So cute. So shnuggly. So lethal.: Jax, the mighty hunter, eyes some tasty birdies from his window perch.
Courtesy Gene
As spring approaches (no, really, it is coming! You've got to believe!), house cats everywhere are sniffing at the fresh air coming in under the door, and are just itching to get outside. However, a politician in Boulder, Colorado is trying to pass a law that would require pet owners to keep their cats inside. It may sound funny – or like an unnecessary government intrusion into citizens’ lives—but outdoor cats are a big problem for wildlife. According to the American Bird Conservancy There are some 77 million house cats in America, and a similar number of feral cats. Each year, they kill hundreds of millions of birds, and perhaps a billion small mammals. Many of the prey species are threatened or endangered.
If you own a cat, keep it inside! Or invest in an enclosure so it can enjoy the outdoors without menacing the local wildlife.
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A typical American family: 2.5 kids and a Roomba. (photo courtesy of mhaithaca on flickr.com)A wave of human-robot love is sweeping the nation, says a recent Georgia Tech study, with a scale and intensity not seen since the release of Short Circuit 2. And what’s behind this wave of the future, as it crashes on the sunny, unsuspecting beaches of the present? Robotic vacuums. That’s right – little Roombas have crept into the lonely chambers of our hearts, and are sucking them clean.
One can immediately understand some of the attraction to “robovacs”: like a good, “real” friend, they are small, obsessively tidy, and can be purchased. Beki Grinter of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing thinks that the phenomenon goes beyond this, however. Grint began her study when she started seeing online photos of people dressing up their Roombas, and soon found that people were naming the vacuums, taking them on vacation with them, and, in at least one case, introducing them to their parents.
Roomba owners were even modifying their homes to make the Roombas’ “lives” easier; some bought new rugs; some sought out furniture and appliances with higher floor clearance; and some went so far as to
Owners even tolerated Roombas with mechanical failures and functional problems (earlier models tended to break more often), because “they love their robot enough.”
The study seemed to suggest that, among other things, things that are designed to be somewhat emotionally engaging don’t have to as reliable. (This is, coincidentally, one of my mottos.)
One can also infer from the study that the average American family is finally ready to accept robot helpers into their home. Just think: Roomba today, Johnny 5 tomorrow, the Svedka vodka robot the next day… and maybe Roomba again the day after that.
Cute, fluffy...and deadly?: Photo from Snap!Can you tell I'm not a cat person? ;-)
Researchers report that bird flu mutates in cats faster than previously thought. Many human diseases originate in other animals, eventually mutating into a form that can infect us. AIDS is believed to have evolved from a similar disease in apes, and various strains of human flu reside in birds and farm animals before mutating and passing on to humans.
So far, very few people have been infected with "Bird flu" -- it seems to be hard for us to catch in its current form. But if it takes up residence in another mammal, it could mutate into a form that's much more deadly to us.
In the immortal words of Jan Hobson, it's time to throw your cat away.
(Kidding!)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright: Courtesy madcovv
I was amazed today when I cracked open my new copy of Harper's Magazine. In the Harper's Index feature I discovered this chilling fact about our dwindling world tiger population. There are about as many tigers living in the wild around the world as there are living as pets in the US?! That's simply absurd. These wild animals were not meant to be domesticated and keeping them as pets won't help grow their numbers in the wild.
However, searching around on this topic did lead me to a rather interesting blog focusing on the issues of conservation, specifically through the lens of finance. They recently highlighted China's unique efforts at tiger conservation, which involve breeding tigers in China and shipping them to a fenced-in preserve in South Africa. But most interestingly this blog focusses on some real world situations that can be solved within our current economic system. According to the blog's author:
Good intentions are not enough. We need business models that are financially, institutionally and technically viable, based on evidence, and provide incentives to encourage biodiversity conservation.
I couldn't agree more, so head on over to the Conservation Finance blog and specifically their posts on wildlife conservation to learn more.
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