The Genetic Mystery of Why Cats Purr May Finally Be Solved
Despite humanity's long relationship with domestic cats (Felis catus), the purr remains mysterious, and its purpose is still up for debate. So is whether similar vocal vibrations in big cats also count as purrs, or if the phenomenon is unique to the smaller members of the cat family.
The new information may eventually help solve some of these outstanding questions.
Analyzing the DNA and owner-reported behavior of 280 domestic cats, Kyoto University biologist Yume Okamoto and colleagues identified a gene linked to purring and other forms of cat vocalizations.
Cats with short-type androgen receptor genes were reported to purr more by their owners than those with a long-type. Male cats with this short-type gene were also reported to be more vocal towards humans.
Androgen receptors mainly regulate testosterone, so the length of the gene likely influences testosterone-related behaviors, which include vocalization.
By examining this gene across 11 cat species, the researchers found the long-type version was only present in domestic cats. Even their closest relatives, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) and leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), did not have the longer forms of the gene, suggesting it arose during cat domestication.
Previous research found pure-bred cats are more likely to have the long-type gene than mixed-breed cats, which often began life as strays. As such, the researchers suspect cats consistently raised by humans aren't as dependent on vocal communication for their survival, allowing cats with the long-type genetic variation to survive in the pure-bred population.
"This result aligns with the association between purring and vocal communication as strategies for seeking attention or support, benefiting survival through interactions with both cats and humans," Okamoto and team write in their paper.
Cats also purr when they are severely injured, so some researchers have proposed purring could be a healing mechanism too.
A few years ago, researchers found squishy pads in cat vocal cords produce the low-pitched vibrations without muscle contractions, so the 25- to 30-Hz rumble is, to some extent, automated.
We're gradually getting a better understanding of this soothing cat behavior.
"Through our research, we hope to deepen our understanding of cats and contribute to building happier relationships between cats and humans," says Okamoto.
This research was published in PLOS One.
There's an Invisible Line That Animals Don't Cross. Here's Why.
Dehorning Rhinos Cuts Poaching by 78% – Saving Thousands of Animals' Lives
Worms Use Their Bodies to Build Towers as a Wild Survival Strategy
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
China fights mosquito-borne chikungunya virus with drones, fines and nets as thousands fall ill
Asia China Animal storiesFacebookTweetLink Follow Chinese authorities are using nets, spraying insecticide and even deploying drones to fight the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, which has infected thousands of people. Authorities had reported more than 7,000 cases of the virus as of Wednesday, mostly in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Foshan, some 170 kilometers (105 miles) from Hong Kong. The number of new cases appears to be dropping slowly, according to authorities. It appears to be the largest chikungunya outbreak ever documented in China, according to Cesar Lopez-Camacho of the University of Oxford. The virus is transmitted by infected mosquitoes and can cause fever and joint pain. 'What makes this event notable is that chikungunya has never been established in mainland China before,' Lopez-Camacho said in a statement. 'This suggests that most of the population had no preexisting immunity, making it easier for the virus to spread quickly.' Chinese state television has shown workers spraying insecticide around city streets, residential areas, construction sites and other areas where people may come into contact with mosquitoes. Workers sprayed some places before entering office buildings. Unusually heavy rains and high temperatures have worsened the crisis in China, and authorities are using drones to try to find standing water, where mosquitoes lay eggs. Authorities also have threatened to fine people who don't empty water from outdoor receptacles. Residents can be subject to fines of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400) and have their electricity cut off. Because of the virus, the US has issued a travel advisory suggesting that Americans take extra precautions when visiting China's Guangdong province, where Foshan is located, as well as Bolivia and some island nations in the Indian Ocean. Since the 2003 SARS outbreak, China has used strict measures to fight the spread of viruses, including hard-line tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, patients are being forced to stay in hospital in Foshan for at least one week and authorities briefly enforced a two-week home quarantine, which was dropped because the disease cannot be transmitted between people. Reports also have emerged of attempts to stop the spread of chikungunya with fish that eat mosquito larvae and even larger mosquitoes to eat the insects carrying the virus. Officials have held meetings and adopted protocols at the national level in a sign of China's determination to eliminate the outbreak and avoid public and international criticism.
Wall Street Journal
5 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
Did UV Rays Doom Neanderthals?
What happened to the Neanderthals? Our ancestral cousins went mysteriously extinct around 40,000 years ago, while humans did not.
