Cats are (almost) liquid

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(24)02024-8

by lnyan • 2 years ago

341 132 2 years ago

wormlord• 2 years ago

Before I had cats, I used to think of them in terms of other animals. What I mean is that a dog or a horse is very defined by its skeletal structure. They are like popsicle stick armatures with some flesh thrown on.

Now I think of cats more like amorphous blobs with some hard bits stuck on. I think anyone who owns a cat will know what I mean by this.

bl4ckneon• 2 years ago

My cat often lays down twisted 180 degrees or more. Just doing whatever they want, defying laws of nature.

9dev• 2 years ago

Well, dogs also do this—I present to you my majestically twisted creature: https://imgur.com/a/5WcYzSw

I have no clue how that is even possible.

bayindirh2• 2 years ago

I, for one, know, understand and welcome our almost liquid feline overlords.

wiredfool• 2 years ago

Purring bags of mostly water.

nonameiguess• 2 years ago

For what it's worth, their hips and shoulders are actually limited in range of motion compared to humans, due to the very high muscle attachment points that are also what make them so amazingly strong and explosive for their small size. But an extremely flexible spine combined with the ability to dislocate key joints means they can still fit into very small, narrow spaces, presumably an adaptation allowing them to hunt small rodents that burrow and hide out in underground dens. Which I assume is why they have the instinct to immediately jump into and check out any box or cabinet or other enclosed space you open. You never know if there might be some voles in there.

stavros• 2 years ago

You never know if there might be some voles in there

I like to think I always know if there might be some voles in my boxes and cabinets.

psunavy03• 2 years ago

They actually prefer to jump in a box because to them, it's a safe space to hide and watch. Cats look for spaces like that because their wild ancestors (and feral cats now) are small enough that they are both predators and prey.

jeffbee• 2 years ago

Horse is practically all air. That's their secret. They are blimps with legs.

js8• 2 years ago

Are you sure you're not talking about birds?

hackeraccount• 2 years ago

I only went ridding a couple of times when I was a kind but the thing I remember is you'd start off on a ride ... then stop, tighten the saddle, start again and continue on the ride. Though I think maybe we'd do that twice.

The other thing I remember is that brushing down horses was kind of fun - though I'll be honest at the end of the day I never really trusted those animals; they were just too damn big for my tastes.

alamortsubite• 2 years ago

When I pick up my cat and he's relaxed, it feels like I'm picking up a tube sock full of pudding.

hnbad3• 2 years ago

We joke that our small cat (she's old but small framed and lightweight) can put her entire body weight into every individual paw at the same time when she wants. You can pick her up and she'll weigh next to nothing and she can run over you like a feather but she can also simultaneously have four lead columns for legs if she wants to. I'm convinced cats are four dimensional or something.

toss1• 2 years ago

A stray cat I adopted as we could not find his owner was named "Beanbag" (transitioning to "Mr Bean", no reference to the comedian)for exactly this quality.

After a few days of recovery and starting to get comfortable, he started to snooze and literally poured off the couch, like a bag of beans... and he loved to stretch in my lap while I coded, putting up with all the typing & mousing... Truly liquid, indeed! Wonderful little guy, I still miss him.

dominicrose• 2 years ago

My cat can sleep with its head upside-down event if there's no apparent reason for it to do that. I have another cat tough, which is tough, heavy but small, and resisting any external force, also keeping his claws open.

keeganpoppen• 2 years ago

yes i think this model of cats is exactly right. kind of like how our fingertips would just be lumpy sacs without fingernails, cats seem to have structure and flexibility in the way that like a tent does.

pmahoney• 2 years ago

Calvin vindicated

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/04/20

accrual• 2 years ago

I love C&H and am blown away there was something so applicable. Felt like an XKCD moment!

cosmojg• 2 years ago

C&H moments are the original XKCD moments!

banditelol• 2 years ago

Lol I automatically read C&H as Cyanide and Happiness

pvg• 2 years ago

Missing a cite to some pioneering work on this in the 30s by A.S.J. Tessimond [1]

Cats no less liquid than their shadows

Offer no angles to the wind.

They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes

Less than themselves; will not be pinned

[1]https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/asjt-cats.htm

evilotto• 2 years ago

Not to mention Fardin, 2014.

jmspring2• 2 years ago

Having 7 cats, they are all different. My oldest mail holds himself rigid. The youngest male - still a kitten - is a noodle of murder and destruction.

zafka• 2 years ago

Nice Description. A black noodle just joined our other 5 cats.

jmspring2• 2 years ago

Black cats are the best. She is one of two sisters (oldest cats at 9 at this point). 17 pounds of chunk loving. Annoying as all get out, but will literally roll around on the arm of the couch and “accidentally” drop into my lap.

