this one is always funny, anyone know why my orange would pull his ass so high to get a nice smack? almost as if they feel some sort of relief

Recently I went through the list of all of the subs that I follow and 80% of them were all cat related.

Yes. But we also call redheads "redheads" as a rule, not "gingers" - except that the "ginger" thing has filtered over here via the Internet in the past, I dunno, 20 years.

Like, I can't recall anybody describing a redheaded person as a "ginger" in the 80s or 90s, (location: Missouri) it's something I've only encountered since there's been more language cross-pollination due to the Internet.

I thought it was popularized by internet/Reddit as a joke denoting that ginger cats are "special": https://www.reddit.com/r/OneOrangeBraincell/

We call them orange cats (gatos laranjas) in Portuguese too!

Many places outside the US call them orange as well.

I always found this funny as well. We say ginger cats (chats roux) in French too!

Cookie vs biscuit, vacation vs holiday, gasoline vs petrol, etc, etc.

You might be shocked that we say "red heads" instead of ginger as well.

In the US, "ginger" is a seasoning, not a color. Like, in general; we do not refer to anything as being ginger-colored unless it's a sort of pale yellowish tan.

Hey now, that's prejudice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

I always called the orange even when I was in the UK.

In Australia they're known an ranga cats (ranga as in orangutan).

I'm in the US, but through cultural osmosis, ginger in the UK context is in my vocabulary. I think things like this are going to coalesce, slowly.

They are mostly tabbies at the end of the day. But colloquially, yes: the US tends to simply call them orange.

UK and USA are brotherly nations divided only by their common language.

My experience (cat owner myself, son of cat owners and regular cat-sitter) confirms what the article says: orange cats are no more or less prone to doing seemingly stupid/weird things than cats of any other color. More seriously, I think this stereotype is a direct continuation of stereotypes against red-haired humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_people_...), so it shouldn't be encouraged...

Turns out racism is funny and accepted if directed against those you don't like

Which makes sense because anesthesia doesn’t work on them as well. One or two encounters with a dentist that doesn’t know it and it’s quite natural to develop such a fear.

{I am not a kook - this is creative writing}

I've long held that the nine lives of a cat are not a sequential thing, but a quantum superposition of the cat. Just as Pavlov selected dogs for his classic experiment in psychology; Schrödinger - understanding the quantum nature of cats - selected a cat for his thought experiment.

A cat lives nine simultaneous lives. This explains many of the phenomena that one observes with cats.

First off, there's the classic "that looks like my cat" from the internet, that other cat could very well be a parallel instance of your cat.

Second, there's the perceived goofiness of cats as they chase imaginary things when they're forgetting where their bodies are at a given time. One instance of the cat could be locked in mortal combat with the elusive red dot while the other one is jumping at what looks to the humans around him as zoomies or greebles ( https://www.reddit.com/r/greebles/ ).

Kittens are especially prone to being confused by their quantum nature and prone to those activities.

The easiest way to pay attention to only one self-instance for a cat is the simplest, sleep. This is why cats have been reported to sleep 12 - 16 hours, and kittens up to 20 hours per day ( https://www.petmd.com/cat/behavior/why-do-cats-sleep-so-much ).

Interesting question. Cats apparently have "dichromatic" vision, and orange is among the colors that they basically can't distinguish from grey.

I have an orange male. He's awesome, and he doesn't leave anything on the table as far as cognitive ability goes. He's just very wrapped up in his important cat business that mostly resolves around territory, chipmunks and hanging out with his enemies.

people are very good at seeing their pets conforming to their expectations, whether that is scientifically true or not :)

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dog-breed-individual-beh...

> Breed offers little predictive value for individuals, explaining just 9% of variation in behavior.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/which-dog-breed-s... (here note how big the overlap is between breeds for most traits, and clumpiness is rare, but present)

Only an anecdote, but our orange cat doesn't really conform to any of the stereotypes. He so smart he taught himself how to open doors.

There's the "my anecdote trumps those scientists facts" guy. Never fails.

Humans carry this GTPase as well. GTP is energy source of receptors called G protein coupled receptors. They are about 750 these and many of them are catecholamine receptors, like the serotonin and dopamine receptors.

Humans also carry this gene. https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/Q6ZRI8/entry

In humans, both DNA and RNA are mostly expressed in the brain and in the endocrine system.

https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000147256-ARHGAP36/tissue

For cats it very well may be different. Genes do not express activity the same indifferent species and they’re definitely not the same in different parts of the body. Genes can express RNA in one part of the body and more DNA and another part.

But I think this deletion is really about how it affects the methylation the gene.

Wait until you find out about the thousands of anecdotal reports from parents about “sugar rush” in their kids- also without foundation

Good news: Genetic research does not involve direction.

Source: I have had my genome sequence. I was not dissected.

Why would you need to dissect kittens for a gene study?