From Discover magazine we have this astronomical feature that, they say, resembles a fluffy cat tail. Well, judge for yourself (click on the headline):
An excerpt:
A collision between objects 63 light-years from Earth may have been the driving force that created what looks like a massive cat’s tail spanning billions of miles. Reseachers detected this lengthy tail, located in a debris disk central to the Beta Pictoris system, years ago in infrared light, but the latest observations in visible light have found compelling new details about its structure and origin.
A study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters has painted a clearer picture of the cat’s tail thanks to image data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The data confirmed that the vast cloud consists of porous, or “fluffy,” dust grains that may have been scattered in the wake of a high-velocity collision between bodies the size of Pluto. Looking deeper into the Beta Pictoris system — especially the dust within its cat’s tail — could give astronomers a better idea of our own solar system’s earliest years.
“How you can get dust grains that small that are as porous as we see here, no one really understands, and that’s part of why we study this feature,” said study author Arin Avsar, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, in a statement.
Here’s the cat tail (credits on photo). The caption tells that this is an artist’s reconstruction: the “tail” is the orange bit and the white feature is a “secondary tail”:
In this artist’s illustration of the Beta Pictoris debris disk – seen edge-on as it appears from Earth – the swirling gas and dust are depicted in orange. A secondary disk, discovered previously, appears as a whitish feature below the plane of the main disk. On the right, the “Cat’s Tail” feature is visible, reaching far into space.
Here’s the paper from the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Click to read it:
From the AAAS’s EurekAlert:
We think the Cat’s Tail has eluded our observations in visible light until now because of what it’s made of,” Avsar explained. “It consists almost entirely of we call organic refractory material, which is heavily carbon-based. These long chains of carbon atoms absorb visible light, so they’re quite black.”
“We think the Cat’s Tail has eluded our observations in visible light until now because of what it’s made of,” Avsar explained. “It consists almost entirely of we call organic refractory material, which is heavily carbon-based. These long chains of carbon atoms absorb visible light, so they’re quite black.”
Not only that, but the new observations also supported that the vast cloud – whose length could be as long as 200 trillion house cats lined up tail to snout – consists of micron-sized dust grains that are also extremely porous or “fluffy.” In more astronomical terms, the structure is potentially 1,000 astronomical units long, with one AU being the average distance between the Earth and the sun.
“How you can get dust grains that small that are as porous as we see here, no one really understands, and that’s part of why we study this feature,” Avsar said.
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I found a cat-related post the FB Page The Scientific Report:, which led me to the original paper.
The Facebook post:
Your cat isn’t talking to you. It’s filing a complaint.
Researchers in Japan took 38 pet cats, all known to meow a lot around food, and handed each one a problem it couldn’t solve alone: a favourite treat sealed in a small plastic box with holes in it. The cat could smell it. Couldn’t reach it.
Then they ran the test two ways. Once with a human in the room, paying attention. Once with the cat completely alone.
Alone: 20 meows total.
Human present: 86.The odds of a cat meowing were more than 16 times higher when someone was there to hear it. And the meows weren’t random noise. Cats kept glancing between the person and the box, like pointing with their eyes.
Published in Animal Behaviour, 2026. The scientists stop short of saying cats know you have thumbs. But they clearly know who to yell at when the world is broken.
Source: Fukimoto et al., Animal Behaviour, 2026,
You can see a more thorough summary in ScienceAlert, and click below to read the full paper in Animal Behaviour:
The results are not new to cat owners, but it’s good to have them documented with SCIENCE. As the photo below shows, the cats meow when their staff is around, but when they’re not, the cats repeatedly glance at the doors or try to open the box. Here’s the abstract of the article; bolding is mine.
The domestic cat uses the meow more frequently in interactions with humans than with other cats. However, it remains unclear whether this vocalization serves a truly communicative purpose. In the present study, we investigated the audience effect on cat meowing behaviour using an unsolvable task paradigm involving the cat’s favourite food. We observed 38 cat–human dyads in their homes, an ecologically relevant scenario for cats, through synchronous citizen science. Cats were presented with a box containing perceivable but unreachable food in two conditions: human present and human absent. In the human present condition, cats exhibited a significant increase in meowing frequency. Meowing predominantly occurred while cats gazed at humans. Behaviours directed towards humans, including gazing and gaze alternation between them and the box, occurred significantly more frequently than zero. In the human absent condition, cats stood still and gazed at the door significantly more, suggesting they discriminated which behaviour was more effective with an audience. These results are consistent with meowing playing a communicative role in cat–human interactions, as evidenced by changes in response to the audience effect. Moreover, while directed at humans, these vocalizations were enhanced through multimodal signalling, integrating visual and vocal cues to strengthen information transmission and ensure the most effective communication.