My wife and I go between two locations, today will be the first time 4 of the cats meet the murder noodle.

fullstop6• 2 years ago

We had two cats, and my wife wanted more. I was happy with two, so we compromised and now we have four of them.

The feeding logistics of four, one with a special diet, are difficult. I can't imagine having seven of them long-term, especially the litter boxes. I've fostered kittens before, so I had nine cats in the house and it felt like all I did for those weeks was feed cats and scoop poop.

0x1ceb00da• 2 years ago

We need a documentary.

sjamaan• 2 years ago

There is one! "The secret life of cats", see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4026336/

euroderf2• 2 years ago

See also "Inside the Mind of a Cat" on Netflix. Kid-friendly and investigates whiskers, trainability, other topics.

damontal• 2 years ago

This sounds like something Karl Pilkington would come up with.

cph123• 2 years ago

Maybe an extension of monkey news, it could be cat news

tencentshill• 2 years ago

I wonder if the same experiment could be done with big cats - Would an opening that touches the mane of a lion have the same results?

wildylion• 2 years ago

The cat will just get annoyed - it's a shaggy tangly thing that always gets in the way.

Speaking from personal experience >:3

stef25• 2 years ago

There's no mention of their whiskers, I was under the impression that this is what they use to become aware of their body size in tight spaces.

dist-epoch• 2 years ago

Wiskers are mentioned, but using the scientific name - vibrissae

move-on-by2• 2 years ago

While dogs slowed down and hesitated before they attempted to use an uncomfortably small opening, in the case of cats, we did not detect this change in their behavior before their attempt to go through even the narrowest openings. However, remarkably, cats showed hesitation both before they attempted to penetrate the shortest openings, and while they moved through it.

I just skimmed, but I didn’t see any mention whiskers. It’s seems to me that cats can make highly precise measurements of width just by sticking their heads in a space, but height judgments requires additional consideration.

melvyn2• 2 years ago

Cats are also aided by their large and sensitive vibrissae, which are positioned on such locations of their head that the cat can detect nearby obstacles in closer encounters. Vibrissal sensation can compensate for the somewhat weaker vision in cats from closer distances or in poorly illuminated environments. Therefore, it is possible that cats approached the narrow openings in our experiment without differential hesitation, and they could use their vibrissae to assess the suitability of the apertures before penetrating them.

move-on-by2• 2 years ago

Oh thank you! I’m just a lowly cat owner and did not know what vibrissae are.

diggan• 2 years ago

From skimming the HN comments:

Wiskers are mentioned, but using the scientific name - vibrissae

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41870897

ChrisMarshallNY3• 2 years ago

If you have ever put a cone on a cat (which lasts about five minutes), you see they get crazy. They hug the walls.

Their whiskers are a major factor in their perception.

I think they can also dislocate their spine.

My cat likes to sit in what we call his "Buddha" position, with his back bent about 90 degrees, and his paws in front. This seems to be a common position. He'll sit like that for an hour.

shepherdjerred• 2 years ago

My cats are weird and loved their cones after they got neutered. One would stick his head back in the cone after I took it off.

Optimal_Persona• 2 years ago

I think the cones must also screw up their aural spatial sensation (changing their perception of sound from fairly omni-directional, to seeming like all the sounds are coming from in front of the cone).

somnic• 2 years ago

I've seen a few people use a soft inflatable or plush collar that's more flat, and doesn't go up around the face, instead of an actual cone. That way the cat's the whiskers aren't disturbed while still preventing the cat from worsening wounds by licking. At least some cats seem to be a lot more tolerant of that style.

poulsbohemian2• 2 years ago

If you have ever put a cone on a cat (which lasts about five minutes), you see they get crazy.

You got me thinking about this, as I've dealt with a number of sick kitties / foster kitties, etc but we've always used a paper plate with a hole in the middle in lieu of a purpose-made plastic cone. So thinking out loud here, our solution might not have been more generally affordable but also had the benefit of not interfering with whiskers.

christkv• 2 years ago

Putting some tape on the back makes them immediately crunch down and creep. There is definitively a reflex going on.

abanana• 2 years ago

Highly precise... requires additional consideration

You've just reminded me of watching the family cat when I was a child, wanting to squeeze himself into the gap between the end of a sofa and the wall. He tested the gap with his whiskers a couple of times - nope, too narrow. Then the lightbulb moment - he turned just his head sideways, and tested again. Plenty of room! So he rammed himself into the gap. And got stuck.

dekhn• 2 years ago

pugworthy2• 2 years ago

The overhead view of figure 3 in particular is noteworthy to me. The 3 human subjects are represented as abstract ovals, and the cat drawn as a cat who is staring up as if to look through the fourth ceiling at the reader.

