Neatorama

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• Guy Loses Phone In River, Phone Starts Posting To Facebook Two Weeks Later
• A Lad Insane - Discography Of The Dastardly
• Kids Try Dark Chocolate
• The Evolution of Magazine Covers
• Princess Stuff
• Storytime Rocking Chair
• Quick, Mom’s Coming!
• The Swiss Army Machete: A Zombie Defense Multi-Tool
• Remember When You Loved <i>Star Wars</i>?
• Photographer Visits China's Abandoned Amusement Parks
• 10 Strange Secret Societies That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
• The World's First Beer Jelly
• Who Are You? - Android Antagonism
• <i>Mythbusters</i> Recreates Walter White’s Final Booby Trap
• A Photographic Glimpse Into The Lives Of Tokyo's Teens
• Cell Phone and Selfie Fails
• Check Out This Amazing Transforming Optimus Prime Cake
• An Online Exploration Of Second Life's Virtual College Campuses
• 31 Amazing Facts about Household Items
• Celebrities Looking Sad At Disney Parks
• Foldscope: A Foldable Microscope Made of Paper
• Horrifying Facts About Public Swimming Pools, According To Two Lifeguards
• Burger King Throws Down the McWhopper Challenge to McDonald's
• Bat Piñata - Where's All The Candy?
• The Funniest One-liners from the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival
• The Wondrous PC Creations Found At Germany's CaseMod Competition
• Comparative Meows

Guy Loses Phone In River, Phone Starts Posting To Facebook Two Weeks Later Posted: 27 Aug 2015 04:00 AM PDT Losing your phone is a real drag, but there's always the off chance someone will find and return your phone so you hang on to a sliver of hope. But when you drop your phone in a river you pretty much assume it's gone forever, or that when it is found it will be battered and useless. That's what Nathan Buhler assumed when he dropped his phone in the Bow River, until his phone started posting pics to Nathan's Facebook account two weeks later. Turns out Calgary's No. 1 Fire-station firefighters found Nathan's phone and decided to have some fun with it while they looked for its owner, staging a bunch of hilarious pics showing Nathan's phone having the time of its life. And now that Nathan's phone has gone on a grand adventure it doesn't want to go back to its boring old life, which makes perfect sense because how many smartphones can say they've driven a fire truck? -Via Bored Panda

A Lad Insane - Discography Of The Dastardly Posted: 27 Aug 2015 03:30 AM PDT A Lad Insane by Kgullholmen They declared him a lad insane, called him crazy and said his mind was somewhere far above the moon, but he knew the pieces of his mental puzzle still fit together perfectly. He preferred to be called the Joker, but would have accepted Ziggy Jokerdust or the Blue Jean Joker when he was in a sort of denim mood. His sanity was only questioned by those who weren't familiar with his particular brand of genius, but ask Bruce Wayne if that lad in the clown white is insane and he'll tell you- don't let him fool you, for the Joker only laughs to throw heroes off his trail, and one day he hopes to be known as the man who sold the world... Add a manic mashup to your geeky wardrobe with this A Lad Insane t-shirt by Kgullholmen, it'll usher in some good changes and will look great on you while you're dancing in the street! Visit Kgullholmen's Facebook fan page, official website, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more comical designs: Adventure Calling AstrophysiX-Men Saddle Up Equestronauts Tyler And Me View more designs by Kgullholmen | More Comic T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Kids Try Dark Chocolate Posted: 27 Aug 2015 03:00 AM PDT Hey, sweetie, want some chocolate? These kids are expecting the sweet milk chocolate they’ve always had, but this is dark chocolate. The kind grownups eat, without so much milk and sugar. In slow motion, you can see the shock, disappointment, and near panic in their eyes. (YouTube link) Once they get a bite, we adults don’t have to hide our chocolate stash from the youngsters any more. This is an ad from Splendid Chocolates of Quebec. It’s hard to see how this will sell more chocolate, but it’s awfully cute. -via Buzzfeed

