This is the first depiction of a horse ever made by humans as far as we know; cut from ivory an incredible 35,000 – 40,000 years ago. The carver is believed to be part of the Aurignacian, an Upper Paleolithic group whose people lived between 43,000 and 35,000 years ago, and whose territory overlapped with […] The post Dating Back 40,000 Years, These Are the Oldest-Known Animal Sculptures Carved by Humans appeared first on Good News Network.

The post Why Cats Hide in Tiny Spaces: Olga Looks for Cover by Christopher Bays appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Hi, I’m Christopher! Read my introduction to learn more about me and my silly Russian Blue cat, Olga. Domestic cats are talented climbers, leapers, and hunters, and although most love to view their environments from elevated positions, they also enjoy hiding in cramped spaces. Squeezing their bodies into small spaces is a skill most dogs probably envy, but it comes naturally to felines. They have an anatomical advantage; unlike humans, their shoulder blades and collarbones are connected to other body parts by muscles, not bones. Fearful Hiding When homes become too chaotic or noisy for cats, they usually run and hide. It doesn’t seem remarkable or out of the ordinary, but I’m impressed by how quickly Olga disappears when she’s scared or ready to play. If someone in my neighborhood sets off a bottle rocket, Roman candle, or firecracker, Olga breaks the sound barrier when she runs for cover. Thunderstorms don’t faze her, but she’s miserable on the 4th of July. It’s the only time of year she spends hours hiding under the couch, and the terrified expression on her face makes me feel sorry for her. Why did you turn on the lights? I was having a splendid nap on your clothes. Hiding to Relax and Annoy Humans However, she also hides every morning after eating breakfast when she’s content. Hiding because of fear isn’t unusual for cats, but I think they also enjoy it when they’re not stressed or frightened. Cramming themselves into tiny spaces may make them feel more secure, and some cats understand how hard it is for humans to find them, and they enjoy watching their owners trying to locate them. Olga usually runs up to me if I call her name, but if she sees me packing my bags for a trip or hauling the cat carrier out of the closet, she finds an effective hiding spot and won’t respond to my calls. Her morning hiding spot is under the bed, but when she doesn’t want to be found, she hides in the bathroom or behind a cabinet in the living room. Skillful Hiding Sometimes, she hides in the bathtub, and once, after searching my house for 30 minutes, I found her behind the toilet. Discovering her hiding spot hurts her pride, and she lashes out when I try to pick her up. When she was a kitten, she was more violent and often used flatulence to convince me to put her down. Thankfully, she no longer uses that defense mechanism. Christopher rarely looks in the bathtub when we’re playing hide and seek. It’s irritating when you can’t find a hidden cat, but Olga isn’t as difficult to locate as my last cat. My Siamese cat rarely kept his mouth closed unless he was eating, sleeping, or hiding, and he was a talented escape artist. He didn’t stay in one place but moved around as I searched for him. He escaped when I took him to the coast to visit my friends several years ago. We searched for hours and even had the local Sheriff help after he questioned us about why we were creeping around a cemetery in the middle of the night. At some point during the search, he ran back into the house, and I found him in the kitchen cupboard behind the canned goods. Olga isn’t as devious when she hides, and I’m lucky that she’s never tried to run outside. The post Why Cats Hide in Tiny Spaces: Olga Looks for Cover by Christopher Bays appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

Books cats Five Very Good Cats in SF and Fantasy Whether dealing with aliens, dragons, or the supernatural, cats are always the heroes of their own stories… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on June 3, 2024 “White Cat and Butterflies” by Arthur Heyer (1914) Comment 0 Share New Share “White Cat and Butterflies” by Arthur Heyer (1914) Every week, I put up a list on my own website of the books/novellas/games/etc. I have bought or been sent that week. I also put up a poll on Dreamwidth asking readers which works sound interesting to them. I also include one control category: “Cats.” Consistently, the cats option proves more popular than any other book or work. This is no surprise. Cats provide pest control, affectionate companionship, timekeeping (provided one cares only about feeding time), and in a pinch, alternative funerary services. No surprise that in the millennia since cats began associating with humans, they have spread around the globe. Nor is it a surprise to discover that cats1 appear quite frequently in speculative fiction2. Consider these five works. “The Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith (1955) (Collected in Supernatural Cats and The Best of Cordwainer Smith, among others.) Deepest space