Tag Archives: Cats

Friday Cat Fun

Jennifer and Jim kept getting huge water bills, over $300 dollars. They knew beyond a doubt that the bills weren’t representative of actual usage, and no matter how they tried to conserve, the high bills continued.

The amazing cat cam could help investigate such problems too.

Leopard Bests Crocodile

Leopard savaging a crocodile caught on camera:

A series of incredible pictures taken at a South African game reserve document the first known time that a leopard has taken on and defeated one of the fearsome reptiles. The photographs were taken by Hal Brindley, an American wildlife photographer, who was supposed to be taking pictures of hippos from his car in the Kruger National Park.

The giant cat raced out of cover provided by scrub and bushes to surprise the crocodile, which was swimming nearby. A terrible and bloody struggle ensued. Eventually, onlookers were amazed to see the leopard drag the crocodile from the water as the reptile fought back.

Eventually the big cat was able to sit on top of the reptile and suffocate it. In the past, there have been reports of crocodiles killing leopards, but this is believed to the first time that the reverse scenario has been observed.

Bananas Going

photo of a baboon eating bananas and holding a kitten

I posted on the threat of extinction for bananas. Dan Koeppel has written an excellent book, Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. He also has a great Banana blog with serious and fun posts:

Urgent threat to Africa’s Bananas:

In Uganda, meanwhile, the disease has become so widespread that yields on banana farms have reached dangerously low levels. Acres and acres of crops have been lost, creating a cascade of economic losses in a trading system that spreads from the tiniest villages to Uganda’s cities, all based on the transport and trade of bananas.

The urgency of this cannot be overstated. Uganda and the nations surrounding it absolutely depend on bananas as a staple foodstuff. Millions rely on bananas for survival. And the spread of BXW into Kenya is yet another indicator that this deadly disease is on the march. As with Panama Disease – the wilting fungus that threatens our banana, the Cavendish – BXW (a bacterial malady) is incurable. The difference between the two is that BXW moves faster and threatens, right now, food supplies in nations with fragile governments.
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First, banana diversity. In order to mitigate the spread of disease, the number of kinds of bananas being grown needs to be increased.
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Second, genetic engineering: It is time for the general public to recognize that working at the DNA level is not always a corporate trojan horse into destroying local agriculture and contaminating the environment. This isn’t all about Monsanto. While consumers in the suburbs and Whole Foods stores protest against all GMO foods – while barely knowing what GMO is – they bluntly prevent out legitimate public research that might stop hunger. Time learn that everything has nuance, the disease that are killing the bananas: they work in just two modes: off – and on.

The photos is from a fun post: Baboon Prefers Bananas over Kittens. Thank Goodness.

Video Cat Cam

I first wrote about the Cool Cat Cam about a year ago. Next, I interviewed the cat cam engineer. And
a few months ago I posted some photos by Fritz the Cat. Now enjoy some video catcat webcasts: Fritz in Aktion mit Catcam mit Musik – Catcam Smaka takes photos/Video! – Cat wears spy camera, makes film – Mr. Lee CatCam im MDR Aussenseiter-Spitzenreiter And then order your cat cam.

False Teeth For Cats

False Teeth For Cats! What Next?

A team of eight British college students, calling themselves Fangs A Lot, have created the first false tooth for a cat and set up a business, Animal Solutions, to market false teeth for cats, dogs, and other animals. The group and its prototype false cat tooth have made it to the finals of the Ideas Igloo Roadshow, an invention contest for college students sponsored by Britain’s Make Your Mark Campaign and Microsoft, UK.

False teeth for cats may sound ridiculous, but they could be a solution to a serious problem for cats. Cats have notoriously bad dental problems. Cat owners seldom brush their cats’ teeth or scrape the surfaces of the teeth to remove plaque. By the time a cat is 3 or 4 years old, she may already have periodontal disease that can lead to tooth loss. Tooth loss may also come about as a result of tooth breakage, particularly in the canine teeth.

Link provided via our post suggestion page.

Photos by Fritz the Cat

Fritz the cat - photographer

fritz-cam by Fritz the cat:

My name is Fritz [photo of me on the left] and I live at 23 Cat Street [in Germany]. My mistress is an artist, and now it’s my turn to show what I can do. Since September 2007 we’ve owned a Mr-Lee-Catcam
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Third time lucky. I went for a long walk with the camera. Perhaps a bit too long, because she was looking for me everywhere. Anyway, she was very pleased when I came home with the camera and a mouse. I’d taken over 200 photos while I was out. Unfortunately the battery gave up the ghost before the final capture … of the mouse, I mean.

See many more great photos by fritz at fritz-cam.

Cats Prevent Heart Attacks

I suppose some people don’t know how great cats are 🙂 Here is news of a study showing that those with cats are less likely to have heart attacks.

Whether it’s a frisky kitten or a tubby tabby, a cat at home could cut your heart attack risk by almost a third, a new study suggests.
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In the new study, Qureshi’s team analyzed data on 4,435 Americans, aged 30 to 75, who took part in the federal government’s second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, which ran from 1976-1980. According to the data in the survey, 2,435 of the participants either owned a cat or had owned a cat in the past, while the remaining 2,000 had never done so.

Qureshi’s team then tracked rates of death from all causes, including heart and stroke. Cat owners “appeared to have a lower rate of dying from heart attacks” over 10 years of follow-up compared to feline-free folk, Qureshi said. The magnitude of the effect — a 30 percent reduction in heart attack risk — “was a little bit surprising,” he added. “We certainly expected an effect, because we thought that there was a biologically plausible mechanism at work. But the magnitude of the effect was hard to predict.”