The Evolution of Magazine Covers Posted: 27 Aug 2015 02:00 AM PDT The covers of some magazines stay the same for a hundred years, while others change drastically, even when they seem the same from month-to-month. Vogue went from art to fashion models to celebrities. Cosmopolitan went from literature to sex. Karen X. Cheng and Jerry Gabra put together a gallery and analysis of the cover art of some familiar and long-lived magazines. Looking through them, you have to wonder why National Geographic only started using photos on the covers in the 1960s, and why GQ took until the ‘90s to figure out they should put a woman on their covers. Meanwhile, there’s one magazine using the same style covers now as it did 100 years ago. See them all at Medium.

Princess Stuff Posted: 27 Aug 2015 01:00 AM PDT When a kid knows what she wants, she can get pretty stubborn. When a kid doesn’t know what she want, she’ll take forever to make up her mind. This kid, in the latest from Fowl Language Comics, knows exactly what she wants. But this isn’t the end of the story. Check out the bonus panel for the real punch line. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Storytime Rocking Chair Posted: 27 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT When Hal Taylor's third child was born, he was left with a dilemma: he didn't have enough lap space to read books to all of his kids at once. Since he was a woodworker who made rocking chairs, he designed the StoryTime Rocking Chair as a solution. Now he sells them, too. He makes each one by hand. They're priced at $7,000-7,500. -via reddit

Quick, Mom’s Coming! Posted: 26 Aug 2015 11:00 PM PDT Facebook member Itsjudytime has twin girls. They like to talk and play with each other in their cribs, and Mom keeps an eye on them through a baby monitor. Babies don’t understand remote monitoring yet. Watch what happens when Mom talks to them through the monitor! (Facebook link) They already think they can fool Mom at this age. Mom has a few tricks up her sleeve, too, like a viral video she can show for years to come. -via Buzzfeed

The Swiss Army Machete: A Zombie Defense Multi-Tool Posted: 26 Aug 2015 10:00 PM PDT Over the years, Instructables member seamster has brought us many playful toys, such as a Where the Wild Things Are headpiece, a model duck made of duct tape, and a homemade pinball machine. But he's done playing around. He can't afford to. When the dead rise, he will be ready for them. No matter where he goes, he'll be prepared to fight the undead with this massive custom Swiss Army-type knife. It has a machete, an adjustable wrench, a pipe wrench, an auger, and a hatchet.  Strangely missing: a toothpick. That's commonly available on Swiss Army knives and always helpful.

Remember When You Loved <i>Star Wars</i>? Posted: 26 Aug 2015 09:00 PM PDT Target’s new Star Wars ad has no movie clips at all (okay, one tiny one), but will still get you excited about the December premiere of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. It relies on nostalgia, with clips of kids (and grownups) all joyously indulging in Star Wars glee.   (YouTube link) What’s this all about? Well, it doesn’t say in the ad at all, but the new toys and other merchandise accompanying The Force Awakens will arrive in Target stores September 4th. That gives us all plenty of time to clear the stores of Christmas gifts before the movie even opens. That way, it won’t matter a bit whether the film is any good or not. Still, no matter how you feel about merchandising, enjoy the video for what it is.  -via Time

Photographer Visits China's Abandoned Amusement Parks Posted: 26 Aug 2015 08:00 PM PDT China's economic boom created an urban development boom, and all kinds of structures started popping up across the country as hope for the urbanized future loomed. This development boom proved to be somewhat illusory, so many of these half-built structures have been left to rot by their owners, sad reminders of development dreams past. One of the saddest kinds of scrapped project structures is the abandoned amusement park, where the promise of familial happiness has gone to die. Photographer Stefano Cerio visited some of China's most famous abandoned amusement parks, including Wonderland Amusement Park, for his photographic series Chinese Fun. Chinese Fun plays out like an eerie tour of the park, with Stefano playing tour guide and showing off all the wonderful buildings and attractions that are now nothing more than a collection of crusty curiosities. See more photos of abandoned Chinese amusement parks at Juxtapoz