is the domain of dragons, intangible beings who inflict madness and death on hapless human travelers. Intense light kills dragons… or it would, if it weren’t for the fact that dragons are too swift to target. Alone, humans would be doomed. Humans are not alone. From the POV of humanity’s telepathic feline companions like Captain Wow and Lady May, dragons are merely peculiar rats. The cats’ psionic senses can spot rats or dragons and alert their doting human allies within milliseconds. Rat or dragon, with the cats on stage, the predators are doomed. Why the story about Captain Wow and Lady May, and not the ones featuring girly-girl C’Mell? Because while cats might be people, cats and cat people are different and deserve their own separate essays. Alien by Ridley Scott (dir.) and Dan O’Bannon (screenwriter) (1979) Investigating a mysterious transmission, commercial space tug Nostromo discovers an alien craft. Within the craft are alien eggs the humans should not have investigated as closely as they did. One egregious violation of basic safety protocol later, and a ravenous alien predator begins picking off the delectable hapless human crew, one by one. In addition to the humans, Nostromo has a feline crewmember, Jones. Far more sensible than most of its human companions, Jonesy prudently avoids the alien. Not merely that, but by graciously permitting Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley to convey Jones to a lifeboat, the heroic cat saves Ripley’s life. No doubt Ripley would tell a slightly different version of the events. But consider: Jonesy is the only protagonist of the first movie to survive the franchise because it is the only protagonist that exits the series as soon as escape is practical. What’s more likely, that the cat saved the human or that the human somehow fumbled their way into saving the cat? Barbary by Vonda McIntyre (1986) Orphan Barbary’s constant companion is her cat, Mickey. Barbary takes Mickey with her from foster home to foster home. This becomes problematic when Yoshi and Thea offer Barbary a new home. Yoshi and Thea live in a space station. Pets are not allowed. Barbary is ingenious enough to smuggle Mickey on board, but keeping Mickey hidden proves more difficult. Luckily for Mickey, like many previous human domiciles, the station has rats. Mickey earns a place in a traditional role as pest control. Not content with this, Mickey also takes an unexpected central role in a first contact situation. Fortunately for humanity, allergic reactions to cat dander are not a universal trait. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (2001) The feline Maurice, his rat companions, and their human boy Keith have human-level intelligence. They use this to exploit gullible humans. They arrive in a new town where the cunning rats stage a distressing rodent infestation. Keith and Maurice then make the problem vanish in return for reasonable renumeration. The troupe arrives in Bad Blintz to discover that the town has an existing rat problem and also established rat catchers. Curiously, despite abundant evidence of an infestation, Maurice’s educated rats find little evidence of actual rats. Have Maurice and company encountered a rival group of con artists? The truth is far worse. There are many stories about talking animals that simply walk past, eyes averted, the fact that some animals are predators while others are prey. This is not one of those books. When a Cat Faces West by Yuki Urushibara (2018-2020) Flows (transient reality warps) bedevil Japan. While Flow is rarely lethal, often not even dangerous, it makes life much more difficult. One discovers that all corners (including blade edges) have suddenly vanished, or that one has been transformed from adult to tween. Hence the existence of Flow disposal officials. Flow disposal expert Hirato relies on a combination of expertise and sloth. Experience has shown him that most Flow vanishes on its own as long as humans do not exacerbate the situation. However, there are exceptions. He deals with the exceptions. His partner in this enterprise? His cat Shacho, who has a well-honed ability to sense Flow. (Note: in many manga it’s not clear if the cats are toms or queens. Shacho is unambiguously a tomcat.) Of course, there are many science-fictional and fantastic cats I could have mentioned but did not. In some cases I had good reason—Space Cat got his own essay years ago; and while I enjoyed horror author’s Junji Ito’s touching Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, the manga is entirely mundane despite the impression Junji Ito’s art might give. I am sure I’ve missed many reader favorites. Feel free to inform us all in the comments below.[end-mark] Cat people form a different, although closely related, category. ︎Of course, works about cats are found everywhere, not just in spec fic. Noted SF author Xiran Jay Zhao kindly introduced many lucky people to the cat poems of Song Dynasty poet Lu You, a man who having acquired a cat to manage his rat problem soon found himself its servant. ︎The post Five Very Good Cats in SF and Fantasy appeared first on Reactor.