So, say the authors, this is definitive eficence that cat meows serve a “communicative purpose”. But didn’t we know that already; many cat owners are familiar with meowing at dinnertime
An illustration from the paper with the caption below:
I liked the Materials and Methods Section:
A social media poster was shared to recruit cats that meow frequently, according to their humans’ reports. Participation criteria included: residing in São Paulo state (Brazil), being over 18 and living with no more than four cats. Eligible cats were between 1.5 and 12 years old, neutered/spayed, indoor-only and living with their person for at least 6 months. Participants completed an online form with the required information. Those who met the criteria and indicated ‘always’ for their cat’s meowing before and during mealtime on a Likert scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘always’ were selected. This criterion was adopted because the study aimed to investigate the communicative function of meowing, which required a sample of cats predisposed to produce this behaviour in food-related contexts in their baseline. All 48 cat–human dyads from Fukimoto et al. (2026) were invited to participate. That study, conducted between 2021 and 2022, investigated vocal signals in highly motivating contexts by presenting cats with their favourite food and a new toy. Meowing was significantly more frequent in food-related situations, informing the design of the present study. Of the 48 invited dyads, 40 agreed to participate. For standardization purposes, prior to the session, each participant received a new apparatus: a plastic organizer box measuring 20.5 × 15.4 × 9.02 cm, with handles, a lid and small perforations for air circulation. The lid was not easily removable, enabling it to serve as an unsolvable task (Supplementary Fig. S1). As most cats had ad libitum access to dry food and water, their favourite food was used as the stimulus to ensure sufficient motivation and engagement during the task.
Here’s the “meow index” showing a highly significant difference between the “staff present” and “staff absent” conditions: more meows when staff are there: I’m not sure what the stars represent, but couldn’t be arsed to find out. (You can read the paper at the link above.)
We’ve known for a long time that cats meow almost entirely when there are humans around, and rarely do it when outdoors and interacting with other cats. That alone suggests a communicative purpose. My question was whether the closest wild relative of the housecat, the African wildcat, also meows, or have meows evolved after cats were domesticated. I asked Grok, and it turned out that African wildcats do indeed meow, but not like housecats;
My question: Do close but wild relatives of house cats, like the Egyptian wildcat, meow?
Grok’s answer (I’ve omitted the references given):
Yes, they do meow (or produce meow-type/mew calls), though the sounds differ from those of house cats in pitch, duration, pleasantness, and typical use.
The Egyptian wildcat (or African wildcat, Felis lybica / Felis silvestris lybica) is the closest wild relative and primary ancestor of the domestic cat (Felis catus). Scientific studies confirm that adult African wildcats produce meow-type vocalizations:
- A key 2004 study by Nicholas Nicastro compared their calls with domestic cat meows. African wildcat meows were significantly longer on average (~1.5 seconds vs. ~0.84 seconds), lower in fundamental frequency (~255 Hz vs. ~609 Hz mean), and had lower formant frequencies. Human listeners (regardless of cat experience) rated the wildcat versions as far less pleasant—more urgent or demanding—consistent with domestication having shaped house-cat meows to be higher-pitched, shorter, and more appealing to people.
- Their meows in that study were not directed at humans but toward the general environment, occurring in contexts like food-related situations, agonistic encounters, or distress/pacing in captivity. Adult African wildcats are unusually vocal with these calls compared to most other wild felids, in which adult meowing is rare (more typical of juveniles).
- Broader research on intense mew calls in the genus Felis (including African wildcats, European wildcats, sand cats, etc.) describes these as often uttered in series. They serve long-distance functions such as territorial advertisement and attracting mates. Acoustically, African wildcat versions can sound somewhat hoarse, with a two-syllable structure (raucous first part, higher/more tonal second part with slight frequency modulation).
Like domestic cats, they also hiss, spit, and growl when threatened, and they purr. In the wild, meows are less frequent for everyday social interaction than in pet cats (which largely reserve meowing for humans, building on the kitten-to-mother solicitation call). Feral domestic cats similarly meow less than pets when they have little human contact.
There you have it!
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I was sad to learn that Richard Posner, a federal appellate-court judge who happened to be the most cited legal scholar of all time, died last week. I’m writing about it because he was an avid ailurophile, and had a beloved cat named Pixie, about which we had some correspondence.
The NYT gives his obituary at the link below, which you can read by clicking on the headline or reading the archived link here.
An excerpt:
Judge Richard A. Posner, whose protean intellect, relentless work ethic and startling candor made him a towering figure in the law, died on Tuesday in Chicago. He was 87.
His son Eric confirmed the death.
Judge Posner, who served from 1981 to 2017 on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, wrote thousands of judicial opinions and more than 50 books on a vast array of topics, along with countless scholarly articles, essays, book reviews and blog posts.
He was, the journalist Gary Rosen wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2002, “a one-man think tank.”
Judge Posner was the most-cited legal scholar in the second half of the 20th century, according to a 2000 study conducted by Fred R. Shapiro, beating the runner-up, Ronald Dworkin, by a factor of almost two.