The reader becomes, in a sense, a greeble.

This paper would have been a fun project for a scientific illustrator.

pugworthy2• 2 years ago

For reference, in the cat realm a greeble is what cats are looking at when they stare up at the ceiling or wall and there is nothing there. At least that you can see.

So instead of the real cat staring at the imaginary greeble, we the reader are the real greeble staring at the imaginary cat. Who is staring back because it can see us.

runxel• 2 years ago

Oh but that is old news!

"On the Rheology of Cats":

https://www.drgoulu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Rheology-...

ChoHag• 2 years ago

Now that is what a dry academic paper about cats is supposed to look like. Cat pictures on every page.

sandebert• 2 years ago

This seems relevant: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastquarte...

anonu• 2 years ago

Here's the podcast: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/52350e74-f4b0-42d9-a1...

carabiner• 2 years ago

This is why they flow out of our grasp.

tirant• 2 years ago

These are old news for those of us that grew bonsai kittens in the late 90s.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050203111131/http://bonsaikitt...

Obviously it was a hoax, probably one of the first ones reaching the first generation of internet users. But lots of people fell for it.

ookdatnog• 2 years ago

I mean, if you compare with what unspeakable things dog breeders have done to dogs over time, bonsai kittens don't seem that much of a stretch.

Dilettante_• 2 years ago

They're more of a squash, if anything

mytailorisrich• 2 years ago

Anecdotally my cat is always very cautious before going through cat flags, which are not particularly narrow but very short, but never hesitate to run into narrow but deep stuff...

penguin_booze• 2 years ago

Obligatory Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/catsareliquid/.

kator• 2 years ago

Interesting because I have recently been trying to catch a stray cat for a capture-release process and the cat will not walk into a typical trap-door type wire mesh trap. Watching him on video the roof of the trap seems to freak him out. It seems a better trap would have a narrow gap with high door that lets them confidently walk into the trap and trigger would just block the slot perhaps with some sort of sliding door blocking the exit.

theginger• 2 years ago

This science paper could have been a cat meme video. Never thought I would be saying that and meaning it literally.

colechristensen• 2 years ago

I mean I’ve seen the cat challenge meme video done a dozen times.

https://youtu.be/O7PkYkXdKwc?si=-8BTPVvAK19WVEF

This is like “hey what if this cat video was a research paper”

metalman• 2 years ago

I watched as a cat dove through a narrow opening (stair baulsters)only to wedge its aft end,stop dead,do a totaly ignoble face plant,and then sort of oooze through to land gracelessly. So in this case there was no hesitation,and cats regularly missjudge and get run over by cars,so at best the data is just that...data.

UniverseHacker• 2 years ago

If the opportunity was given to them, dogs opted for a detour in the case of uncomfortably small apertures

Except in the case of one very sweet but not exactly brilliant large dog I know that legitimately believes his entire body is just the tip of his nose that he can see. I’ve seen him walk straight through a 2” hole in a screen door, and he will repeatedly try to sit on e.g. a chair armrest and not understand why it doesn’t work.

justinlloyd• 2 years ago

When a cat can go between two openings that are too small for the cat to pass through and the cat isn't being observed is what's interesting though and nobody has yet explained that.

anotherevan2• 2 years ago

their free-floating, diminutive collarbones allow them to squeeze themselves through very narrow gaps.

Detached collarbones is one of the many interesting things I know about cats because of my cat obsessed kid!

anotherevan2• 2 years ago

My cat woke up, did a big stretch, and yawned. Then she hiccoughed, turned into a small dragon, and coughed up a fireball.

"!!!" I said.

"What?" She shrugged back into cat form.

"You're a shape shifter?"

"All cats are. There's just never any reason to not be a cat."

/src https://mastodon.art/@MicroSFF/112928631782738642

xarope• 2 years ago

I'm more amazed that the authors could cite 52 references of similar studies!

mstep• 2 years ago

related (german) https://noe.orf.at/stories/3272194/

carstenhag• 2 years ago

It's a pretty common recommendation to not leave the windows open like that :/. Poor thing.