We present you funny dog posts from May 26 to Jun 01 that will paws-itively make you through the rest of the week!

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“I could just gobble them right up!” isn’t an uncommon phrase when it comes to seeing a baby, but some animals take it a bit too literally. Known as filial cannibalism, chowing down on your offspring might seem a bit heartless to us – not to mention counterintuitive when it comes to species survival – but there are a number of reasons why it might happen.A lack of what they needHamsters look pretty adorable, but even the cutest of creatures can be driven to extremes under particular circumstances. In the case of European hamsters found in the west of the continent, a diet based mostly on maize grown across vast areas led to a deadly deficiency.In a study attempting to determine how monoculture crops might affect the reproduction of this endangered species, researchers discovered that maize-fed females exhibited high rates of maternal infanticide and cannibalism, even storing their pups ready to eat alongside their stores of regular food.This, the team determined, was the result of a lack of vitamin B3 or niacin. In humans, this deficiency causes a disease called pellagra, in part characterized by damage to the nervous system that can then lead to changes in behavior.The study authors concluded it was a similar situation in the European hamsters and, when given vitamin B3 supplementation, the normally chill critters thankfully returned to not snacking on their babies.Getting back in the gameSpeaking of satisfying needs, male blennies' desire to get themselves back on the market can see them ditch their caregiving duties in favor of spitting out, or even eating, the eggs in their brood.Researchers studying the barred-chin blenny found that when males are around eggs, their levels of a group of reproduction-related hormones called androgens hit a low. As a result, they can’t start courting again, which stops them from helping to make any more clutches – not great from an evolutionary, “I need to pass on my genes,” point of view.Not always willing to wait for the eggs to hatch in order to restart the process, when clutches are small, male blennies chomp down on them – or spit them out of the nest if their stomachs get full – in order to get rid of them all. After that, their androgen levels shoot back up, and it’s a win-win situation for them: they don’t have to waste energy caring for a small number of eggs and they can start courting female blennies again to hopefully produce a bigger clutch.A low chance of survivalKeepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo ended up hand-rearing a sloth bear cub back in 2014 after its mother “ingested” two of its siblings. The reason? The mother bear might have thought her children wouldn’t survive.The first of the cubs was stillborn and when vets took a look at the rescued cub, it was found to have an infection. "She was ill, with an elevated white blood cell count," Tony Barthel, a mammal curator at the zoo, told National Geographic. "We don't know if this was the case with her other two cubs, but my assumption is they were not well."Pregnancy and motherhood are expensive; in the wild, where resources can be scant, eating offspring that might not survive anyway avoids putting anything to waste. But when mother sloth bears don’t gobble down their young, best believe they’re going to protect them.

