Slashdot Mirror
Cats May Have Been Domesticated Twice (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Cats may have been domesticated twice, once in Turkey around 10,000 years ago, and again in Egypt, thousands of years later. That's the conclusion of a new genetic analysis of more than 200 ancient cats, including DNA extracted from Egyptian mummies. The scientists found evidence for an exodus of cats into the wider world from both ancient Turkey and ancient Egypt, but that these two waves of cats sported different genetic signatures. Whether or not the ancient Egyptians independently domesticated cats, their massive breeding programs appear to have further tamed the feline, turning cats from territorial and antisocial creatures into the lovable furballs we know today.
Cats have never been domesticated by humans. They domesticated us, and I for one welcome our feline overlords.
It's not a virus, but a parasite. The fact that it has a "life cycle" comprised of several reproductive stages should be a strong hint. Viruses just get host cells to make more viruses.
Cats can be highly social, loving animals if you don't raise them like a feral that happens to live in your house. When ours were kittens, we used to cart them around the house all of the time like babies, holding them, petting them, etc. And quelle surprise... they had a lot more in common with the average dog in terms of affection than the average cat many people know.
Plus discipline. Set boundaries and set them hard from a young age. Cats generally will accept them.
...these two waves of cats sported different genetic signatures.
Don't forget that cats exist as both waves and particles!
Turkey around 10,000 years ago:
Well Tiddles, I don't know about you but a lot of us have had enough of this abuse, kicking us when any little thing goes wrong, tormenting us for their sport, even murdering our poor children, so we're heading out to the desert until they've evolved a bit.
Egypt, thousands of years later:
As you all know, some members of the exploration committee went in to town - and let me tell you we were all a bit scared after those tales we heard as kittens - spent a few weeks cautiously interacting with the humans and trying to teach them our language, generally being friendly and helping to put food on the table and you know what? They treated us like gods.
All those old ladies who live with dozens of cats living among the stench of them might have been infected with Toxoplasma virus.
a) It's not a virus
b) Most people get it by either eating or working with pork.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Transmission
The feline brain is very similar in structure to the human brain, only obviously a lot smaller.
Just like humans they are very adaptive and able to change with their environment. So if that environment includes humans, they adapt and learn to live with a human environment.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What is the summary talking about? Cats stopped being antisocial? I beg to differ, especially when cats are compared against dogs. While dogs largely have been tamed, largely becoming scavengers instead of predators, cats seem to retailers many more undomesticated attributes. The development of dogs from wolves was largely accidental, too, with the social skills of approaching human colonies for their scraps providing a significant survival advantage over wolves, which were far less social.
Anyone that has lived with a cat can tell you that they are very social animals. They're just not DEPENDANT on people like dogs are. Dogs are stuck on the "look at me, pay attention to me" mode. Cats are more like people, they have times they want to be with others, and times they want to be alone. They are very social though. They get lonely when left alone, and enjoy the company of others, even if they don't want constant petting.
Cats will typically want to curl up and sleep in whatever room you're in. They may not want you to touch them all the time, but they want to be near you.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Then we should compare the love for cats in Muslim/Jewish communities with that in other, pork eating communities. If that parasite has any real influence, there should be a significant difference.
If you understand a few things about the cat brain, their behaviour makes a lot more sense.
Cats don't understand cause and effect. They only learn by trial and error, positive and negative reinforcement. Often they will adopt less than optimal behaviours because they work and they don't have any concept of optimization. Sometimes this makes them seem very clever, appearing to have worked out how to perform a complex series of actions, and other times they seem really dumb. In every case it's just the result of trying stuff until something works, and cats have a lot of time to spend experimenting.
Cats also don't have object permanence. When they see a toy, they don't think "that's the same toy I had yesterday, and it's where I left it". They only know it's their toy because it's shape is familiar and it smells like them. They only know where it is because they learned by experience that it's usually in a particular room.
