Fertile Felines May Require New Laws

Calif. cities move to protect kitty claws while they still can

(NEWSER) - Furniture beware: Los Angeles and Beverly Hills have become the latest California cities to outlaw the declawing of cats. Santa Monica and San Francisco recently passed similar bans and others are considering banning declawing before next year, when a new state law on the regulation of veterinary medicine will effectively ban cities from banning declawing. More»

(NEWSER) - Cats may appear ambidextrous when pawing a ball of string but actually lean lefty or righty when it comes to tough tasks, the New Scientist reports. It comes down to sex: girl kitties are mostly righties and boys lefties, say researchers at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Hormone levels may account for the difference—earlier studies have linked prenatal testosterone to left-handedness. More»

Cry used by hungry kitties shows knowledge of human hearing, psychology

(NEWSER) - Cats seeking food use a cry that humans find maximally urgent and annoying, LiveScience reports. Researchers played a range of cat calls for humans and found that one—a high-pitched cry embedded in a purr—to be the most difficult to ignore, whether the subject owned a cat or not. Scientists think hungry cats may use the purr-cry to sound more like human offspring. More»

(NEWSER) - A Florida teen charged with killing 19 cats in his Miami community became so excited talking about feline dissection that detectives were convinced he was a sociopath, according to court documents released yesterday. Tyler Weinman, 18, never admitted he killed the cats that were found mutilated in his neighborhood, but eagerly spoke of the appealing "tearing sound" of cat dissection. Police discovered cutting tools in his home and a long cat scratch on his back. He's being held under house arrest as his trial gets underway. More»

(NEWSER) - Socks is no more. The First Cat of the Clinton White House died today at the age of 20, People reports. The feline, who had lived with Bill Clinton’s former personal secretary, Betty Curie, since leaving the White House, was put down after a bout with throat cancer. “Socks brought much happiness to Chelsea and us over the years,” the Clintons said in a statement. “We're grateful for those memories.” More»