It’s enough to bring you out in a cold sweat. That dreaded moment when your boss asks you to schedule a “biweekly” call, and you have no idea what they mean. Is that twice a week or once every two weeks? We know lots of people are stumped by this so, good people that we are, we thought we might try and help. Famous last words…Biweekly, according to the dictionary doyens at Merriam-Webster, means both “twice per week” and “once every two weeks”. Yep. It’s both.“Biweekly and bimonthly each have a pair of meanings that are unhelpfully at odds with one another,” Merriam-Webster confirms, but if you’re looking for sympathy, you won’t find it here. “Those meanings exist, and we cannot ignore them.”Just because a term has two meanings, it doesn’t mean both are used with equal frequency. According to Grammarly, most native American English speakers tend to use “biweekly” when they mean twice a week, but it can still be near-impossible to tell – even from the context – what someone actually means.As a Brit, I feel compelled to point out here that we already have a lovely word that might help in these scenarios: fortnightly. With this, we can reserve biweekly to only mean twice a week, and everyone’s blood pressure can drop a couple of points. For some reason, however, this term has not gained much traction on the other side of the Atlantic, leaving scores of native English speakers mired in “biweekly”-based bewilderment.And it doesn’t end there. As Merriam-Webster mentions, “bimonthly” has the same issue, meaning both twice per month and once every two months. Where this gets really tricky is that you could have workers being paid on the same two Fridays every month, but half of them could say they get paid biweekly while the other half could say they get paid bimonthly.How’s that headache feeling?When we get up to years, the confusion theoretically ends: “biannual” means twice a year, while the similar-but-different “biennial” means once every two years. We say, “theoretically ends”, because biannual and biennial are often used interchangeably and incorrectly. It’s basically just really difficult to refer to having two of something.The origin of all this difficulty is the prefix “bi-”, which has always had this double meaning. Originating from Latin, it has various meanings including “two, having two, twice, double, doubly, twofold, once every two.” The ambiguity is, sadly, baked right in.If you’re not ready to adopt fortnightly as an alternative just yet, the best way around this confusion is simply to spell it out – avoid the word biweekly altogether and just tell people whether you mean twice a week or every two weeks.“English is sometimes simply obstreperous,” Merriam-Webster reminds us. So next time you get that dreaded request from your boss, you’ll probably have to just bite the bullet and ask them what exactly they’re looking for.And if this is a common issue for you, you might even consider scheduling yourself a biweekly reminder to check this article. Or bimonthly – whatever works.

A small mystery has rocked X (Twitter) over the weekend, after a junior doctor in the UK found a living goldfish on his lawn.On Saturday, junior doctor Ben Beska heard a group of birds outside, and went to investigate. Instead of the usual objects you tend to find on the grass (more grass and endless weeds), Beska found a goldfish. This was odd (and slow us down if we're talking too much science here) as there was no water source nearby.Beska's timing, though not quite right to see a fish falling from the sky, was pretty good. Improvising using a freezer drawer – very few people keep a goldfish bowl "just in case" – he was able to make a new temporary home for the fish. "It was just about dead," Beska told IFLScience, "but just revived when I put it in the water."              IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Locking the fish away from his cats, Beska then hastily bought a better tank (i.e. one whose primary function isn't to store pies) in which to house it.             Beska believes the fish was likely out of water for a few minutes, though there are reports of other goldfish surviving for hours without water. Goldfish are pretty hardy creatures, and can even survive for months in anoxic (oxygen-deficient) waters, as their lakes freeze and seal them in. While in these low-oxygen environments, the fish converts toxic lactic acid into ethanol, letting it diffuse out slowly across its gills, a trait they share with crucian carp."The ethanol production allows the crucian carp to be the only fish species surviving and exploiting these harsh environments, thereby avoiding competition and escaping predation by other fish species with which they normally interact in better oxygenated waters," Dr Cathrine Elisabeth Fagernes from the University of Oslo said in a 2017 statement."It's no wonder then that the crucian carp's cousin the goldfish is arguably one of the most resilient pets under human care."Going without oxygen for this long has consequences, however. A study that tested the carps' ability to memorize and navigate mazes before and after placing them in an oxygen-deprived tank found that they suffered "moderate brain damage", though this was repaired fairly quickly.As for how the goldfish ended up on Beska's lawn, there is probably a very simple explanation: a bird likely grabbed it and dropped it, or it was able to wriggle free. Though the fish being "back to health" is described as a "bit of a stretch" by Beska, the fish is still alive."It is a bit worse for wear and fingers crossed it lives," he added. Beska has named the fish Alice, after he texted a friend and "it's alive" autocorrected to "it's Alice".