On a social level, they are basically sociopaths. They learn how to behave around humans but don't necessarily feel the emotions that drive us to act a certain way. Some behaviour is the same as they would have with their mother. Adult cats generally don't use their voices much, if they meow it's usually to get their human staff to do what they want, the same as they would meow to attract their mother's attention. Kneading is another kitten behaviour that they apply to humans - they are trying to milk you.
The most important thing for cats is their personal domain. Moving house is very traumatic for them because they need familiar spaces. They don't really care who the human staff are; you being a constant during the move doesn't offer them much comfort. Some places have started offering apartments with cats, i.e. the cat lives in the apartment all its life while the humans come and go.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Just like humans they are very adaptive and able to change with their environment.
That's not my experience. Cats are bound to territories, while dogs are bound to the pack. The act of moving can push a cat into depression and behavioral problems, while a dog thrives on environmental changes, as long as the pack stays together.
I think it's fairer to say that the intelligence range of cats and dogs can widely vary. I've known some dogs that were dumber than a bag of hammers.
Okay, story time. One of the cats we had when I was younger was a Siamese that we got from a shelter. If she had a previous owner, that owner never let her outside. Well, all of our cats have been indoor/outdoor cats, so we didn't see any problem letting her outside after she had acclimatized to her new home.
No, she didn't run away. She was, quite frankly, amazed at the outside. Kind of a "Oh, wait, there's more?"
Anyway, a while after we got her, she's outside, sunning herself on the front walk when a neighbor's Golden Retriever sees her. Now, this dog was a very pretty dog (as Golden Retrievers tend to be), but it was so dumb it's brain might as well have been a flowchart.
So, it sees the cat, and in it's doggie brain, the only possible response is "run at cat, barking madly" followed by "WHEN cat runs, chase it."
Not, "IF cat runs". "WHEN".
Well, of course, the cat had no idea what a dog even was, and being the most chill cat ever, waited until the dog came to a screeching halt, still barking, to get up, sniff the dog's face, do a little kitty shrug, and lie back down. The dog was not important to the cat.
The dog wandered off back to it's own yard. It had no concept of what to do when the cat didn't run.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Cats are just so stubborn that they HAD to be domesticated twice.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Anyone that has lived with a cat can tell you that they are very social animals. They're just not DEPENDANT on people like dogs are. Dogs are stuck on the "look at me, pay attention to me" mode. Cats are more like people, they have times they want to be with others, and times they want to be alone. They are very social though.
Or, as an analogy, dogs are like five year olds, constantly wanting and needing attention; cats are like teenagers, mostly independent but occasionally affectionate.
On a social level, they are basically sociopaths
While it is true that cats tend to be independently minded, they also form bonds in a group and have an established hierarchy. They are very social, but also protective of each other when sufficiently bonded.
I've experienced cases where when a cat senses one of their group to be in danger or trapped, it will go and try to seek help. They will vocalize when they feel something is wrong or requires attention.
An example, one day one of our outside cats (an adopted stray) went missing. We didn't think much of it at first as its a pretty common occurrence, but after several days there was a change in behavior in one of the other outside cats. It became extremely vocal, following us around and demanding attention until we followed it. It led us to a small structure on a neighboring property and was acting very agitated. When we looked inside, we found the missing cat, which had been trapped and would have died had its partner not alerted us.
That's not what I'd consider to be sociopathic.
The hype over T.gondii has been largely driven by popular opinion pieces such as “How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy” instead of high quality research.
In-fact in what they call, "to our knowledge, the most comprehensive assessment of the possible link between T. gondii infection and a variety of impairments in a single cohort," Duke University researchers Karen Sugden suggests that there may be nothing to worry about after all. They report that toxoplasmosis is associated with essentially no behavioural abnormalities in humans. http://blogs.discovermagazine....
Religiously trained people tend to think animals are robots that can only react to base survival needs. Nature is to be conquered, rather than understood/respected. Much too simplistic and ignores obvious facts. Story time. My cat sensed danger -- a significant change in the world -- and woke me up. This happened twice. A power outage and a snow storm. In each case, I immediately noticed something WAS wrong. It was much quieter than usual. The cat didn't think only of itself, i.e to hide or run away. It was concerned about others.