I can haz cheezeburqa?

According to a new study that traced the roots of the common domestic housecat (Yes yes I know, there's nothing "common" about your housecat), the Mother Of All Housecats originated in the middle east:

"The roots of the domesticated cat's family tree all converge in the Middle East, with many surprising ancestral twists and turns along the way, reveals a new genetic study on house kitties that included purebreds, mutts and even feral felines.

The study, one of the most extensive of its kind, used 39 genetic identity markers identified in 11,100 cats. Like branches on a person's family tree, these were used to determine the heritage of today's cats." [...]

"This work does support that significant genetic variation is found in cats from the Near East and Turkey, supporting the Fertile Crescent (as the housecats' site of origin)," co-author Leslie Lyons told Discovery News."

Cue the howls of wingnut outrage about the Feline Fifth Column.

Some Wednesday Weird

With friends like these...

"Detective Travis Rapp knew something was clearly wrong when he looked out the window of the restaurant where he was having lunch. Two men were wheeling their friend down a Manhattan street in a red office chair, and a crowd of suspicious onlookers began to congregate around the lifeless figure." [...]

"As it turns out, his instincts were right. The man was dead, and two of his friends had hauled his corpse to a store to cash his $355 Social Security check, police said. They were arrested before they could get the money." [...]

"The trouble began Tuesday when Dalaia and O'Hare tried to cash Virgilio Cintron's check at a store in Hell's Kitchen on their own, police said. The man at the counter told them that Cintron had to be present to cash the check, so they went back to his apartment, which one of the suspects shared with the dead man.

Cintron was apparently undressed when he died, sometime within the previous 24 hours. Police said Dalaia and O'Hare proceeded to dress him in a faded T-shirt, pants they could only get up part way, and a pair of Velcro sneakers. They threw a coat over his waist to conceal what the pants couldn't cover, police said."

Watch for this story to be adapted into the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel, "Dead Man's Cheque". (Yeah I know, groan.)