This is just one more example of cat power. As we have shown before: cats can be photographers and also protect you from bears.

Have a nice weekend.

Leaping Tigress

The pregnant tigress, in the photo, had wandered off the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve to a village, Deulbari, about 150 miles south of Calcutta. She was tranquillized and relocated deep inside a mangrove reserve (it is unclear if this is a different reserve than she came from based on the report, to me anyway). She is leaping off the fishing vessel used to transport her to the reserve.

Tigress’s spectacular leap to freedom

Tigers have been slowly disappearing from forests and reserves in India due to poaching, growing tourism, and a shortage of properly trained forest guards. The tiger population has dropped from nearly 3,600 five years ago to about 1,411, the government-run Project Tiger said recently.

Jumping Savannah Cat

The Savannah cat breed is from the mating of a male African serval cat to a female domestic cat. The serval grows to from 9 to 20 kg (20-44 lbs) and lives 12-20 years in the wild. It is closely related to the African Golden Cat and the Caracal. The cats in the webcast are Savannahs.

The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer

photo by Binky the cat or another cat This article is the result of the first Curious Cat engineer interview. My favorite post detailed the great engineering project Jürgen Perthold undertook to engineer a camera that his cat could wear and take photos. So I decided to interview him.

The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer by John Hunter:

This time I thought about our cat who is the whole day out, returning sometimes hungry sometimes not, sometimes with traces of fights, sometimes he stay also the night out. When he finally returns, I wonder where he was and what he did during his day. This brought me to the idea to equip the cat with a camera. The plan was to put a little camera around his neck which takes every few minutes a picture. After he is returning, the camera would show his day.

The Amazing CatCam is not only a great product but a wonderful engineering story. See our past post for some background on how an engineer allowed you to help your cat become a photographer. On the development of the CatCam Jürgen Perthold says, “More or less it was just a joke, born with a crazy idea.” Such a great sentiment and with wonderful results.

What path led him to the desire and ability to pursue the crazy idea and become the Curious Cat engineer of the year? He was born in Aalen, Germany. He started playing with electronics as he was 13. At 15 he added computer programming and with a friend they programmed games, applications and hardware control over the years. He studied Optoelectronics at the University of Aalen, Germany extending his knowledge further.

For the last few years he has worked for Bosch, an international manufacturing company, in the automotive hardware section. Last summer, he transfered from Germany to Anderson, South Carolina as a resident engineer for transmission control unit in a production plant for automobile parts. On a side note, the United States is still by far the largest manufacturer in the world.
photo by Binkey the cat, from under a car
The demand for the cameras is still higher than his capability to produce the cameras. He has raised the price, to limit the demand. When I first saw the prices I couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was. And, in my opinion, they are still a incredible deal. Order your CatCam now: it is a great gadget for yourself or it makes a great unique, gift. Most orders have been from the UK, Germany and the USA.

Most people don’t have technical background so they buy the full unit. But he reports that some brave souls order a kit because of price or availability although they have not done anything similar before. What a great way to challenge yourself and, if you succeed, end up with a wonderful creation when you finish.

He is in discussion with several different groups to ramp up production. The main problem is that producing the device requires electronics, optics, software, mechanics and logistics expertise. So, for the time being, he continues to modify the cameras by hand because no investments are necessary and the production can be scaled according to the demand. The required soldering, electronics and system knowledge makes it a challenge to outsource. So, for now, CatCam production is adding to the USA manufacturing output total. He is also planning to produce more products.
photo of Jacquie the cat wearing a CatCam
JÃ¼rgen believes that getting the cat camera working was not that challenging. You can take a look at his explanation of how he did so to decide for yourself. He does admit that challenges do arise if you want to produce cameras for others. To do that you must create a product that is foolproof, reliable, and easy to use and manufacture.

“I was surprised how famous one can get with ‘boring’ technical engineering stuff. I like this not only for me but for all other engineers out there who daily work hard on challenges which others don’t even understand. We as engineers make the world moving but usually we are not recognized.” Everyone enjoys the products of the labors of engineers (such as cell phones, MP3 players, cars, planes, bridges, internet connections) but few see the required knowledge, work and the people that bring those products into being.
photo by Jacquie the cat of a vine
JÃ¼rgen “hopes that I made ‘engineering’ a bit more visible to people who did not think about it before, for example, female cat owners who never had a solder iron in the hand and bought plain SOIC chips because they wanted the cat camera…”

I think he has done a great job illustrating the engineering behind the CatCam and making engineering fun. And in so doing hopefully is making more people aware of the engineers that make so many wonderful modern gadgets. Go buy a CatCam now (and if you are adventurous buy the parts and create your own – you will learn a lot about what makes all your modern gadgets work). And then send in the pictures your cat takes so everyone can see the wonderful things engineers make possible.

The photos here show the results of several new cat photographers (Binky the cat [first 2 photos] and Jacquie the cat [last 2]). Only a small percentage of CatCam owners have shared there pictures so far.

Over the next few years he would like to learn to sail, visit Yellowstone national park, walk the Camino de Santiago again, move on to other international assignment (maybe far east) and continuing raising his two children.

The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog is written by John Hunter and tracks a wide variety of developments, happenings, interesting under-publicized facts, and cool aspects of science and engineering.