Why everything decays - about entropy

Have you ever wondered why everything breaks down and decays over time? You know, even the universe, the entire universe will decay and become almost nothing, just protons in an ocean of cold blackness, one day. There will be no memory, no history of humankind or of the universe itself at that time. But it is a time which is a very long way off; trillions and trillions of years.

Everything is made up of constituent parts. And in all the objects that we possess, these parts are in an ordered fashion. They are what are called low entropy objects or structures. Take anything such as a car or a box. They are low entropy structures. A high entropy structure is a pile of sand and if it is turned into a sandcastle, it becomes a low entropy structure. A pile of earth at the bottom of the backyard is a high entropy structure as it is disordered.

This is a 5-minute video and Brian Cox talks about entropy after about 60 seconds. It is very interesting and important.

The ashes of a cremated person are a high entropy structure. When they were alive, they were a low entropy structure. Is dying a form of entropy. Is getting older a form of entropy? Entropy is linked to time. As time progress everything becomes disordered or breaks down. 

One scientists likens entropy to clumped energy (low entropy) becoming less clumped (high entropy) and the clock cannot be turned back. Once the energy is unclumped that is it. That's why the entire universe is gradually disintegrating into protons and you can't stop it.

Entropy always increases and therefore disorder increases. And the reason is because "it is overwhelmingly more likely that it will". Everything tends to go from order to disorder. Which means that everything decays. I interpret that to mean that just because it is more likely to happen everything including all living creatures, the planet on which we live, the Milky Way, the universe will disintegrate into disorder. And disorder is another way of describing decay.

"Every object is in its place. A messy room is disordered and has high entropy. You have to input energy to change a messy room into a clean one. Sadly, it never just cleans itself." - Science Notes.

And because everything goes from order to disorder there is a difference between the future and the past and this is one reason why time travels in one direction.

Everything I do as a 73-year-old man is about maintenance. The older I get the more time I spend on maintaining my health and well-being because I am going towards a high entropy structure. I maintain my house. I maintain my garden and my cat. I maintain my car. I have to do this because they are all decaying. They are all tending to go from order to disorder as time drives me into the future.

My thanks to Dr Brian Cox. A brilliant man.

Note: a proton is a subatomic particle. The concept of entropy is probably one of the most important things in the history of the universe. It is linked to time and it dictates all our lives.

What does Felis catus mean?

What does Felis catus mean? It's the scientific name for the domestic cat.

Felis is a Latin word derived from an older Latin word "felix" which in English means "happy". However, it means 'cat' in Latin while catus means intelligent, sly or cunning. It seems that felis is interchangeable with feles. Both mean 'cat' in Latin.

Skulls of a wildcat (top left), a housecat (top right), and a hybrid between the two. (bottom-center)

The taxonomic classification of the domestic cat until 2017 was: Felis silvestris catus as in 2007, it was considered a subspecies of the European wildcat (F. silvestris). The word "silvestris" is Latin for "wooded" or "wild".

Domestic cat doing what they do best. Photo: Pixabay.

However, following results of phylogenetic research in 2017, the IUCN Cat Classification Taskforce followed the recommendation of the ICZN in regarding the domestic cat as a distinct species, and the scientific name Felis catus adopted. As at 2022, this is the correct scientific name of the domestic cat.

The process of classification is called taxonomy. It remains in flux to a certain extent. DNA testing changed things considerably whereas in the past the species were classified by their appearance, a far less precise method.

Feral cats in managed colonies are as healthy as domestic cats

The feral cats in managed TNR colonies in North Florida are as healthy as, if not more healthy than, domestic cats in America according to a study titled Prevalence of infectious diseases and feral cats in northern Florida. I think that information is a little surprising but very good to hear. But I have heard this before from good sources. Peole are told that feral cats live short, diseased and miserable lives with a lifespan of 3 years. PETA push out this information in fact. They are wrong to generalise. They can lead lives as good as those of domestic cats.

The study was examining the most common infectious diseases in feral cats in northern Florida and how they compared with the health of domestic cats. There were 553 participating cats. They came to the following conclusion, in their words:

"Feral cats in this study had similar prevalence of infections compared to those published for pet cats in the United States. This suggests that feral cats assessed in this study appear to be of no greater risk to human beings or other cats than pet cats."

So they are saying that taken as a whole, domestic cats in America are not healthier in terms of carrying infectious diseases than the feral cats of northern Florida when those cats are within a colony cared for by a volunteer under a TNR program. I have added the information about TNR colonies as the report states: 'the results of this study should be interpreted with some caution as the samples were collected from feral cats that were trapped by caretakers for the purpose of neutering'. This must mean TNR programmes.

