the luminous blog

Why cats will never live the sweet life - Jul 26, 4:41 PM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cats may like ice cream, but it is not the sugary taste that appeals to them because they are genetically unable to taste sweet flavors, researchers reported on Monday.

Domestic cats and big cats alike have a slightly different version of the sweet receptor gene than other mammals, the British and U.S. scientists found.

Any cat owner knows that cats have individual preferences, but cats will turn their noses up at sugary treats that do not contain some other ingredient such as butter or gelatin.

"One possible explanation for this behavior is that felines are unable to detect sweet-tasting compounds like sugars and high intensity sweeteners because their sweet taste receptor is defective," said Xia Li, a molecular geneticist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit research institute in Philadelphia, who helped lead the study.

"An obvious place to look, therefore, is at the genes coding for the sweet-taste receptor."

So they did. Mammals taste sweet flavors via a receptor, a kind of molecular doorway, called T1R on their taste bud cells. It has two subunits, known as T1R2 and T1R3. Each is coded for by a separate gene.

Writing in the online journal Public Library of Science Genetics, Li and colleagues said they found a change in the gene encoding the T1R2 protein in domestic cats, tigers and cheetahs.

"Other than this sweet blindness, the cat's sense of taste is normal," the researchers wrote in their report.

"The non-functional sweet receptor provides a molecular explanation for why cats have no avidity for sweets," said Joseph Brand, a biophysicist at Cornell who worked on the study.

"Looking beyond this elegant explanation, one can contemplate the importance that this molecular change had on the evolution of the cat's carnivorous behavior," Brand added in a statement.

"What we still don't know is -- which came first: carnivorous behavior or the loss of the T1R2 protein? With regard to the gene, is this a case of use it or lose it?"

Many animals in the carnivore family like sweet things, including bears, dogs, raccoons and others.

"I say jokingly, no wonder cats are cranky -- not only do they have to hunt for their food, but they also can't enjoy a sweet dessert," Brand said.
 

Who wouldn't fall for such a clever trick? - Jul 25, 9:04 AM (ET)

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman in the Sicilian city of Palermo after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them.

The man, a cabaret singer, and his girlfriend took the money from their victim over four years by selling her pills at 3,000 euros each that they said would abort the Anti-Christ's son.

Police uncovered the fraud after the 47-year-old woman's family became concerned when they discovered she had spent all her savings, local news agencies AGI and ANSA reported.
 

Now, this is one scary story... Jul 19, 12:41 PM (ET)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Grand juries across California have indicted 40 pilots for fraud after they falsified medical records to hide disabilities like schizophrenia and severe heart problems that would have grounded them, federal officials said on Monday..

The pilots claimed to be fit to fly airplanes but collected disability payments for medical and psychological conditions that would have disqualified them from operating an aircraft, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Other pilots failed to report they had prior criminal convictions, the statement said.

Authorities said they found pilots who continued to fly even though they had disabilities including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol addiction, disabling back pain and severe heart conditions.

The indictments follow an 18-month probe of 40,000 licensed pilots in California by federal transportation officials, the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Attorney's office.

The statement said a number of commercial pilots and airline transport pilots were among the people indicted, but it did not provide details.

The pilots committed fraud when they didn't report their disabling medical conditions on their Federal Aviation Administration Medical Airman certificates, according to the statement. That certificate is the key document to obtaining and maintaining an active FAA pilot's license, the statement said.

The FAA has revoked 14 of the pilots' licenses and medical certificates, the other 26 pilots may be suspended.
 

A good reason to be a virgin... Jul 20, 9:06 AM (ET)

KAMPALA (Reuters) - A Ugandan member of parliament has pledged to reward girls for their chastity by paying their university fees if they are virgins when they leave school, a local newspaper said Wednesday.

Bbaale County MP Sulaiman Madada said any girl in his district who wanted to take part in the scheme aimed at promoting girls' education would be given a gynecological examination by health workers to check they were virgins.

"The criterion is that a student must be a virgin and from Kayunga district," he told the state-owned New Vision.

The MP did not extend his offer to young men.

He urged pupils to manage their lives responsibly, and called on parents to explain the threats from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"Our children should be told the risks they face if involved in early and unprotected sex," Madada said.

Uganda was once seen as the epicenter of the global HIV epidemic, but a government education campaign has pushed down infection rates to around six percent from as high as 30 percent in some areas in the early 1990s.

Kayunga in central Uganda is home about 300,000 people, and researchers say it has one of the country's worst AIDS rates, with more than 80 percent of families losing at least one member to the disease.
 

Police send nude shopper home with warning
Jul 20, 9:03 AM (ET)

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police let a nearly naked shopper go home after she told them she was getting groceries in the nude because she lost a spin the bottle contest, a police spokesman in Cologne said Wednesday.

"We're a tolerant city that is open to the world," said spokesman Burkard Jahn. "She could have been arrested for disturbing the peace, but we decided to let her go home with a verbal warning to dress appropriately next time."

The 35-year-old Cologne woman entered the 24-hour shop at 4 a.m. wearing nothing but an unbuttoned jeans jacket, Jahn said. He said police decided to let her go because few people and presumably no small children saw her at that time of day.