Wuzado• 2 years ago

Feels like a candidate for the Ig Nobel prize - and this is high praise!

tropdrop• 2 years ago

In addition to the vibrissae explanation, I also wonder if their eyes (vertical pupils) just see better when it comes to height and not width, necessitating greater hesitation when it comes to judging things at their height and not high in the air. I am thinking they might need to move their head or eyes a bit side to side, though it may still be too fast to be readily apparent to the researcher. Relevant article [1]:

"If you have a vertical slit, you're very likely to be an ambush predator," says Banks. That's the kind of animal who lies in wait and then leaps out to kill. He says these predators need to accurately judge the distance to their prey, and the vertical slit has optical features that make it ideal for that.

But that rule only holds if the animal is short, so its eyes aren't too high off the ground, Sprague says."

Ergo, cats have vertical pupils but tigers have round pupils. The tiger can probably judge horizontal distances better than the cat.

1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/08/07/4301496...

plondon514• 2 years ago

I accidentally closed a very heavy door on my childhood cat and thought I killed it but it just bounced back and was perfectly fine.

rosmax_13372• 2 years ago

The title made me click, and the content was enjoyable. But I still don't think clickbait like this should be present in scientific papers.

It's something about how scientific papers are not "for pleasure", they're informational tools. An easter egg in a game is cool right, but an easter egg in a graphics driver? That's the distinction I'm making here.

Kydlaw• 2 years ago

I am so puzzled by this attitude. People are free to make any distinction they want, the way they want, but the representation you have of a scientific literature is erroneous.

Scientific articles are informational tools that report results of experiments and nothing more. If the results are interesting to the peers, they are published. By they are not world's laws made paper unless sufficient replications are made. This means that each article need to be read with the context of the literature in mind and with a critical eye. Each are a single point of evidence to a phenomena.

Hence, there are subjective informational tools, written toward a specific audience (the experts of the domains) to inform of a specific result in a specific case.

On top of that, their are specific journal/issues where these types submissions are allowed. Don't read these submissions if you are looking for serious "information tools"

Scientific literature must be handled the same way as legal literature. If you are not a law expert, you ask a lawyer. If you think you are a legal expert when you are not, surprising consequences may arise.

In universities, they are classes dedicated to handling the scientific literature. They are provided for a reason.

So please, don't use cat's physic for liquid simulation in game engine... or please do?

rosmax_13372• 2 years ago

Let's imagine someone interested in the biology of cats and felines at large. A specialized biologist. They might choose to personally catalog all publications which have use for them, like this article surely might.

But in their catalog of articles, one will have the title: Cats are (almost) liquid

And this is cute, slightly funny, but not correct. From an informational standpoint, this is not related to whether or not cats are liquid. From a material standpoint they consist of both solid, liquid and even gaseous substances. (to the extent we can consider co2 a part of their bodily function)

In a newspaper or such, this would not be a problem, you read it, enjoy it, and move on. But not for serious science. A dry and purely objective title is better in that case, just like how a function should be named based on what it does, not based on some meme regarding what it does.

The paper could be named: Awareness of body flexibility among cats. A function should be named get_employee(), not get_luser().

And the reason why this is true, is because the fad of naming a function get_luser() will become "not worth it" the day someone who didn't understand the meme comes across it, and has to ask you about it. Again especially if you're making a driver/library, something to be used by many, not by just yourself or a few others. And also, the "funny" aspect of it will present a mental hurdle. Instead of simply calling get_employee() in your new context, you will be calling get_luser(), and laughing for a bit and thinking about the bofh comics. Train of thought is lost.

The human mind is limited, and attempting to "capture" it attention leads to an attention arms race. And this arms race leads to tiktok. Which is why we use dry naming for serious pursuits.

lenerdenator• 2 years ago

Cats cannot be defined as liquid, as liquid is a scientific classification based in the laws of physics, and cats are widely known for not particularly caring about obeying the laws of physics.

bschne• 2 years ago

I wish they did this experiment with two slits to see if cats behaved (almost) like particles and/or (almost) like waves

stronglikedan• 2 years ago

I think it would be impossible to herd enough cats to pull that off. A sort of proof by contradiction if you will.

ISL• 2 years ago

Those would need to be very low-energy cats. You wouldn't be able to look at them for a very, very long time.

If my quick math is correct, for the de Broglie wavelength of a cat to be comparable to its width, it would need to be travelling no faster than about 10^-33 m/s.

Log_out_• 2 years ago

It went through one, then it came back through the other playing catch with its own tail..

thomasjudge• 2 years ago

https://x.com/alex_wohlrab/status/1512750950330642432

rurban• 2 years ago

Much easier: A cat only knows about the size of its head. If the head fits through, the body will do also. That's extremely easy to guess for a cat, no body awareness, just head radius awareness

Cats are (almost) liquid

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