Ear-tipped feral cat - a badge that he is part of a managed colony and as healthy as a domestic cat. Photo: Pinterest.

That qualification is quite important because feral cats looked after by volunteers certainly improves health. These cats are spayed and neutered and returned to where they came from. Sometimes they are vaccinated and of course during the spaying and neutering operation they can at least be checked out by a veterinarian or vet tech. 

It is probably fair to say that feral cats in a TNR colony managed by volunteers are not entirely typical of all feral cats in America. That said, there are many volunteers managing feral cat colonies performing TNR programs. 

The information, I think, is important because there are many detractors of the feral cat. One of the reasons for criticising the feral cat is that they spread disease. You hear this a lot from residents of any location in America. 

But it seems, on the basis of this study, that they don't spread disease any more than any other cat including domestic cats. And importantly the study indirectly praises TNR programs. It is the kind of information that needs to be presented in council meetings up and down America's towns when discussing how to deal with the ubiquitous 'feral cat problem'. There is hardly a problem if the cats are as healthy as domestic cats and provided they are fed at set times only to avoid attracting wildlife.

The study found that the prevalence of FIV and FelV was lower in feral cats than in domestic cats. They also found that the most prevalent or common infections in feral cats within their study were as follows:

• Bartonella henselae, which causes cat scratch fever in people;
• Feline Coronavirus (FCoV), which is a common viral infection in cats generally asymptomatic which can cause mild diarrhoea. Pathogenic oronavirus ccan lead to feline infectious peritonitis (FIP)
• Mycoplasma spp., which is a bacterial infection usually of the respiratory system and urinary tract, as I understand it;
• D. immitis, which is heartworm, a blood-borne parasite that resides in the heart or adjacent large blood vessels of infected animals;
• T. gondii, which is toxoplasmosis, a well-known, usually asymptomatic disease in cats and in people which has been well discussed on the Internet.

This is a cross post so if you like to look at the first post on this topic then please click on this link. 

And if you'd like to read the original report from the scientists then please click on the link below:

Infectious diseases in TNR colony feral cats in N. Florida 

It is published on the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery (2004) 6, 287e296.

Study shows that Covid can cause heart damage in cats and dogs

A study now shows that Covid can cause heart disease in cats and dogs. We already knew that Covid can cause acute myocardial injury and chronic damage to the cardiovascular system in people. Although, in a study on 460 athletes who had Covid, they found that only five had inflammatory heart disease namely myocarditis (three) or pericarditis (two). 

This study on cats and dogs produced a different result although the study size is small. They tested 11 animals none of whom had typical symptoms of Covid but all had common indicators of cardiac disease. They had developed symptoms of myocarditis or heart information.

The pet's owners said that their companion animals has shown signs of respiratory illness before they became sick or tested for Covid.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Luca Ferasin, described the animals as "depressed [and] lethargic". He said that they had difficulty breathing because of an accumulation of fluid in the lungs due to heart disease. They were even fainting because an underlying abnormal heart rhythm.

They researchers state that the animals were infected with the alpha variant of Covid-19. The study is said to report the first cases of cats and dogs affected by the alpha variant of Covid-19. They state that there is a risk to pets but it appears that the main risk is a transmission of the disease from companion animal owners to their companion animals rather than vice versa.

Most companion animals recover quickly from the disease. And my reading of the situation is that most companion animals have mild symptoms and they have immune systems which can cope well with the disease. Therefore, this study is indicative of something more serious as it mirrors heart disease in people caused by Covid-19.

The research was carried out in the UK and the researchers noticed an uptick in patients with symptoms of myocarditis. Incidentally, there was talk of myocarditis been caused by Covid vaccines. They were very rare cases.

The Ralph Veterinary Referral Centre in Buckinghamshire England said that during last December 2020 about 1.5% of companion animals referred to the centre were diagnosed with myocarditis. 

But in the period between December and March of this year (2021), the number jumped dramatically to 12.5% with confirmed myocarditis. They found that many of the companion animal owners had tested positive for Covid or had symptoms of the disease within 3 to 6 weeks of their pets becoming ill. It appears that they have transmitted the disease to their pets.

This correlated with the surge in the spread of the alpha variant of the virus in the UK which prompted the research study referred to.

Sources: International Business Times and NBC News.

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats?

