GoKawiil
Tech News
Two independent research teams have traced orange fur in cats to a small missing DNA segment near a gene called Arhgap36, located on the X chromosome. Stanford geneticist Greg Barsh and colleagues found this 5-kilobase deletion present in every orange cat examined among 188 cats studied, and found orange-producing skin cells expressed 13 times more Arhgap36 RNA than non-orange cells.
Recent data shows that fewer American households now own dogs compared to previous years, while the number of households with cats has remained steady. This shift has resulted in cats overtaking dogs as the more common pet in U.S. homes.
Researchers led by Jonas Lescroart and Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz of the Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia identified a new small feline species, Leopardus tilcayo, in the Bolivian Yungas, marking the first new cat species found in over a century. Nogales-Ascarrunz first noticed the animal at a wildlife rehabilitation center, mistaking it for a kitten before genetic testing revealed it didn't match any known species. The team also made new findings about tiger cat subspecies during the same research, published in Current Biology.