10 Strange Secret Societies That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:00 PM PDT Sure, you’ve heard of some “secret” societies, like the Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons. Those aren't really all that secret anymore. But there are plenty of others, some so esoteric that they are rarely mentioned outside their own circle. One only came to light in the past few years from a coded text that was finally translated when a linguist and a computer programmer joined forces. What they found were the long-lost rituals of a group known as the Great Enlightened Society of Oculists. In the mid 18th century, the esoteric organisation appeared to be made up of ophthalmologists who were performing ground-breaking work in the field of eyesight. They were experimenting with the likes of eye surgeries and cataract removals. At least, that’s how they presented themselves to the public, or even to church and state. The Great Enlightened Society of Oculists also used the eye as a symbol of knowledge; they seemed to be experts in the eye and gatekeepers to the knowledge that lay beyond it. And while much of the text, even when translated, is still full of code and double-speak, experts were able to make educated guesses as to what was going on behind closed doors. Find out what that document was about, plus the stories of quite a few other secret societies, at Urban Ghosts.

The World's First Beer Jelly Posted: 26 Aug 2015 06:00 PM PDT (Photo: Potlicker Kitchen) When she ran out of fruit to make into jelly, Nancy Warner of Vermont decided to make beer jelly. To her knowledge, she's the only person to develop and method to make sweet jellies from beer. Each flavor from Potlicker Kitchen is made from just three ingredients: beer, cane sugar, and citrus pectin. Warner spoke to the tabloid The Mirror: “I set about making a jelly with all beer, no fruit. I have made all of my own recipes and can find no record of anyone else make a pure beer jelly before I did. “I make beer jelly much the way I would make fruit jelly, but instead of kid juice (like fruit juice), I use adult juice. “Each jar of jelly is approximately half full of beer or wine, but, for better or worse, the jelly is non alcoholic. “The alcohol is removed during cooking and by dilution of sugar. “There are only three ingredients - beer, cane sugar and citrus pectin. Because there is no added fruit or flavours, it tastes like a sweet version of the beer it is made with. “You can actually taste the hop and malt characteristics of each flavour of jelly. -via Oddity Central

Who Are You? - Android Antagonism Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:00 PM PDT Who Are You? by Firebeard All kinds of people were flocking to that galaxy far, far away these days, and apparently so were their androids. 3PO was used to being the smartest and most app friendly droid in the Outer Rim, but along came a little green android with promises of unlimited apps and stronger signals. Even R2 warmed up to the new star of the droid world, and the two began to plot a war against that rolling BB droid that everyone was so in love with... Show the world you're a sci-fi rebel with this Who Are You? t-shirt by Firebeard, it's a funny force to be reckoned with! Visit Firebeard's Facebook fan page, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs: Zapp Attack! Devolution Hatred GandALF View more designs by Firebeard | More Sci-Fi T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

<i>Mythbusters</i> Recreates Walter White’s Final Booby Trap Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:00 PM PDT Stop reading now if you are still avoiding spoilers for the final episode of the TV show Breaking Bad. The rest of us well remember Walter White’s remote-control oscillating machine gun hidden in the trunk of his car. If you want to refresh your memory, that scene is on YouTube. (YouTube link) Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman wondered if they could recreate that trick in real life. So they recruited Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan as a witness and tackled the project for Mythbusters. -via Laughing Squid

A Photographic Glimpse Into The Lives Of Tokyo's Teens Posted: 26 Aug 2015 04:00 PM PDT Thanks to reality shows we know more than we probably should about being a teenager in America, but what's it like to be a teen growing up in Tokyo? The best way to discover that unknown world is to follow teens around with a camera all day and night and see what they get up to. But a video camera will only cause them to ham it up, so according to 22-year-old photographer Yuko Kusano you should just take snapshots instead. Yuko shoots pics of young folks in the wild, her lens taking in the action rather than intruding on the scene, and the fact that many of the subjects are Yuko's friends means her photos are candid rather than canned, albeit with a bit of flair. See more images of Tokyo teens by Yuko Kusano here