This is a cross post - click this for the earlier post. Three scientists conducted an experiment as to whether the scented i.e. unwashed clothes, of domestic cat human caregiver's provided what they describe as a "secure base effect" (SBE) for their cats. To cut out the technical language, they wanted to see whether cats obtained reassurance from the unwashed clothes of their owners when their owners were absent; away from the home or perhaps asleep at night. Are smelly clothes a substitute for the presence of cat owners in terms of reassuring the domestic cat companions?

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats? Image in public domain.

I would expect that nearly all cat owners would say that they are at least a second-best substitute. Many cat owners place an unwashed item of clothing in a cat carrier to help to reassure their cat when they take them to a veterinarian for instance. Or they leave an item of clothing with their cat when they are boarded at a cattery when they are away on holiday.

And of course you see thousands of pictures on the Internet of cat sleeping on beds which contain copious amounts of body odour from their owner or domestic cats sleeping on their owner's favourite chair. Domestic cat sleep on the laps of owners because it is warmer and because it smells of their owner. The scientist will say that these are all anecdotal forms of evidence.

They wanted to address the issue through science and provide a scientific, objective answer as to whether smelly clothes reassure domestic cats. And they say that they DO NOT! This runs counter to conventional wisdom on cat caregiving.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: 14 links between stress in domestic cats and health implications

They conducted the experiment in what was a strange place for the cats. The cats would have been brought there in carriers. The room would have been quite stark I expect and there would have been other interfering aspects such as strange noises and strange people. I believe that when you place a domestic cat into an entirely new place which might be perceived as being hostile to them, you cannot expect them to behave normally. And if you can't expect them to behave normally you can't measure natural behaviours.

The researchers found that when cats were left in a room without their owner being present but with the benefit of smelly clothing from their owner they did not use those clothes to seek reassurance. When their owner was in the room with them their stress levels went down but the clothes did not reduce stress levels as judged through their behaviour when their owners left the room.

ASSOCIATED: Study says that cats are prone to separation anxiety in homes with two female residents

They concluded, firmly, that this was scientific evidence that cats don't obtain a "secure base effect" from scented objects belonging to their owner. I would argue, as mentioned, that the study is tainted by the abnormal behaviour of the cats brought about because they were out of their home range and placed in a strange place with can induce a mild sense of panic and anxiety which masks normal behaviours.

The use of scented clothes to help reduce a well-known condition called "separation anxiety" in felines appears to have been debunked by this study. You make up your own mind. I have made up mine as you can see. There is too much first hand experience to show that scented clothes are very important to domestic cat because the smell of objects is a vital part of their lives. The use their sense of smell as much as they use their eyesight. Humans rely far more heavily on their eyesight.

Note: The scientists are: Alexandra C.Behnkea, Kristyn R.Vital and Monique A.R.Udella who, I believe, conducted the study at Animal Health & Behavior, Distance Education, Unity College, 49 Farm View Drive, Suite 201, New Gloucester, ME 04260, USA.

Cats rival dogs on many tests of social smarts, but very few scientists have the patience to try and study them

The thought in the title comes from a member of the Reddit.com website (u/Firewalke). I think it's a good thought and I am sure that many scientists would agree. There are far more animal studies in which dogs are the participants than studies incorporating cats. The reason would be the obvious: that dogs are more obedient than cats. They've been trained to take commands whereas cats simply don't which makes it difficult to carry out an efficiently run study.

Study using cats. Pic in public domain.

However, cats can be made to do things if you know how, by using human intelligence combined with a good knowledge of cat behaviour. But it takes more patience. I guess time is money. I think the thought that you're going to have to struggle to get cats to do what you want them to do in a study is off-putting. So, when scientists want to do an animal study, they tend to choose dogs.

Of course, it depends on the study. If you want to study cats then you've got to employ cats! But if you're studying general animal behaviour then a researcher will choose a dog I suspect.

Another aspect of dog and animal studies which I think is a problem is that scientists who do the studies often don't understand cats! I think a scientist who wants to study cats should have a good general knowledge of cat behaviour. And they should like cats or even love them because it will make them more patient.

I have read some studies where I have detected that the group of scientists who have conducted it don't have an intimate knowledge of cat behaviour through living with cats for a very long time. There's a difference in understanding cat behaviour by reading about it and understanding cat behaviour by living with cats. The former is more theoretical by the latter is completely genuine provided the cat caregiver is a keen observer and intelligent.

Increasing the life of cats from 15 to 30 years - a cure for feline kidney disease

Professor Miyazaki believes that he might be able to double the expected lifespan of domestic cats to 30 years using a treatment he is working on.

