Here's how cats became our domesticated feline overlords

Ebisu the Japanese cat has been trained to copy the actions of her trainer, according to a new report in Animal Cognition: This study shows evidence of a domestic cat (Felis catus) being able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions based on the Do as I Do paradigm. The subject was trained to reproduce… READ THE REST

Koko, a cat living in the Japanese city of Toyoma, was honored by local officials after alerting rescuers to an elderly man who had fallen supine into an irrigation canal. Via Japan Times: On June 16, a 77-year-old woman taking a walk around 7:30 p.m. found Koko, a female cat who belongs to a neighbor,… READ THE REST

📷 Chris Platzer, a planning commissioner in Vallejo, CA, in lower left, throws a cat in the air during a Zoom meeting last week. Image: City of Vallejo "OK, first, I'd like to introduce my cat," said Chris Platzer, a planning commissioner in Vallejo, California. READ THE REST

With everyone stuck in COVID quarantine for much of the year, online sales for Amazon and other retailers have gone through the roof. That means more and more packages coming right to your door, to the sheer delight of a more loathsome brand of COVID opportunist: the porch pirate. Thieves taking off with delivered packages… READ THE REST

In the past few days, the U.S. Air Force rolled out new tools fueled by machine learning to help stem the spread of misinformation about COVID. Additionally, the Library of Congress has launched a project on how to use machine learning to better cross-reference all 170 million items in its overflowing archives. Every day, we… READ THE REST

The Apple Watch is a great addition to any tech arsenal–until it runs out of juice, that is. Then, you have to go about the process of recharging. Of course, the Apple Watch only recharges via wireless charging, meaning it can sometimes end up being pretty inconvenient to power up, especially if you're out and… READ THE REST