In the casebooks that collect excerpts from judicial opinions and are the basis for much of legal education, Judge Posner’s work was featured for many years more often than that of any other judge. “The differential in terms of total influence on the casebooks between Posner and almost all the other judges is staggering,” the authors of a second study, Mitu Gulati and Veronica Sanchez, wrote in 2002.
When Professor Gulati and Stephen J. Choi updated the study this year, they found that little had changed. Judge Posner’s lead remained “astonishing,” they wrote.
But what about cats? Well, some of it is explained in my post here from January 29, 2018. As far as I can reconstruct with emails, Posner wrote to me first. Since he’s gone, I don’t think he’d mind my sharing his emails, which are not incriminating!
I first heard from him when he wrote me about a New Republic piece in which I answered Ross Douthat, who had gone after me in the New York Times after I criticized one of his religious columns. This email from Posner came out of the blue:
From: Richard Posner
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2013 11:39 AM
To: Jerry Coyne
Subject: your NR article on DouthatDear Professor Coyne,
What a great article about that muddlehead!
Congratulations.
Richard PosnerP.S. The Nativity story in the New Testament, the Christmas trees, the carols, etc., are all very nice, treated as fairy tale and winter solstice reassurance material. The real religion of American is of course materalism–shopping is its creed, the malls are its cathedrals, salesmen are its priests, Santa Claus is its god, and Christmas is its holy day.
(Posner was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent but was secular, a nonbeliever in God but unwilling to say there definitely was no God.)
Chuffed, I wrote Posner back the same day:
From: Jerry Coyne
To: Richard Posner
Date: 12/28/2013 02:20 PM
Subject: RE: your NR article on Douthat
Hi,Thanks a lot for your encomiums, which are especially appreciated since I know well who you are and have admired your work. I also saw, by looking at your Wikipedia bio just now, that
“He is also a self-described “cat person” and is devoted to his maine coon, Pixie.”
My website contains a lot about cats as I’m a cat person, too, though I don’t own one right now. Best to you and Pixie for the holidays.
cheers,
Jerryp.s. I am pleased to say that I did not buy one Xmas present this year.
p.p.s. p.s. If you want to send me a photo of Pixie and maybe a sentence or two about her (I presume, with the name “Pixie” it’s a female), I’d be delighted to put it up, as I have a “readers’ cats” section.is its holy day.
And, sure enough, Posner emailed me the same day, attaching a photo of Pixie (below), including details about her and his family’s other cats, and some legal stuff about religion. None of these emails have been published.
From: Richard Posner
To: Jerry CoynePixie is happy to share her photo with you:
She is a beauty, as you can see; also very intelligent; but above all affectionate, which is rare in my experience of cats. My wife and I have had cats (just one at a time) since before we were married, which means more than 51 years ago, and Pixie is the first one who actually likes me (gives me frequent nuzzles, follows me around, lies on my computer keyboard, causing chaos). I strongly recommend the breed–Maine Coon–and also buying a cat from a breeder, because breeders are very concerned with raising good-natured animals, as otherwise they don’t have a chance in a cat show–not that we would ever “show” a cat.
My court gets a fair number of cases involving religion. They are often hilarious. I have had cases involving apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Indiana, a tree resembling the Virgin Mary that the park authorities wanted to cut down, the Nazarite Oath (no hair cutting–the oath Samson took and then accidentally violated, getting him into serious trouble), insistence by a prisoner who converted to Judaism that the prison import Jews from outside (there being no other Jews in the prison) to make up a Minyan (a quorum of 10 required joint prayer), colorful fringe religious such as the Black Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, and so on, along with serious cases, such as persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ethiopia and Christians and Falun Gong in China. (Falun Gong is a typical East Asian religion–no god, essentially just calisthenics. The Chinese government deems it a cult and has managed to crush it.)
I acknowledge that it is important to many Americans, including some of my sophisticated judicial colleagues, several of whom are devout Catholics–and very nice. Another is a Catholic atheist.) The sects that don’t bother themselves about contraception, abortion, homosexuality, sex generally, evolution, politics, dietary laws, female subordination, and heresy seem harmless. My favorite is Methodism (though one of the Methodist sects lately has gotten in a dither over same-sex marriage), because Methodists allow one’s pets to go to heaven with one.
And here is a photo of Pixie he sent (one of several), which I posted at the link above. She is indeed a beaut!
The post about Pixie appeared on January 29, and I sent the link to Judge Posner. I got one email in return the same day:
From: Richard_Posner
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 1:58 PM
To: Jerry Coyne
Subject: Re: Pixie’s upThanks, Jerry; this is very gracious of you.
Pixie is thrilled, though she did think that there should have been more about her, and less about me. That is a typical feline response.
All the best in the new year.
Dick
RIP to a great judge and scholar, and a great ailurophile.
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Lagniappe: Click to read the story of the Valkyrie cat:
KITTENMAXXING!
Here’s a comedian discussing the dangers of cats, including Death by Cat:
h/t: Michael, Merilee, Stash Krod,