Toru Miyazaki, 59, professor at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo. Picture: the University.

His extensive research found a new protein in the blood of humans and animals. He calls it AIM which stands for "apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage". Yes, I know that doesn't help!

He says that feline kidney disease is caused by dead cells piling up in the urinary tract which blocks the passageway like a clogged drain. This leads to kidney damage.

He says that AIM acts as an agent to unclog the pipes. AIM "goes to the problem area through the blood and flags exactly where the waste is. AIM itself does not dissolve the problem cells; rather other cells like macrophages come along to eat them". Macrophages are cells which destroy harmful organisms. They are also described as a "type of white blood cell that eats and digests foreign material inside the body."

He wants to administer AIM to cats via a vaccine as a preventative medicine and perhaps in other ways (orally or in a capsule?). He's started clinical trials in 2020 (reported). He wants the treatment to become a commodity i.e. a useable product by 2022.

My cat died on CKD. Photo: MikeB

He's excited by the possibility of AIM extending the lives of cats dramatically. He's correct in saying that feline kidney disease is a mass killer, shortening the lives of domestic cats in huge numbers.

His work is reactive essentially. I hope that he is successful but what about researching the reason why feline kidney disease is so disastrously prevalent in the domestic cat population? Is it the food? It might be. Why do domestic cats die of kidney far more often than humans? We need to address that question with more vigour.

No one comes up with a satisfactory answer as to why domestic cats are so predisposed to kidney disease. The situation indicates an underlying but as yet unknown environmental reason. My best bet is the commercial foods that we feed them. It might be the dry foods which have gained in popularity tremendously over the past decades.

CKD affects 8+ percent of cats of 10 years old and older. One well-known vet, Dr Elizabeth Hodgkins believes that dry cat foods are the culprit and feeding high quality wet foods can help dramatically plus a powdered phosphorus binder. One cat, Georgia, did very well on "fluids, a phosphate binder and a commercial high-protein diet. Read her book Your Cat to find out more.

Cat owners should also wish the best of luck to the professor in his quest to increase the life of domestic cats from 15 to 30 years.

Codependency between cat and human is positive and healthy

A study currently being bandied around the internet is unwise to categorise five relationships between owners and their cats and the category of codependency is problematic.

Results of poll on Metro.co.uk into how their readers categorized themselves per the study. Image: Metro.co.uk.

There's been a lot of reports about a study in which the researchers categorised five types of relationship between humans and their cats. I feel that it is unwise to do this. The relationships they identified are:

1. Open relationship bond;
2. remote Association;
3. casual relationship;
4. codependent relationship;
5. friendship.

I feel that these categories are artificial. In many aspects of human life, there is a continuous spectrum of behaviours, types, genders, you name it, but everything to do with people has a seamless spectrum of types. Take for example the gender of people. At one time, back in the day, people thought that humans were either male or female but we now realise that there is a continuous spectrum of gender types from an emotional standpoint and we are beginning to respect it.

As expected, they found that most people fit into the "open relationship bond" or "codependent relationship categories because these are categories which reflect a close relationship between person and cat. This has to be expected because when you adopt a cat you do so for that relationship. Often cats are a human substitute and for many people domestic cats are more reliable and more satisfactory than a human companion.

A poll on the Metro.co.uk website found that 11% of people felt that they did not fit in with any of these categories. It is probably a higher percentage but it does support my argument that these categories are somewhat artificial. I decided that I was in a codependent relationship and wrote about this on the main website. But it sounds rather negative. It sounds as if I need my cat around to exist but that isn't quite true. We do rely on each other as friends and the feelings are mutual, I believe which is why I described the relationship as codependent but it certainly is not negative; it is the exact opposite. I believe that codependency is a very positive situation under the right circumstances. It might be fair to say that all good marriages are between codependent parties. And therefore, all good cat-human relationships are probably codependent to a certain extent.

This negative connotation with codependency is spelled-out in the positivepsychology.com website in which they state that "codependency refers to a psychological construct involving an unhealthy relationship that people might share with those closest to them".

I don't see what's unhealthy about it. Perhaps it is a throwback to the concept that the term "codependency" referred to a couple of alcoholics or drug abusers who were codependent. But apparently it is grown to mean "other types of dysfunctional relationships". That's according to these psychologists. They say that codependents are too busy caring for others to take care of themselves "resulting in a disturbance of identity development". Whatever that means.

They even refer to codependence having low self-esteem and low levels of narcissism within familial dysfunction combined with depression, anxiety and stress. None of these apply to me and therefore I wonder whether the researchers in this cat study actually mean the same thing when they state that some people are in a codependent relationship with their cat. They clearly don't mean the same thing in my opinion.