Cell Phone and Selfie Fails Posted: 26 Aug 2015 03:00 PM PDT There’s many a slip ’twixt the expensive handheld device and the pavement, as these clips from Fail Army show us. You’ve probably seen at least some of them before, but they are funny enough to justify another peek. (YouTube link) Fail Army put this compilation together to promote their new phone app. Many of the people featured will have to purchase a new phone before they can use it. One grandmother is not interested at all, and would prefer chocolate, thank you. Contains NSFW language. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Check Out This Amazing Transforming Optimus Prime Cake Posted: 26 Aug 2015 02:00 PM PDT Russell Munro's son asked for a Transformers cake for his birthday. Munro went much, much further. This Optimus Prime cake transforms accurately from vehicle to biped mode while quoting a famous line from the 1986 Transformers movie. This video shows how it works internally. A 3d printed frame for the cake moves on servos with the touch of a button. (Video Link) -via Gizmodo

An Online Exploration Of Second Life's Virtual College Campuses Posted: 26 Aug 2015 01:00 PM PDT When the massively multiplayer online gaming trend was in full swing in the early to mid 00s a game called Second Life appeared with promises of “a 3d virtual world where you can be whoever you'd like and build and sell whatever you can imagine”. However, most MMO players found Second Life's virtual world to be a bit too much like real life, which is exactly what those few remaining SL "residents" are looking for- a virtual life to live in addition to their own. This realism even drew the attention of various colleges and universities, who built virtual campuses in Second Life hoping to take higher education where it had never gone before. Fusion's Patrick Hogan took a trip into Second Life to see what's left of these virtual campuses, and his findings don't hold out much hope for the avatar based collegiate experience. Read "We Took A Tour Of The Abandoned College Campuses Of Second Life" here

31 Amazing Facts about Household Items Posted: 26 Aug 2015 12:00 PM PDT You should be able to relate to this episode of the mental_floss List Show, because they are about things we all have, or had at one time. Can you imagine using a vacuum cleaner to dry your hair? Razors are older than you think, and toothbrushes are newer than you’d think. (YouTube link) Oh yeah, and tinfoil hats may have some real benefit, we're just not sure what. But you don’t have one of those. There’s a lot more to learn about in this video!

Celebrities Looking Sad At Disney Parks Posted: 26 Aug 2015 11:00 AM PDT Celebrities used to try a lot harder to maintain an image while out and about, putting on a happy face for the cameras that would occasionally want to take their picture. But nowadays celebs are constantly hounded by paparazzi and therefore don't even bother trying to keep up appearances, and the paparazzi love nothing more than catching celebs looking crestfallen. Apparently one of the easiest places to see a sad celeb is at a Disney Park, where dense crowds, crying babies and people constantly taking their picture makes even the happiest celeb a bit cross. See Celebrities Looking Sad At Disney Parks here

