this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Sponsored by toxoplasmosis

[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 weeks ago

You can't tell me what to


oh, a pretty cat!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

If toxoplasmosis reduces my heart attack risk and stress with no discernable side effects sign me up!

[–] [email protected] 67 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Cat people have 40% less risk of heart attack.*

Cat people are also overrepresented cohorts of wealthy people and women, two cohorts who have a much lower risk of heart attack than the most at risk cohort of poor men.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

So what you are saying is the more cats I get the richer I will be?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 weeks ago

Yes that's exactly how causation and correlation work, go for it!

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago

You don't have to convince me, I was already sold.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

But I'll get cat hair on my programmer socks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

But I still have lots of cats, right?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Scientists have discovered that having more cats reduces the risk of heart attacks and increases wealth with no upper limit*

*study sponsored by toxoplasmosis foundation

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Correlation and Causation are just fancy-pantsy words used by experts to lie to us common folk!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No but cats are correlated with wealth, I’m not implying any sort of causation, unlike the post lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Because they’re famously expensive to keep?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Gotta sell them all

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't it also that pet owners in general have better health?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Possibly. It would make sense, people with poor health who tend to also be poorer financially are less likely to have the ability to take care of a pet.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I have 2 cats.
One of them seems to sense when I'm upset or unwell, and will come to hug me, wrap herself around my neck and purr in my ear.
Then the other one will sneak up on us from behind, jump on her back, and start a cat fight on top of my head.
I love them both, but sometimes I wonder whether getting a second cat was the right decision.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Some cats are grade A dingdongs!

Still love them all.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Petting a cat calms down & relieves stress.

There's a 50/50 chance that a cat will try to claw your eyes out if you rub their belly, but yes.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Survivorship bias: those who live through the encounter have lowered stress.😁

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The calming down and stress relief all happens once the petting session ends.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Knowing that you survived probably gives you a nice hormonal boost:-).

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Depends on the cat. There's some that will let you do just about anything and at most bat you with a paw, claws retracted. Then there's others that if you don't pay attention and pet them just a fraction wrong will take your arm off. Know your cat.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

This is true, I had both living with me at the same time for years.

Sort of still do but the bitey half is more playful now (different cats)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Your stress will reduce to 0 if you die, so

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 weeks ago

My cat learned I can’t see when I have the VR headset on and knocked a lamp over onto my head.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Wholesome. Except the 4th-panel propaganda. That poor woman is dead after that...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Depends on the cats personality, some will tolerate, others will kill.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Look at the cat's eyes! She is about to die. That's why no 5th panel

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

My neighbours cat sleeps on my couch when the door is open and he always wants me to scratch his belly.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Nice, that's basically free healthcare.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, it's pretty great. All I have to do is feed their cats when they're away.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So someone better than me at maths could probably figure out how many cats I'd need to heat my with them room (and if the catfood etc needed would be cheaper than heating) ...

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

I can answer the second question:
Generally, hot-blooded mammals transform 90% of the energy they get from food into heat.
So using a cat for heating your room is about 90% as effective as burning cat food in an oven.

Here's some napkin math for where I live:
1kg of firewood has 4kWh = 4000 kcal
which is about equivalent to 1kg of really cheap dry cat food (mostly carbohydrates)

1kg of firewood costs about 40 cents
1kg of cheap dry cat food costs about 1,20€

So, cat-based heating is about 3.3x more expensive than burning pre-dried, commercially purchased firewood.
(all of these prices heavily depend on how much you buy in bulk, though. And if you care about your cat's well-being, you're gonna spend 2x more on its food)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How would it affect the math if you sold cat videos as NFTs?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

In a market economy, the value of a good increases with demand and decreases with supply.

On the Internet, there is an unlimited supply of cat videos, therefore their market value is 0.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

c/theydidthemath?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But cat based heating has a lower efficiency, they do not turn all energy into heat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

That's why I wrote it's 3.3x more expensive, not 3x
10% of the energy is wasted on things like bodily functions, growing, running around and bringing joy to people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

But all that running around and buzzing and living becomes low grade heat pretty rapidly

While most of the heat from the cat food furnace will go up the chimney rather than into the room.

I would expect the cat to be closer to 100% efficient than the furnace, unless it spends its time sitting on a window sill behind the curtain radiating towards infinity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You sure it's only 10%? I would have estimated about 90%

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

No, 90% is just for heat.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Does it really heal wounds and stabilize blood pressure? That seems a bit far-fetched.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

according to Google, cat purrs are at a specific frequency that somehow helps you heal faster

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

One of it's purrrposes is to shake wounds and increase bloodflow. This is why cats sometimes pur after conflict; they're licking their wounds in multiple ways.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Guinea pigs are kittens that never become cats