Why do cats suckle and lick people?

I found this article very interesting because a little under 2 months ago I found a kitten and ever since we found him he licks us and tries to nurse on blankets clothes and even our arms. I found this behavior to be normal at first because he was a little kitten but as he grew he contented this strange behavior. So I decided to look why possible causes for this and I would like to share with everyone what I found. Cats who often suckle or lick people excessively is a sign that the cat may have been orphaned or weaned to early (ASPCA). I found this particularly interesting because I found my kitten milo when he was about 3 weeks old and he was very malnourished. A study shows that kittens shouldn't be taken away from their mother or the rest of the litter until at least 6 weeks of age and some people even say they should stay with this mother to as much as 12 weeks of age (ASPCA). When a cat suckles or licks it comforts them and could also be a sign of stress or anxiety (ASPCA). This behavior can become compulsive for the cats, where no matter what you attempt to distract them with they won't stop (ASPCA). As I read through this article I couldn't help but wonder if there were any ways to help treat my cat from this problem. After continuing with my reading I found that there was. One way is to simply enjoy your cats affection (ASPCA). Another way is to take away what ever the cat is nursing on as a form of punishment by getting up or walking away or removing the blanket (ASPCA). One could also give the cats more attention because the behaviors could start when the cat is feeling left out, so playing with them and petting them could potentially help stop the behavior (ASPCA).

                     

                              Milo when I first found him he was only 3 weeks old here.

                                             Milo at 9 weeks old.





http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/cat-behavior/cats-who-suckle-and-lick-people

Adventure Hike

On Sunday November 10th I decided to accompany my friends on a little hike. We decided to hike up a water fall about an hour away from Plattsburgh NY. Well what I was told was a hike or tail actually turned out to be an almost vertical waterfall at which we have to rock climb to get up (basically). But i decided I would be okay and began to flow hiking up this water fall. When I actually decided to ask what we were doing I was told my friends were in search of minerals that are produced in the water fall. My friends were searching for a blue mineral and the higher up the water fall we climbed the more of the mineral we found once we go to about as high as we were willing to go we found a huge blue mineral, it was absolutely beautiful. I successfully almost climbed up to the top of the water fall in search of this mineral, that was the "easy"part. The higher I climbed the more I began to realize how tough it was going to be to get back down. I then began to really get afraid when as we were trying to cross a path with a pretty big drop on the side that was was not going to be an easy task. Even though I was scared i had no choice but to begin my trek down the waterfall. At one point my phone fell out of my pocket and plunged into a pool of water my friend immediately threw his hand in the freezing cold, icy water and retrieved my phone (who knew this would be a challenge my life proof case would have to face) well thankfully my life proof case in fact saved my phone and we continued our hike down the water fall. Again we hit sketchy point at which we had to cross in order to get down the waterfall. So one by one we began to climb and walk done this super scary path. As I was walking down the soil under my foot became loose and soon it gave out. I began to slide down the side of the water fall I looked at my friend horrified as he swooped his arm around my waist and I came to an abrupt stop. My friend caught me mid sliding down the water fall and saved me. Once we finally reached the bottom of the water fall we looked at each other all excited that we survived that hike up the waterfall and were able to see what we were looking for.

These are some photos taken on our hike!!

Blue mineral we were looking for!

Blood Clots

I found this article particularly interesting because one of my close friends sadly got a blood clot and just under went sugary in attempt to remove it, BUT they still don't know if the sugary was a success or not. the blood clot was located in her upper arm and when ever she worked out her arm would swell..... Little did she know if was a blood clot. Blood clots normally go unseen until it is too late and the person suffering from it has a stroke or a heart attack (Kevin Y. et al. 2013). Im beyond thankful that my friends blood clot was only located in her arm and not somewhere more serious. Apparently now MIT had produced a new way to test if someone has a blood clot or not using a urine test (Kevin Y. et al. 2013). Using a urine test doctors are able to detect if there is thrombin in the urine which is a huge factor in blood clots using nano particles (Kevin Y. et al. 2013). A blood clot is actually a build up of fibrin and fibrous protein which actually seals wounds (Kevin Y. et al. 2013). The part the makes a blood clot bad is when fibrinogen is converted into fibrin, this is caused by an enzyme called thrombin, which is what the scientist at MIT are able to detect in urine (Kevin Y. et al. 2013). I personally think this is an amazing thing and should be used because it has the potential to save many lives. Who knows what could have happened to one of my best friends if her blood clot was located in a different part of her body and was left undetected. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131016123038.htm

                                       (Credit: Illustration: Christine Daniloff/MIT)




Works Cited  

      Kevin Y. Lin, Gabriel A. Kwong, Andrew D. Warren, David K. Wood, Sangeeta N. Bhatia. Nanoparticles that Sense Thrombin Activity as Synthetic Urinary Biomarkers of Thrombosis. ACS Nano, 2013; : 130909231146001 DOI:10.1021/nn403550c 