Foldscope: A Foldable Microscope Made of Paper Posted: 26 Aug 2015 10:00 AM PDT A team at PrakashLab at Stanford University have developed a microscope that can be assembled, origami-style, from a flat sheet of paper. You can put it in your pocket and assemble it when you need it -and it cost less than a dollar to produce! It’s called the Foldscope. Aaron Pomeranz of the Tambopata Research Center in the Peruvian Amazon (previously at Neatorama) received a Foldscope to try out in the rainforest. How does it perform? Pomeranz says, Long story short, this device is amazing. During my time in the Amazon rainforest, I was able to investigate tiny insects, mites, fungi, and plant cells from 140x to 480x magnification without requiring a large and expensive conventional microscope. Some of the diverse arthropod specimens could potentially be new to science, so it was really exciting to document images and videos of these organisms right there in the field by connecting my phone to the Foldscope. He connected a cell phone to the Foldscope to record microscopic images. Continue reading to see them! Top left, a leaf is covered in galls. Top right, a cross-section of a gall; notice the tiny insect larva living inside! Bottom, the larva was placed under the Foldscope and viewed on my cell phone. Pictures and videos were recorded in real-time out in the Amazon rainforest A spider infected by a parasitic fungus known as Cordyceps. The circles show regions of the fungus viewed under the Foldscope The cells from a flower petal recorded by connecting a cell phone to the Foldscope [banana for scale] Pomeranz is quite pleased with the Foldscope, and its implications for both research and education. The research team, led by Dr. Manu Prakash, seeks to “democratize science” by developing tools that are able to scale up to match problems in global health and science education - and I believe they are doing just that with the Foldscope. This device is cheap, easy to use, and broadly applicable whether you're a curious young student, a medical professional in the field, or someone who is interested in the numerous tiny things that surround us. Until now, I've never had a device that made viewing and sharing the microcosmos so accessible. (YouTube link) Read more about the field trial of the Folscope at Rainforest expeditions. All images and captions by Aaron Pomeranz. -Thanks, Jeff Cremer!

Horrifying Facts About Public Swimming Pools, According To Two Lifeguards Posted: 26 Aug 2015 09:00 AM PDT Taking a dip in the pool is a great way to beat the summer heat, but unless you're lucky enough to have a pool at your house you'll have to hit a public pool or water park. Chances are you've heard a few horror stories about public pools, like the urban legend about that urine-indicator dye, but you ain't heard nothin' 'bout public pools until you've read Cracked's 5 Horrifying Things Only Lifeguards Know About Public Pools. It'll give you five good reasons to stay away from public pools, including the fact that the staff is constantly scooping dead animals out of the pool, and won't even bother trying to scoop when somebody vomits in the pool. Oh, and those chemicals they use to "clean" the pool? They can permanently ruin your teeth, or worse... Read 5 Horrifying Things Only Lifeguards Know About Public Pools here (contains NSFW language)

Burger King Throws Down the McWhopper Challenge to McDonald's Posted: 26 Aug 2015 08:00 AM PDT Image: Burger King Burger King is not messing around: they took out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune this morning to publicly float an idea to McDonald’s. The proposal? Open a store at a halfway point between Burger King headquarters in Miami and McDonald's headquarters in Chicago (suggested location: Atlanta) to sell their hybrid hamburger concept “The McWhopper.” Sales of this new burger — a combination of the Whopper and the Big Mac — would begin on September 21, the United Nations-designated "International Day of Peace." Burger King has proposed that all proceeds go to the nonprofit Peace One Day. Burger King launched McWhopper.com to further guilt-trip McDonald's into accepting, which states,  "Peace One Day is a non-profit organization campaigning to make Peace Day September 21st an annual day of global unity. They have a powerful rallying call ‘who would you make peace with?’ which inspired us to lead by example and extend an olive branch of our own. We’d like to propose a one-off collaboration between Burger King and McDonald’s to create something special – something that gets the world talking about Peace Day." So far, McDonald’s has declined to comment. See a video Burger King created about the project below, and read more about the McWhopper proposal here.  YouTube Link

Bat Piñata - Where's All The Candy? Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:00 AM PDT Bat Piñata by Foursixsix The Joker and the Harley had pulled off the greatest pranknapping of all time, and now the Bats was at their disposal. Ms. Quinn suggested dropping the man in the bat suit off the side of a building, to see if he can actually fly, but that death didn't have enough panache for the clown prince of crime. No, he wanted to see the Bat suffer and humiliate him at the same time, so he came up with a fun activity that reminded him of childhood- whacking away at a piñata until the blood red candy fell out... If you cannot save ol' Batsy you might as well save your fashion sense with this Bat Piñata t-shirt by Foursixsix, it's the deliciously dark way to show the world you're a Batfan and a fan of that wildcard in clown white. Visit Foursixsix's Facebook fan page, official website, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs: Space Bros. Pug Viking Space Explorers Keep Calm Donald View more designs by Foursixsix | More Comic T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

