What have cats done for science?

There are many cats in the history of human science. Some of them are close companions of explorers, some have made great sacrifices for scientific experiments, and some have provided inspiration in the lives of scientists.

Glow-in-the-Dark Cat

In 2011, scientists created this genetically modified fluorescent cat. They gave it a gene that might be able to resist "feline AIDS." The scientists also added another gene that made it fluoresce green—indicating whether the disease-resistant gene had been incorporated into the cat's genome. Currently, scientists are preparing to subject these genetically modified cats to the test of feline immunodeficiency virus. If they can successfully fight the virus, it may help humans find new treatments for AIDS.

Adventure Cat

The cat in the picture is named "Mrs. Chippy", but it is actually a male cat. It followed Sir Ernest Shackleton as he set sail for the Antarctic expedition. Apparently, "Mrs. Chippy" was loved by everyone on the ship (except the sled dogs) and kept the ship from becoming infested with rats. Unfortunately, when the Endurance became trapped in an ice floe, Shackleton and the crew were forced to abandon ship and all their extra belongings - including the cat. After her last meal, "Mrs. Chippy" was placed on board. Later, a bronze statue of it (made to its actual size) was placed on Sir Shackleton's tomb, and its image will live on forever.

Weightless Cat

Does cats always touch the ground on their feet? In 1947, the U.S. government wanted to find out the answer to this question, so the Air Force Aviation Medical Service flew two cats aboard a C-131 transport aircraft. The plane flies in a parabola and experiences weightlessness for a few seconds. It didn't seem like the day was going to be very interesting for the two kittens. The bottom line is: cats don’t always land on their feet!

Boxing Cat

Shortly after Thomas Edison invented the movie camera in 1892, the first film about cats was produced, which showed two cats boxing...

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Suborbital Astronomy Cat

In 1963, Félicette became the first cat in space. She comes from Paris and is a good-natured female cat. The French government put it through training with 13 other cats, including in a compression chamber and in a centrifuge. On October 18, Félicette launched into space aboard a French Veronique AG1 rocket. Scientists installed an electrode array in her brain to record her neural activity. At an altitude of about 160 kilometers, Félicette's special cabin detached from the rocket, opened its parachute and finally returned to the ground. Félicette was fine but was euthanized months later so that electrodes implanted in her brain could be checked. Still, her legendary 15 minutes in space was enough to put Félicette on postage stamps around the world.

Electric Cat

During his growing up years in Croatia, Nikola Tesla’s best friend was Macak. "The best of all cats in the world," Tesla wrote in the letter. The letter also describes how Macak inspired his life's work. "In the dusk of the evening, I stroked Macak's back, and suddenly I saw a miracle that stunned me. Macak's back emitted a light, and my hand produced overflowing sparks. The sound was so loud that the whole room I could hear it... My mother seemed fascinated. 'Don't play with that cat,' she said, 'he might start a fire.' But I was wondering if nature was one. Huge cat? If so, who's stroking its back? ...I can't overstate the impact this magical night had on my childhood imagination. Day after day I asked myself, 'What is electricity?'" /p>

Without Macak, Tesla might never have invented alternating current, and our lives today might be completely different.

Quantum Cat

Any inventory of "scientific cats" will not be missing "Schr?dinger's cat". To illustrate the mechanics of quantum mechanics, Schr?dinger used an example that everyone can understand: the cat. This is a thought experiment that goes like this: Put a cat into a sealed box with a bottle of poison and a radioactive object inside. If one atom of the radioactive material decays, the bottle will shatter and the cat will be poisoned. Since an observer has no way of knowing whether a cat has been poisoned, the cat can be considered both alive and dead. Note: The cat named Maru in the picture is not the real "Schr?dinger's cat".

Cloning cats

In 2001, the world's first cloned cat "CC" was born at Texas A&M University in the United States. National Geographic describes its cloning process: "The cat was cloned by transplanting DNA from Rainbow, a female calico cat, into an egg cell whose nucleus had been removed. The embryos were then implanted into the uterus of the surrogate female cat Allie. "Although CC's genes are exactly the same as Rainbow's, the two cats look very different. This is because a cat's coat color results from epigenetic changes that occur in the womb - during cell differentiation, certain genes are activated or suppressed without changing the genome sequence.

CC was still alive in 2011 and had given birth to several kittens.

Astronomy Cat

In the arm of the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble is a cat named "Nicolas Copernicus" . Apparently it was named after the Polish astronomer during the Renaissance who dared to claim that the Earth revolved around the Sun. A letter written by Hubble's wife was found at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which hinted that "Nicolas Copernicus" may have helped Hubble solve the mystery of the expansion of the universe:

"While (Edwin) worked at the big table in the study, Nikolai stretched himself majestically over as many pages as he could. 'He was helping me,' Edwin explained."

Wireless Telegraph Cat

Legend has it that Einstein once used a cat to explain the principle of wireless telegraphy:

“You see, wired telegraphy is like a very long, very long cat. Long cat. You pull its tail in New York and its head in Los Angeles meows. Do you understand this? It's the same thing with radio: you're transmitting here and they're receiving it there. The difference is that there are no cats.”

However, we are not sure where the above quote comes from.

Spy Cat

Forget about high-tech spy gear. In the 1960s, the CIA launched Operation Acoustic Kitty. The program trained cats to eavesdrop on Russian phone calls. By implanting a microphone in the cat's ear, hanging a transmitter near the cat's neck, and installing an antenna on the cat's tail, the first feline agent in history was born. However, it was quickly run over by a taxi. In a 1967 memo, he wrote: "This plan is not suitable in a practical sense to meet our higher professional needs."

In 2010, Oscar became the world's first A cat with a prosthetic leg attached to its ankle. This technology, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (ITAP), mimics the porosity of deer antlers, tightly combining muscle and metal to isolate the invasion of foreign objects and bacteria. ITAP technology has been used in humans, and users say prostheses implanted through this method are much more comfortable than removable prostheses.