Hairworms

A hair worm is a parasite that lives in insects (Leung, 2013). This Parasite is extremely frightening to other insects because the parasite will grow in its host and eventually take up most of the room on the inside of its host until it is ready to come out of its host (Leung, 2013). These worms can survive up to     -70 degrees Celsius which means they can survive extremely harsh conditions (Leung, 2013). The hair worm is in phylum Nematomorpha (Leung, 2013). As the worm is tempting to escape its host it doesn't die as it leaves its host instead it tricks the brain of its host to look for water so the worm can enter the water from its host to reproduce (Leung, 2013). The parasite first starts off as a free hatching egg that has been suspend in water and is a swimming larva and then it enters an aquatic invertebrate (Leung, 2013). Once the first host is eaten by a second host for example a cricket that is when the worm fully matures (Leung, 2013). Hairworms live in temperate climates and it can take up to a year for the worm to find a host where it can reach maturity(Leung, 2013). I personally believe that these hair worms are extremely horrifying because they take up almost the entire body of their host and they pop out much like the movie alien when a small alien pops out of a persons chest. They also manipulate the brian of their host to ensure its own survival (Leung, 2013).  Although a hair worm do not effect humans it makes you wonder if there are any worms out that similar to the hair worm that may eventually effect humans and act and do they same things the hair worm does to various insects. 

http://phys.org/news/2013-11-parasite-cricket-nightmares.html 

The link above is a link to a youtube video used in the article I discovered while looking for something interesting to talk about. It shows the hair worm leaving its host. I got this video from http://phys.org/news/2013-11-parasite-cricket-nightmares.html a article by Tommy Leung the credit for the video goes to phys.org.




works cited

     Leung, Tommy. "This Parasite Is the Stuff a Cricket's Nightmares Are Made of." This Parasite Is the Stuff a Cricket's Nightmares Are Made of. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.

Ghost for Halloween

    First of all I know that many of you are thinking I'm going to speak about actual ghost of humans but in fact I will be speaking about the ghost of stars that have passed. This is an article that I discovered while I was searching the web and I found it extremely interesting and I wanted to share it with whoever maybe interested in a little Halloween spirit. There has been three different stellar ghost that have been discovered by NASA. NASA used infrared light from Spitzer a space telescope (NASA, 2013). I believe this is in fact extremely interesting because when one thinks of a ghost they think of a human ghost but no one really thinks that a star can have a ghost as well. A star dies when it runs out of fuel. For example a star such as our very own sun will eventually run out of fuel in about a billion years. As a star dies it turns in to a "Red Giant" this happens when the core of the star swells due to it dying (NASA, 2013). After a while of "dying" the star will eventually releases its outer layers and they move away from the star itself (NASA, 2013). The core of the star will soon let out ultraviolet which will allow the material that was let off by the star to glow in various shapes "Ghosts" (NASA, 2013). The shapes of dying stars may vary. The outer layer of the stars will stay in space for about a thousand years and then will eventually disperse which is why they call them ghost because that star the  material came from is dead (NASA, 2013). I personally believe this is an amazing discover based on the fact that many people would have never thought a star could have a ghost. There are 3 known ghost of stars that have been named Exposed Cranium Nebula, Ghost of Jupiter Nebula, and Little Dumbbell Nebula (NASA, 2013). Halloween is my favorite holiday and I felt this article would be relevant and cool for you to read and look at. Happy Halloween!!

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-312
Above is the link to the article I found for this entry.

                                 (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Article Citation 

     NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2013, October 29). A ghostly trio from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2013/10/131029140700.htm

Tree Density and Diversity

Tree density and diversity in a forest is extremely important to an ecosystem. Ecosystems are very complex. Individuals should know and learn the history of any ecosystem they are attempting to study, including its soil type, moisture, structure, and composition (Thompson et al. 2002). Many factors play a role in the composition of these forests. Affecting the forest in negative and positive ways. I had the opportunity to study, measure and compare an upslope site and a down a down slope site in the same forest. I used two different sections of Rugar woods, Plattsburgh New York, surveyed and compared them, an upslope site and a downslope site were chosen. A 10 by 10 meter section of each site was measured out and the trees with in this section that were larger than 10cm were measured at breast height and the species were determined based on the bark and remaining leaves. Forest are affected by many different abiotic and biotic factors (Satake et al. 1989). Abiotic factors may include the amount of sunlight that reaches through the canopy to the forest floor to provide seedlings with sunlight to grow. Another factor may be soil moisture and nutrients, which is extremely detrimental to various seedlings growth and survival. Biotic factors include the herbivores that inhabit the forest. Herbivores may include deer, rabbits and squirrels. These animals help spread seedlings through out the forest creating a greater diversity of trees and other shrubs in various areas. Also herbivores help provide nutrients to the forest floor through the work of their digestive tracts, their feces can provide essential nutrients to the soil to help seedlings thrive and grow in to trees and other shrubs. Herbivores have a strong correlation to light availability with in forest (Rosenthal et al. 1994). After grazing of herbivores there becomes more light availability to the forest. Therefore the forest is able to regenerate itself. 

Figure 1. Relative density (trees/ha) of three species of trees sampled at a down-slope site in Rugar woods, Plattsburgh New York February 2013.  

  

Figure 2.  Relative density (trees/ha) of three species of trees sampled at an upslope site in Rugar woods, Plattsburgh New York February 2013.   

   

Figure 3. Relative dominance of trees sampled in Rugar woods, Plattsburgh New York February 2013.   

Key

THU OCC- Northern White Cedar

PIN STR- White Pine

FRA AME- White Ash

PIN RIG- Pitch Pine

Works Cited

Adams, Dwight E., and Roger C. Anderson. "Species Response to Moisture Gradient Forest." Species Response to Moisture Gradient Forest 67.3 (1980): n. pag. Botanical Society of America. Web.

Thompson, Jill, Nicholas Brokaw, and Jess K. Zimmerman,' "Land Use History, Environment, And Tree Composition In a Tropical Forest." Land Use History, Environment, And Tree Composition In a Tropical Forest. (2002): n. pag. Ecological Society of America. Web.