"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."
it's also a spelling of "couldn't care less" spoken colloquially with the "'nt" swallowed, i think, and many just repeat what they hear so it becomes the idiom, to your point.
> Researchers recently traced their spread around the world to their relations with farmers and travels with merchants and Vikings
...
> Geigl’s team discovered that cats with a mitochondrial lineage from Egypt began appearing in Bulgaria, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa between the fourth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D.
That sounds much too early for Vikings. The connection with maritime trade makes sense but I don't see where Vikings fit into the picture.
Then a better way to describe the "second wave" would probably be along the lines of "sailors have been spreading cats around the world since about 400 BCE". I think I've heard of islands that had no cats until they were visited by European ships in the 19th century, so it's a trend that likely didn't end until the whole world was colonized.
This is science news reporting based on a conference presentation.
It appears that the work was published in a couple papers following the analysis. I recommend checking them out for the actual results and informative figures.
Figure 5A shows the dispersion of cat genotypes over time.
Figure 7 shows some great illustrations of Tabby cat coat patterns drawn by the author, also demonstrating how serious science doesn't need to be dry and stuffy. I love the faces on the illustrated cats
Pull quotes from the summary:
"Cat bones from many trading centres show cut marks from skinning and highlight the value of cat fur. In contrast, the occurrence of cats in male burials points rather to a function as exotic and prestigious pets. "
> For decades, researchers believed cats were domesticated in Egypt around 4,000 years ago, writes Stephanie Pappas at LiveScience. But a 9,500-year-old human burial in Cyprus that included cat bones found in 2004 upended that idea, and another study from 2014 indicates that domestic cats were bred in upper Egypt 6,000 years ago.
For comparison, estimates place dog domestication as having taken place anywhere between 29,000 and 14,000 years ago.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 61.9 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
("could care less" is an idiom - no doubt not one that's used everywhere)
More social animals such as dogs seem to care a bit too much about what I’m doing, and I feel like they could care less.
</pedantry>
As with the use of 'literally' to mean 'figuratively', it's now fairly standard and acceptable.
I could have sworn I'd seen older depictions in Buddhist art from India, but I'm probably confusing images representing tigers.
...
> Geigl’s team discovered that cats with a mitochondrial lineage from Egypt began appearing in Bulgaria, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa between the fourth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D.
That sounds much too early for Vikings. The connection with maritime trade makes sense but I don't see where Vikings fit into the picture.
In fact, a cat with the Egyptian mitochondrial DNA was found in a Viking site in North Germany dating between 700 and 1000 A.D.
which means by the time Vikings were Vikings they already had cats, and could bring them along for their rides?
Is it so hellish that plants feed on the slow death of stars?
Death is a part of life, and it is beautiful that it gives rise to other life.
It appears that the work was published in a couple papers following the analysis. I recommend checking them out for the actual results and informative figures.
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02397046/file/CatDomest...
Figure 5A shows the dispersion of cat genotypes over time.
Figure 7 shows some great illustrations of Tabby cat coat patterns drawn by the author, also demonstrating how serious science doesn't need to be dry and stuffy. I love the faces on the illustrated cats
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03661986/document
This paper builds on the prior work and clarifies a lot of the questions of historical context asked in this thread regarding Vikings, ect.
Pull quotes from the summary: "Cat bones from many trading centres show cut marks from skinning and highlight the value of cat fur. In contrast, the occurrence of cats in male burials points rather to a function as exotic and prestigious pets. "
For comparison, estimates place dog domestication as having taken place anywhere between 29,000 and 14,000 years ago.