The Funniest One-liners from the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:00 AM PDT The annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival hosts all kinds of art and music, but it is noted for its comedy award. This year’s festival crowned punster Darren Walsh with the award for the funniest joke. The one-liner was a part of his one-hour show at the festival. The top 10 jokes were ranked, and they are as follows: 1: Darren Walsh: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans-free.” 2: Stewart Francis: “Kim Kardashian is saddled with a huge arse... but enough about Kanye West.” 3: Adam Hess: “Surely every car is a people carrier?” 4: Masai Graham: “What’s the difference between a ‘hippo’ and a ‘Zippo’? One is really heavy, the other is a little lighter.” 5: Dave Green: “If I could take just one thing to a desert island I probably wouldn’t go.” 6: Mark Nelson: “Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fishes and a loaf of bread. That’s not a miracle. That’s tapas.” 7: Tom Parry: “Red sky at night. Shepherd’s delight. Blue sky at night. Day.” =8: Alun Cochrane: “The first time I met my wife, I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves.” =8: Simon Munnery: “Clowns divorce. Custardy battle.” 10: Grace The Child: “They’re always telling me to live my dreams. But I don’t want to be naked in an exam I haven’t revised for...”   For some of those, I guess you just had to be there. Read more about Walsh’s comedy and the festival (which runs through Monday) at the Independent. -via Metafilter See previous posts about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The Wondrous PC Creations Found At Germany's CaseMod Competition Posted: 26 Aug 2015 06:00 AM PDT PC case modding is serious business, with international competitions held and lots of money to be made by crafters who can turn drab desktop towers into unique works of art. Case modding has also become a big part of many computer and video game conventions, where you don't have to be a household name in the case modding community to show off your skills. The 14th German CaseMod Championship (DCMM) recently went down at Gamescom 2015, where the entries were broken down into five categories: regular CaseMods, self-planned and self-constructed cases (CaseCons), consumer electronics recreated with a twist (CE Mods), Cases on the Move (Mods with moving parts), and the 24-Hour Challenge, where "two-member teams spend 8 hours a day, for three days, building a case from the same parts at the show." The big winner was master modder Ali Abbas, who created the wonderfully complex "Ragnar's Revenge" CaseCon, which he shows off in this very comprehensive video: (YouTube Link) Explore The Wondrous Creations Of Germany's PC Casemod Competition at Polygon

