What we are made of... (Genetics I)

It is hard to imagine that we have resemblances to the humans.

We… 4 legs; whiskers; long tail. You… bipeds; without great amounts of body hair; no tail. No, no, no, no it is nothing that you can imagine at first sight. But we have more in common that you may imagine.

In the end of last year (2007) a group of international scientists finished sequencing the cat genome, this way they can learn what makes a cat, a cat (besides our whiskers and our beauty, of course!).

These scientists think that the cat has around 20,285 genes, approximately the number of genes the human genome has, which is between 20,000 to 25,000 genes, making this one of the most similar genomes to the human one. Even more, they have a lineage conservation to the first mammal ( from which all mammals have derived ), which is 3 to 4 times bigger that the mouse. This allows them to be able to rebuilt parts of the original genome from our information.

This study is now being used to study and find cures to some human infectious diseases as AIDS and Leukemia, which have a counter part in the cat (FIV – Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and FeLV – Feline Leukemia Virus, one day I have to talk to you about them).

The hereditary in the felines works the same as in the humans. We have 38 chromosomes ( the humans have 46 ), organized in pairs from which one pair defines the sex (sex chromosome), and the remaining are called autosomes.

Each chromosome is composed by a long molecule of ADN, that comes from either the mother or the father. AND is composed from genes which are responsible by defining the individuals characteristics. Each gene is composed of several amino acid, bounded in groups of 3. There are only 4 different amino acids that can be bound to create a “dictionary” of 64 possible combinations.

Hereditarily is done by joining ½ of the ADN from the parent to ½ of the mother, this means that each parent gives half of his being to the new offspring. Lets see:

Father: LR Mother: lr

If we consider L as being the left part of the chromosome and R the right part of the chromosome that the parents can give to the offspring, we can end with:

1st chromosome Lr, lR

… plus the other chromosome, making a combination of 4 possibilities.

You humans use this to check the histocompatibility between each of you, so diseases like leukemia can be cured between yourselves.
It would be easy if we would consider that each gene contains and controls only one aspect of the cat, his color, fur, eyes, … this way it would be easy to know how to write cat using this dictionary, but this isn’t that simple, because, different genes in different positions control the same characteristics, making this knowledge almost impossible to acquire.

But learn more in the next posts…

Purrr… see you next time!

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Elite Model Look...

Hi again!

Today I bring to you some photos from my model portfolio which I am preparing now. This is from a photo shoot I did with 7 weeks, preparing myself to the fashion model world. I am all fashion ain’t I?

Now I am learning how to walk the runway and get ready to be a model. Soon I will be showing up in the fashion magazines… Have you ever thought that you would meet a famous cat?

Purrr… see you soon!
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Polydactyly

Today I’m here to talk to you about an unusual characteristic that we have, it isn’t just us, it spreads all over a bunch of species like Guinea pigs, dogs, cats, humans, etc.
This word derives from the greek Poly that means many and daktulos that means digits, many digits/fingers. The meaning of this genetic change is the existence of additional fingers in us cats.
Usually we have 18 digits, 5 in each front paw and 4 in each rear paw. When one of us has polydactyly, the number of digits increases until 25, distributed by our paws (the only known case of 25 digits had 7 digits in each front paw and 6 and 5 digits in the rear one). The reverse of this is syndactyly, which occurs in the paw development process, that 2 or more toes stay together not splitting to the correct number of digits.
In our case (Maine Coons) this change is not authorized in show, meaning that any cat appearing for judging with polydactyly is immediately excluded from the show.
Well as any rule there are exceptions, in this case is the “Pixie Bob”, the only cat breed that is allowed to have more than the normal number of toes.
Right now there are 2 factions of breeders, the ones that defend the “usual” cat, breeding only with 18 digit cats, and refusing to use the ones that have a different number of digits. And the ones that defend polydactyly, and that say that this should be differentiated from the one caused by diseases like Ellis-van Creveld, which causes also other problems like cardiac anomalies. For them the real polydactyly should be accepted as a Maine Coon characteristic.

