the puppy would copy them. She didn't exactly learn the hand orders, as after Brandy was put down, she never really followed them again. Instead she would look around for Brandy, I assume to copy what she was doing. I quickly stopped the few she did recognize, as it wasn't a pleasant memory for the either of us...
But it seemed she learned to do the same action, even if only as expected from the older dog.
But other than a tiny amount of reeducation on furniture rules when puppy grew up (after my other dog was gone), everything she learned had stayed with her through out her life.
By reeducation, that is to say puppys on your lap on the couch is cute. Bigger dogs, not at all so much heh
The puppy lived to a ripe age of 12, and those were two of the smartest dogs I've ever interacted with and had the pleasure of having in my life.
So maybe not a common case, but I wanted to toss my experience out there to share.
I gather you are more a cat person than a dog person, but in case you were curious: :)
Puppy , and when older
(Yes that was her couch!
Sadly I have no digital pictures of the older retired police dog, and seems a bit much to scan one in just for this post
I can't find any references to this before January 2012, although maybe the recent news flare-up has drowned the older stuff out.
Or maybe it's just now made it to the English-language media. Here's an documentary from 2008 in Chinese about the kid. It turns out his night vision is a bit better than normal, but it's not that much better. The doctor says he probably has a form of ocular albinism (which is known to cause both sensitivity to bright light, and slightly improved night vision).