Earlier this year, Karlsson began to tap a new source of genetic information: cat fur.<\/p>\n
Through a citizen science project they started called Darwin\u2019s Cats<\/a>, Karlsson and former Broad Institute researcher Chad Nusbaum have taken on the task of sequencing fur samples for genetic data. Karlsson estimates that each fur sample yields 10 million\u201320 million data points\u2014not the cat\u2019s entire genome but enough to extrapolate information.<\/p>\n The fur is effectively crowdsourced. Cat owners fill out surveys detailing information about their cats: age, behavior, health conditions, and even where they choose to sleep in relation to their humans. For a $150 donation, Karlsson and Nusbaum\u2019s group will send a participant a tiny comb to use to brush a bit of their cat\u2019s fur. (Many cats enjoy this step, Nusbaum reports.) The combs happen to fit perfectly inside standard 15 mL screw cap test tubes, so the fur-laden combs get loaded into those, then shipped back for analysis. So far, \u201c1,000 cats have chosen to do sequencing,\u201d Karlsson tells Newscripts. \u201cThere\u2019s 17,261 cats that have registered, and they\u2019ve answered about 1.2 million questions, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n When Newscripts points out that Karlsson is ascribing these actions to the cats rather than their owners, she laughs but doubles down. \u201cThe cats are very enthusiastic,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018Man, this science stuff is so cool.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Please don\u2019t cite the cat<\/p>\n Paws-itively puzzled: \u201cProfessor\u201d Larry Richardson exercises his brain.<\/p>\n Credit: Meanwhile, another cat is busy making a name for himself in mathematics. Larry Richardson is a large tabby cat owned by the grandmother of Reese Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University. Larry has landed himself in hot water a few times over the last year-plus.<\/p>\n First, in mid-2024, Larry became an unwitting participant in a project designed to unearth scientific fraud: specifically, how a rich underground industry was fueling dubious academic profiles. It all started when fluid dynamics researcher and occasional fraud investigator Nick Wise showed Richardson (the human) an ad he\u2019d come across from a paper mill. Pay the mill $300, and it would generate a bunch of nonsensical papers with citations to your\u2014presumably\u2014real work and upload those papers to ResearchGate. Then, you\u2019d wait for Google Scholar to index the citations and boost your profile.<\/p>\n Simple enough, Richardson and Wise decided. They decided to replicate the experiment, with an added step for pure whimsy: they would create an author profile for a real cat and generate papers in his name, with the goal of engineering the world\u2019s most-cited cat, a record previously held by Chester, physicist Jack H. Hetherington\u2019s beloved Siamese<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe took inventory of all the cats in our lives, and we realized that the cat with the most academic-sounding name was my grandma\u2019s cat, Larry Richardson,\u201d Richardson tells Newscripts. It took only about 2 weeks for Larry to beat out his predecessor, with 144 citations on Google Scholar.<\/p>\n The ensuing media coverage<\/a> led Google Scholar to take down the account, and Larry lay low for a while. But his name popped up again earlier this summer. Richardson created a profile under Larry\u2019s name and likeness on the website ScienceGuardians, which describes itself as \u201cthe first fully verified journal club\u201d and an alternative to PubPeer, another site where scientists comment on papers<\/a>. Larry did need an email address ending in .edu, but Richardson was able to set that up through Northwestern without issue.<\/p>\n Richardson says Larry\u2019s ScienceGuardians account was approved in 2 h. He logged in as Larry and commented on a few articles about mice. After a couple of anticlimactic days, Richardson posted about it on Bluesky<\/a>. The people behind ScienceGuardians were not happy<\/a>, but Larry is nonplussed.<\/p>\n \u201cLarry\u2019s fantastic. He\u2019s living the same life that he always has,\u201d Richardson says. \u201cEvery time I come over, my grandma\u2019s like, \u2018The professor is waiting to see you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\n A tabby cat stretches his front paw over a partially completed jigsaw puzzle on a table.<\/p>\n
\n Reese Richardson<\/p>\n