Comparative Meows Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:00 AM PDT The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research. Studies of varied meows here and there, now and then by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff Human beings struggle to understand what, if anything, cats are communicating or trying to communicate. Here are reports about some of those struggles. Schötz on Meows Susanne Schötz, at Lund University, Sweden, together with various colleagues, studies many aspects of cat meowing. One of those colleagues, Robert Eklund, maintains a web site devoted to purring research. “A Study of Human Perception of Intonation in Domestic Cat Meows,” Susanne Schötz and Joost van de Weijer, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Dubin, Ireland, May 20-23, 2014. (Thanks to investigator Daniela Müller for bringing this to our attention.) The researchers explain: This study examined human listeners’ ability to classify domestic cat vocalisations (meows) recorded in two different contexts: during feeding time (food-related meows) and while waiting to visit a veterinarian (vet-related meows). A pitch analysis showed a tendency for food-related meows to have rising F0 contours, while vet-related meows tended to have more falling F0 contours. 30 listeners judged twelve meows (six of each context) in a perception test... Listeners also reported that some meows were very easy to classify, while others were more difficult. Taken together, these results suggest that cats may use different intonation patterns in their vocal interaction with humans, and that humans are able to identify the vocalisations based on intonation... The participants who were familiar with cats were not only more often correct in their answers, they were also more confident in their answers. Schötz and van de Weijer also present a terse taxonomy of cat mouth sounds: Cat vocalisations are generally divided into three major categories: (1) sounds produced with the mouth closed (murmurs), such as the purr, the trill, and the chirrup; (2) sounds produced with the mouth open(ing) and gradually closing, comprising a large variety of meows with similar [A:ou] vowel patterns; and (3) sounds produced with the mouth held tensely open in the same position, i.e. sounds often uttered in aggressive situations, including growls, yowls, snarls, hisses, spits, and shrieks. Schötz on Chirp, Chatter, Tweet, and Tweedle “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Chirp, Chatter, Tweet and Tweedle in Three Domestic Cats,” Susanne Schötz, Proceedings of Fonetik 2013, Linköping University, Sweden, 2013, pp. 65-68. The author reports: This study collected 257 vocalisations from three domestic cats when they were watching birds through the window. The sounds were subdivided into the types chatter, chirp, tweet, and tweedle, and analysed for duration and F0. Variation was found within and between these types as well as within and between the three cats in both duration and F0. A tentative taxonomy of prey-observing cat vocalisations is suggested based on words used for bird sounds. Detail from the study “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Chirp, Chatter, Tweet and Tweedle in Three Domestic Cats.” Phonetic Study of Vocalisations in Three Cats “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Vocalisations in Three Cats,” Susanne Schötz, Proceedings of Fonetik 2012, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The author reports: 538 vocalisations from three domestic cats were collected and used in a phonetic pilot study in order to test some recording and analysis methods normally used with human speech. Based on auditive analysis, the vocalisations were categorised into five types and analysed for duration and F0. The most common type was a combined murmur and miaow... Neither the recording techniques nor the analysis tools used here were judged to be optimal for cat vocalisations. Acoustic Analysis of Purring in Four Cats “A Comparative Acoustic Analysis of Purring in Four Cats,” Susanne Schötz and Robert Eklund, Proceedings of Fonetik 2011, Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, Stockholm, TMHQPSR, 51. Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, Stockholm. The authors report: This paper reports results from a comparative analysis of purring in four domestic cats. An acoustic analysis describes sound pressure level, duration, number of cycles, and fundamental frequency for egressive and ingressive phases. Significant individual differences are found between the four cats in several respects... [It] is not known exactly how purring is produced, and the term as such has been used quite liberally in the literature... A number of different purring theories are found in the literature. McCuiston [“Feline Purring and Its Dynamics,” W.R. McCuiston, Veterinary Medicine/Small Animal Clinician, vol. 61, 1966, pp. 562–566] suggested that purring was hemodynamic and that the sound consequently emanated from the bloodstream running through the thorax. This theory was proven wrong by Stogdale & Delack (1985). To the best of our knowledge, this paper constitutes the first comparative and quantitative report of purring in domestic cats. One of the four cats in Schötz and Eklund's study. See the others at Eklund's website. (YouTube link) Moelk on Meows Mildred Moelk, in Rochester, New York, performed an early solo attempt at analyzing the sounds emanating from several cats to which she had access. “Vocalizing in the House-Cat: A Phonetic and Functional Study,”  Mildred Moelk, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 57, no. 2, 1944, pp. 184–205. The author writes: The house-cat, unlike man, has enforced upon it no model of traditional language and no