One of their categories is "friendship". Well, the term "friendship" is very elastic. It depends upon the person as to what they interpret the word to mean. Once again, I am going back to the purpose of this article which is to argue that it is wiser to consider the human-cat relationship as a spectrum of types rather than breaking it down into five categories. The reason why they did this is because it makes it more readable to the public and they want to entertain the public and to obtain recognition. It's almost a bit of click bait. Academics are quite ambitious and they want their studies to be recognised and for them to go viral, if possible, which is unlikely obviously.

Assess your relationship by clicking this link. Remember that over time links to other websites will often break and stop working. If that has happened, I am sorry.

Domestic cats don't evaluate people who interact with their owner unlike dogs

A study carried out by Japanese scientists at the Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Japan, in 2015 found that domestic dogs evaluated people who interact with their owner. If these third parties were not helpful towards their owner they treated them in a way which indicated that they felt the person was hostile or less than friendly. This indication came from the fact that the dogs were less willing to accept food from the person who had failed to help their owner when help was requested.

Dogs evaluate third parties and cats don't. Pic in public domain. Words added
by MikeB on PoC.

I DISCUSSED THE STUDY IN A DIFFERENT WAY IN ANOTHER ARTICLE. CLICK HERE TO READ IT IF YOU WISH.

In 2021, the same or similar team of scientists headed by the same scientist, Hitomi Chijiiwa, carried out the same test on domestic cats. In summary, they found that "cats might not possess the same social evaluation abilities as dogs". The cats did not react as dogs had to people who did not help their owner by refusing to take food from them.

I will explain the study again and further comment on it below. They say that humans evaluate other humans based upon their interactions between third parties. I interpret this as meaning that people can look at two other people interacting with each other and by those interactions they can assess the character and behavioural traits of those people.

Dogs were also able to assess in a less sophisticated way (in my view) the character traits and behaviour of third parties. For both the cat and dog experiments they used the same procedure. They had the cats watch their owner try and unsuccessfully open a transparent container to take out an object inside and request help from the person sitting nearby. This person was told to either help when requested or not help when requested.

There was a third person sitting nearby who they describe as "passive (neutral) person". This person sat on the other side of the owner under both circumstances i.e. when the other person helped and when they did not help.

After both interactions by the actor who helped and didn't help with the owner, the actor and the passive person offered a piece of food to the cat. The scientist wanted to record from which person the cat took the food. They carried out four trials and noticed that the cats "showed neither a preference for the helper nor avoidance of the non-helper".

On this basis, they considered that cats "might not possess the same social evaluation abilities as dogs" as mentioned above. They do suggest that 'further work on cats' social evaluation capacities needs to consider ecological validity, notably with regard to the species' sociality'.

My comments and thoughts

My comments: I'm not going to read the entire study but simply pass my comments on these findings as stated in the study abstract. You might like to comment yourself. I would really like that actually.

The argument is that dogs have been bred to work with and associate with people. This has occurred for perhaps up to 30,000 years. This is when dogs were first domesticated, it is believed. And dogs have often been working dogs. And in the dog-human relationship they work with people so there is this naturally close, working connection which has allowed the dog to read people and evaluate them.

Conversely, the domestic cat has been domesticated for about ten thousand years, it is believed. It may be longer, as much as fourteen thousand years but this is still work in progress. The cat's role is as a companion although initially at the point of domestication they were working cats rooting out rodents and keeping the population down on farms. However, for many thousands of years their role is to entertain and provide companionship.

Further, the domestic dog is essentially a pack animal because their wild origins are the grey wolf. Pack animals look after each other and communicate with each other. The domestic cat, in contrast is essentially a solitary creature, living and surviving alone. Although their evolution during domestication has resulted in them becoming more sociable. Notwithstanding that advance in sociability, they still lack the skills to read behaviour patterns and traits of humans when watching them interact with their owner.

Ultimately, it comes down to the length of domestication of cats and dogs and their role in the lives of humans. This background has created the differences in results from this study in my opinion. What do you think?

Details of the study:

Cats (Felis catus) Show no Avoidance of People who Behave Negatively to their Owner Hitomi Chijiiwa1, Saho Takagi1, Minori Arahori, James R. Anderson, Kazuo Fujita, & Hika Kuroshima. Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University 2 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Corresponding author (Email: chijiiwa.hitomi.5m@kyoto-u.ac.jp)

Published online: Animal Behavior and Cognition journal.