WIRED
9 hours ago
- WIRED
The History and Physics of the Atomic Bomb
Aug 6, 2025 6:00 AM First came the idea of splitting the atom; then, a chain of events leading to a moment forever etched in collective memory—the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Photograph: CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images On August 6, 1945, the sky above the Japanese city of Hiroshima opened. A blinding flash, then a deafening sonic boom. An entire city pulverized in seconds. Thus began the nuclear age. Today, 80 years after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, Hiroshima remains etched in our memories and in our fear of a new catastrophe. Although nuclear bombs have been used only twice—at Hiroshima and three days later at Nagasaki—their continued existence poses a significant danger. Today, despite efforts at disarmament and numerous international treaties, there are still more than 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world. The mushroom cloud created by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Photograph: UniversalIn 1933, Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany, launching the Third Reich, the Nazi state that quickly became a totalitarian regime. The impacts of Nazism quickly became international, and then, in 1939, global, with the outbreak of World War II. Something else also happened in 1933: A Hungarian scientist of Jewish origins, Leo Szilard, who had fled to the United Kingdom to escape the Nazi regime, had an idea. If you could hit an atom with a neutron, and if that atom split and emitted two or more neutrons in the process, then a chain of self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions would be generated. Each of those reactions would release a huge amount of energy. The potential to turn this into a weapon was clear. Leo Szilard. Photograph: Bettmann/Getty Images In 1938, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, who had fled to New York to escape fascism, discovered a material in which a process of this type occurred: uranium. Fearing that the Nazis might also discover this element's capability of producing a chain reaction, the Manhattan Project was born in 1940, a secret program for the development of nuclear weapons led by Arthur Compton. Compton formed a research group, which also included Fermi and Szilard, that would continue to conduct experiments on nuclear chain reactions. Theoretical physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer was also part of the team. On December 2, 1942, the first actual experiment took place beneath the University of Chicago football field; in a squash court, physicists built a reactor nicknamed 'Chicago Pile 1' that achieved the first ever sustained nuclear reaction created by humans, providing confirmation of Szilard's idea. In 1943, Oppenheimer became project manager at the Los Alamos laboratories in New Mexico, where the first true nuclear device in history would be designed and built. On July 16, 1945, the United States detonated it in the New Mexico desert. Twenty days later, on August 6, a similar bomb fell on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9 on the city of Nagasaki, leading to the surrender of Japan several days later and the end of World War II. As we all learn in school, atoms are composed of a nucleus of neutrons and protons, around which electrons orbit. Atomic nuclei can unite to form larger atoms, or fragment to form smaller atoms. The first case is called nuclear fusion, and it's the process that occurs in stars, and which researchers today are trying to recreate in the lab as a means of producing energy. Under hellish heat and pressure, atoms fuse together to form heavier atoms. For example, in a star like the sun, hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei. This process releases energy, which radiates out into the solar system, creating livable conditions on Earth. When a nucleus splits, however, we call it nuclear fission, which we exploit in a controlled manner in nuclear power plants and in a deliberately uncontrolled manner in nuclear bombs. In this case, heavier unstable atoms are fragmented into lighter atoms, a process that also releases energy. In addition to energy, excess neutrons are also released, triggering precisely the fission chain reaction conceived by Szilard. To sustain a chain reaction, however, the fissile material must reach criticality—a state where enough neutrons are being released and hitting other atoms to keep triggering further atoms to split. In a nuclear reactor, achieving criticality is the aim; in an atomic bomb, it needs to be surpassed, where one reaction triggers multiple further reactions and causes the process to escalate. Those weapons discussed so far are 'classic' atomic bombs, based on fission. Typically, an atomic bomb is triggered by a chemical explosion, which compresses a mass of uranium or plutonium until it surpasses criticality. Subsequent developments in this field of research, however, led to another type of nuclear device, called a fusion bomb. These are called thermonuclear bombs, in which a sequence of two explosions occurs. The primary explosion is equivalent to a fission bomb, with the aforementioned sequence of chemical explosion and fission chain. The energy released by the primary explosion then leads to a secondary explosion, used to trigger the fusion of hydrogen atoms. The most powerful device of this type ever designed and tested is the famous Tsar bomb, which was detonated in the Arctic in 1961 by the Soviet Union. We all have the image of a mushroom cloud in our minds. But how does it originate? As soon as an atomic bomb explodes, within the first second, there is a sudden release of energy in the form of free neutrons and gamma rays. The explosion appears as a fiery sphere that expands up to tens of kilometers from the trigger point. This fiery explosion, rising into the atmosphere, creates the typical mushroom shape. A thermal flash occurs; the heat emitted can start fires and cause burns even kilometers away from the center of the explosion (depending on the bomb's power). Expanding so rapidly, the explosion creates a shock wave, a sudden change in atmospheric pressure that creates much of the destruction associated with atomic bombs. The peculiarity of atomic bombs, however, is the radioactive fallout: a shower of fission products that spreads over the area surrounding the explosion and which can contaminate it with radioactive elements for decades. This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.