standard of correct pronunciation to which it must conform. Variety of phonetic form in the vocalizing of these animals is due to an unstudied modification of a voiced column of air during inhalation or exhalation, by means of tensional changes in the mouth and throat, by speed and energy of the column of air, and by the extent, time, and rate of the opening of the mouth. Thus vocalization basically derives its form from the constitution and the physiology of the cat. Nicastro’s Classification of Meows Nicholas Nicastro, at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, produced three meow studies during the period 2002-2004. “Classification of Domestic Cat (Felis catus) Vocalizations by Naive and Experienced Human Listeners,” Nicholas Nicastro and Michael J. Owren, Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol 117, no. 1, March 2003, pp. 44-52. The authors explain: To test for possible functional referentiality in a common domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalization, the authors conducted two experiments to examine whether human participants could classify meow sounds recorded from 12 different cats in five behavioral contexts. In Experiment 1, participants heard single calls, whereas in Experiment 2, bouts of calls were presented. In both cases, classification accuracy was significantly above chance, but modestly so... Overall, participants performed better in classifying individual calls if they had lived with, interacted with, and had a general affinity for cats. These results [suggest] that meows are nonspecific, somewhat negatively toned stimuli that attract attention from humans. Nicastro’s Classification of Domestic vs. Wild Meows “Perceptual and Acoustic Evidence for Species-Level Differences in Meow Vocalizations by Domestic Cats (Felis catus) and African Wild Cats (Felis silvestris lybica),” N. Nicastro, Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol. 118, no. 3, September 2004, pp. 287-296. (Thanks to Paul Smolen for bringing this to our attention.) Nicastro explains: Human listeners at all levels of experience and affinity for cats rated domestic cat meows as far more pleasant sounding than wild cat vocalizations. These results are consistent with a model of cat domestication that posits selective pressure on meows based on human perceptual biases. Nicastro’s Classification of Human Responses to Meows “Acoustic Correlates of Human Responses to Domestic Cat (felis catus) Vocalizations,” Nicholas Nicastro, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 111, no. 5, May 2002, p. 2393. The abstract, which appears to be all that was published, says: As part of ongoing research on coevolution of vocal communication between humans and domestic cats, perceptual data were collected on participants as they listened to recorded cat vocalizations. In experiment 1, human subjects were asked to rate the pleasantness of 100 meows along a 7-point scale, from most to least pleasant. In experiment 2, a different group of participants was asked to rate the urgency of the same meows along a 7-point scale, from most to least urgent. Linear regression analysis of the results showed a strong inverse correlation between pleasantness and urgency. Inside the Purrs “The Cry Embedded Within the Purr,” Karen McComb, Anna M. Taylor, Christian Wilson, and Benjamin D. Charlton, Current Biology, vol. 19, no. 13, July 14, 2009, pp. R507-R508. The authors, at the University of Sussex, UK, and at Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, report: Despite widespread interest in inter-specific communication, few studies have examined the abilities of companion animals to communicate with humans in what has become their natural environment—the human home. Here we report how domestic cats make subtle use of one of their most characteristic vocalizations—purring—to solicit food from their human hosts, apparently exploiting sensory biases that humans have for providing care. When humans were played purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food at equal amplitude to purrs recorded in non-solicitation contexts, even individuals with no experience of owning cats judged the solicitation purrs to be more urgent and less pleasant. Embedded within the naturally low-pitched purr, we found a high frequency voiced component, reminiscent of a cry or meow, that was crucial in determining urgency and pleasantness ratings. Moreover, when we re-synthesised solicitation purrs to remove only the voiced component, paired presentations revealed that these purrs were perceived as being significantly less urgent. We discuss how the structure of solicitation purrs may be exploiting an inherent mammalian sensitivity to acoustic cues relevant in the context of nurturing offspring. Detail from the study “The Cry Embedded Within the Purr.” Discouragement on Meows “No Meaning Required: Abandoning the Quest for a Language Grail in Animal Communication,” Drew Rendall and Michael J. Owren, (submitted to) Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The authors, at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, explain: Theoretical approaches to animal communication presented over several decades have been heavily influenced by linguistic analogy. As a result, research has been preoccupied with the “meaning” of animal signals, characterizing communication as encoding, transmission, and decoding of information. While historically important, we believe that this overarching “information transmission” perspective is flawed and should be abandoned. _____________________ The article above is from the May-June 2015 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift! Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

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