For more information about Polydactyly you can go to Maine Coon Polydactyls www.mcpi.org

Did you know that the known Winston Churchill is believed to have been a polydactyl? After all you have famous humans polydactyls too!

Purrr... see you next time!
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Come on...

Come on guys...
It's not hard and doesn't hurt!!!
When visiting leave a comment, even a small one. What counts is that you have been here and said hi, and if you leave your opinion, I can always know what you think.
Don't forget... comment!!!! (or you will end up like Odie)

Thanks

Purrr... see you next time!
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Little pranks

This is what we like most to do. Now that we are a month old we start discovering the attack techniques. We spend most of the time either ganging together or with our paw up in the air to see if we win the play. In the mean time we bite slightly each others and bristling up to keep up the respect.
And when we see that we are being watched by humans, we do this angel faces. Can't resist them right?

Purrr... see you next time!
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Funny play...

Missed us???
Here we are again...
This time to show you all another thing we love to do, play with our breeders feet. We love to play with feet... it's superb!!!
Humans have to have special care and use a protection so we don't hurt them with our teeth and claws witch are so small and sharp that we do not realize we are hurting them.

Purrr... see you next time!
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Feline... did you know?

Today I leave you some curiosities and comparisons between cats, dogs and humans.

• Humans and cats have the same brain region used to acknowledge emotions.
• The cats brain is most similar to the humans brain than the dog brain.
• A cat possesses more bones than the humans, while a human has 206 bones, cats have 245.
• Cats have more vertebrae than humans, 30 this is five more than humans.
• Cats have 32 muscles that control the ears. They can spin the ears in an independent way almost 180º, and 10 times faster than any watch dog.
• Cats earing is much more sensitive than mans and dogs one. Their tunneled ears channel and amplify the sounds. They can ear until 65 khz, while humans can only go until 20 khz.
• In comparison to the body, cats are the mammals that have bigger eyes.
• A cat sees 6 times better than a human at night, because he only needs 1/6 the amount of light that the human needs to see. His field of sight is around 185 degrees.
• A cat possesses around 60 to 80 million cells as olfactory sensors, while humans only have between 5 and 20 millions. They also have a special olfactory receptor near the base of mouth. That's why you can see cats opening his mouths when they feel strong odors.
• The cat has a total of 24 whiskers, grouped 4 by 4, are used to measure distances.
• Cats have 30 teethes, dogs have 42.
• Cats move around in the tips of their paws, which have very sensitive receptors that send information to the cats brain.
• A cat can run at a speed of 50 km/h (31 mph)
• Almost 10% of his bones are located in the tail which is responsible for is balance.
• The domestic cat is the only breed that can stand his tail straight up. The tail can also show the cats mood.
• When a cat is frightened, the fur bristles, if he is going to attack only the straight line that follows the spinal cord does it.
• Cats rub their faces in objects and people to leave them their smell, like a signature. The odor is left by a gland that they possess in the back of their faces.
• Females rub their bodies in the males they select for companion. Other cats rub them also but as a sign of friendship to the ones that they consider bigger and stronger... not that they feel inferior to them.
• Cats IQ is one of the bigger ones in the animal kingdom, only exceeded by monkeys and chimpanzees.
• Cats answer better to names ended with the sound "i".
• Cats are very clean creatures, they spend around 30% of their lives cleaning themselves, and when they do it, they spend as much liquid as if they are urinating.
• A cat always falls straight... if he as the time to twist his body in the fall. This is made as a protection to absorb the shock from the fall.

I hope you have enjoyed it...

Purrr... see you next time!
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Our first month...

Here I am, a month old now. Each time frolicker and energetic. No one stops me... I love everything around me and I play with all the things I can.

Me and my sisters. With a sharp eye to see whats going on, and waiting for an opportunity to play a prank on my breeder. We are in the age to do it.

Purrr... see you next time!
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