Cats Do Use Mind Control: Study

(NEWSER) - A column suggesting that housecats murder babies out of jealousy has earned the Houston Chronicle a lot of, well, catcalls. It's not true, the paper now reports. “It’s funny that someone would still actually think that is true,” said a veterinarian and SPCA official. “That is a very old wives’ tale that has since been debunked.” Leaving infants unsupervised with any animal is unwise, but cats to not present a homicidal threat. 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»

(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»

Cute kittens a welcome distraction from economic apocalypse

(NEWSER) - Thank goodness for cultural differences. If it weren’t for an animal-rights crusade against Peru’s cat-eating festival, British Sun readers would have been subjected to yet another headline about the economic crisis yesterday, the Guardian’s Justine Hankins writes. Instead, they got “a story that brilliantly combines two staples of tabloid journalism: pictures of baby animals being cute and tales of foreigners doing the funniest things.” More»