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<\/div>Intentional cattiness<\/h2>\n
When cats are forced to endure a crush of mass attention from an adoring public, do they continue to behave in their famous, endearing, imperious \u201ccat-like\u201d ways? Simona Cannas and her colleagues at the University of Milan in Italy produced some data that may bring attention to the question.<\/p>\n
Their study, \u201cAssessment of cats\u2019 behavior during a cat show<\/a>\u201c, published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior<\/i>, focuses on 82 cats at a cat show. (The researchers, using professional lingo, say the event was \u201ca feline exposition\u201d.)<\/p>\n They gathered the data meticulously: \u201cthe observer stood in front of the cages once an hour, from 10 to 17 [minutes past], for a total of 8 times for each cat\u201d.<\/p>\n They saw what they saw: \u201cAnalysis of behaviors exhibited by cats during the exposition day revealed that most of them were sleeping (93.9%), resting (62.2%), and looking at their surroundings (92.7%).\u201d<\/p>\n The researchers\u2019 conclusion leaves room, still, for debate as to what those cats had in mind. The study says \u201cthe cat show environment represents a situation full of stressful stimuli for the cat; despite this, our results have identified few behaviors of discomfort or stress\u2026 Further studies are required to confirm and deepen our results.\u201d<\/p>\n Very long, thin things vary a lot in what their mathematician\u2019s-eye-catching length-to-thinness ratio makes it possible for them to do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A press release<\/a> from North Carolina State University hails the creation of \u201cyarn-shaped supercapacitors\u201d, so called because the devices are thread-like and can behave as capacitors, controllably storing and disbursing electrical charge. The press release quotes Wei Gao, a co-inventor of the technology.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cImagine you can make a yarn, just a regular textile yarn, that you also make into a battery. You can basically hide it in your clothing. If you can do that, you can add so many more functions to your clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n We may be entering a technological Age of Thin Things.<\/p>\n As Feedback has noted<\/a> (1 October 2022), a new city planned as part of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Neom project is designed to be 170,000 metres long by 200 metres wide. Could the North Carolinian yarn-shaped supercapacitor tech be incorporated into the Saudi city\u2019s exoskeleton? That would be a drastic leap to the future for a country that insists it wants to move beyond its current economic reliance on oil.<\/p>\n This suddenly-almost-plausible possibility shows the prescience of Wallis Simpson, former Duchess of Windsor, who is said to have said almost a century ago: \u201cOne can never be too rich or too thin.\u201d<\/p>\n The old saying \u201cIf you can measure it, it must be important\u201d haunts the many research efforts to explain why it is important to measure two of the five fingers on a person\u2019s hand. Specifically, the second and fourth fingers. The two-finger quest kinda, sorta resembles an addiction. Sometimes this quest looks at addiction itself as being, maybe, something you can better understand by measuring fingers.<\/p>\n Typically, finger-ratio explanations grow in some vague way from the notion that hormone levels in the uterus before birth somehow explain the relative lengths, years later, of a person\u2019s fingers.<\/p>\n Finger-ratio-centric research studies are numerous and imaginative. They vary widely \u2013 almost wildly \u2013 in the kinds of important mysteries the researchers seek to explain.<\/p>\n How varied? Here are a few of the subjects addressed in recent years in published digit-ratio studies: \u201cvoice behavior in bankers\u201d; \u201chunting success among Hadza hunters\u201d; religiosity in university students; \u201cparental income inequality and children\u2019s digit ratio\u201d; artistic ability; \u201cage at first marriage in semi-nomadic people from Namibia\u201d; \u201cpsychological features in a sample of cavers\u201d; bite injuries occurring in fistfights; \u201cmanagerial skills of managers employed in public and private organizations of Udaipur City\u201d; and \u201cnumber of sex partners\u201d.<\/p>\n And addiction. Mehmet G\u00fcrkan G\u00fcrok and colleagues at various institutions in Turkey have recently written a paper called \u201cSecond and fourth (2D:4D) digit ratio in heroin and cannabis addicted patients<\/a>\u201c. They published it in the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse<\/i>. Like most finger-ratio studies, this one was done with great care: \u201cWe obtained the lengths of 2D and 4D of the subjects by using sensitive calipers and calculated the 2D:4D.\u201d And as is customary, it is full of promise: \u201cOur findings can be considered promising as to whether prenatal hormonal factors are important in the etiopathogenesis of addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n When something \u2013 and its headline \u2013 smells funny, maybe it is worth looking into. People who happen across a sombre study by environmental scientists in the US might react first to the ambiguity of its title: \u201cEvaluating the environmental justice dimensions of odor in Denver, Colorado<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n Was that title meant to be solemnly serious? Deadpannedly funny? Both? Whatever the intent, Feedback salutes its authors. Their wording triggered the olfactoric-linguistical sensibilities of Mason Porter, who alerted us to it.<\/p>\n Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and\u00a0co-founded\u00a0the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is\u00a0<\/em>improbable.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Got a story for Feedback?<\/b><\/p>\n You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com<\/a>. Please include your home address. This week\u2019s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhat a yarn<\/h2>\n
Measuring addiction<\/h2>\n
The Denver sniff test<\/h2>\n